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Hey there everyone!
As some of you may know I started this little bloggy right at the beginning of last year (2016) with yarn in hand, creativity abounding, and no expectations.
It’s been exactly 1 year since then and BOY have things changed.
Below is a breakdown of my current traffic and income here on the blog, and some factors that led me here.
Now, you may be asking yourself “Why on EARTH would she put her income and numbers out there for all the world to see? Isn’t that part of the secret sauce?”
Nope! I started this blog a short while ago and have found great success (considering how long I’ve been working on it).
I want to encourage others to blog too!
Actually I put together my 3 Easy Steps to starting your own DIY blog HERE!
In the crochet niche of the internet, I’ve found one thing to be true – lots of people crochet, but not very many are publishing new patterns and putting out content.
There is a very small group of crochet bloggers out there (spend any time on Pinterest and you’ll quickly name several) dominating the market.
And this job is not hard to do!
Let me repeat that. THIS JOB IS NOT HARD TO DO.
It took me about half an hour to set up my blog initially and although I’ve made many adjustments along the way, my blog has been earning me good money with a really basic setup.
Now what do I mean by “good money”?
December 2016 Income
- Mediavine: $2,918.52
- Sponsored Content: $2,750
- Sponsored video: $1,750
- Sponsored blog posts: $1,000
- Youtube: $247.36
- Amazon Associates: $28.53
- Bluehost Affiliate: $1,170
- Beautiful Dawn Designs Affiliate: $70.50
- Etsy Pattern Sales: $536.78
- MadMimi: $42
- Adobe Creative Cloud: $9.99
- Etsy Seller Fees: $61.89
- Supplies for blog posts: $80
*Keep in mind that not all of this money is mine forever. I am the sole proprietor of my business and will pay taxes, am responsible for my own health insurance, and other expenses that a traditional job would supply. That’s still a lot of dough for playing with yarn though!
December 2016 Traffic
Some screenshots from google analytics:
Pageviews for the month of December:
Top ten traffic sources:
- My second full month with Mediavine and my earnings there continue to get better and better – yay! My RPM (rate per mille, what you get paid for ever 1000 pageviews, roughly) has continued to rise and that makes me happy happy happy – because it means I put in the same amount of work gaining similar traffic to November, but make more moolah. Yes!
- Woah! My Youtube income almost doubled this month! I’ve never seen earnings that great from Youtube – more videos are DEFINITELY on my to do list for the new year.
- This is really an area I want to expand on and get better at. Videos are, however, more labor intensive for me than a design and a blog post. It’s more difficult logistically finding quiet time to record with a 7 month old in the house – but I’ll find a way!
- Sponsored content was really great this month (Super grateful to them, thanks guys!). But not as bananas as November. Let’s look at this more closely:
- A good portion of the sponsored blog post income in November came from one big project that ended in that month. Really I was working for this money for over 3 months. It’s just that the actual payment was issued in November, so a BIG check came during that month when really I was earning that money over the course of several months. So I expected December earnings to be lower than November, because of this misleading spike.
- Sponsored video was still kicked into high gear for the better part of December. Being the busy holiday season, there has been more of this work available to me lately – but it won’t stick around forever. I expect to move forward making a fraction of this money on sponsored video, but that’s fine with me – more time to spend on my own youtube channel which will actually make me more long term money. Here’s how: If I make sponsored content for another website that is not my own property (as I have been) I get paid a few hundred dollars, then that video is gone and cannot earn any more money for me, case closed. Amen. BUT if I spend the same amount of time making a video for MY youtube channel, it will live on youtube until the end of time and continue to gain more and more page views – making me more and more money as time goes on. So really, my time is better spend creating content for my own use. But that content takes time to start earning me money. So a mix of the two content creation styles works for me.
- The holidays are HUGE for bloggers (or so I’ve read, remember – this is still my first year blogging!). Quarter 4 is the quarter when big companies spend the most money on advertising. So I’ve had some more opportunities for sponsorships and collaborations this month. I expect for my Mediavine money and my other sponsorship streams to dry up on some level over the next few months.
- The holiday season has brought me more traffic. At least, I’m pinning the increase in traffic on the business of the season. I hear that bloggers see a big spike in traffic during the last couple of months during the calendar year (particularly craft and DIY blogs) and then it tapers off after the turn of the calendar. We’ll see if that’s true! This is my first December as a blogger so I have nothing to compare to. Hopefully the traffic is here to stay and is just a reflection of my organic growth, but I also understand that this behavior could be due to Christmas.
- My page view counts were very close to last month, but I have taken more days off and published far fewer projects as I spent time with family and prepared for my own holiday. Know what that means? It means that I can host a holiday cookie party with my friends and family and not sweat about taking a night off from my blog! Or two nights! Because the traffic will be there in the morning. Oh, what a good feeling. (Don’t take this to mean I’m going to suddenly kick off my shoes and eat bon bons watching the money roll in, certainly not. But I can enjoy a little time away from my blog here and there without worrying about paying my bills.)
- Expenses were low this month, without spending any money on reinvestment in my blog, and a lot of my supplies being donated or sent for free via sponsorship collabs. I bought some craft store supplies like props for my Heirloom Stockings post and the CHEAPEST lighting solution you ever did see for photos and video (I spent around $15 for new studio lights and they are amazing!)
What do you want to see from my blog in 2017? I have so many ideas up my sleeve, it’s hard not to start them all at once! Leave me a suggestion in the comments below.
If you want to quit that dead-end job and make amazing money blogging at home, check out my
FREE START A BLOG GUIDE!
Thanks again for giving us the ‘secrets’ of this trade. I’d like to know how to build an email list.
Hi, just wondering which patterns you choose to sell (on Etsy) and which ones you do free on your site? Or are they the same ones but you pay on Etsy or they are free on your site?
I love your blog. Signing up tonight through your link and giving it a go for myself!
Thanks xx
Thanks Emma! The way I do it is all my patterns are free on my blog. The listings on Etsy are pdf versions of those same free patterns that are printable, ad-free, and large text for anyone who would like it.
Well done Ashleigh
Hi Ashleigh, How many hours a week do you spend working on your blog and creating your designs.
Hi Diane! I get this question a lot and don’t really have a straight answer – it always changes (because I want it to!). Somewhere between 15 and 35 hours per week, I would say. I never spend more than four or five hours working in one day. My seven month old won’t allow it. Ha!
Thanks again for the info you dish out. You’re really going into detail.
I’m interested knowing how to build a mailing list.
Nice information. Thanks for sharing.
I would love to know more about your sponsored posts. Where do you find your sponsors?
I want to start a blog, but seems like sponsored posts are are big part of your income and I just don’t know how to go about them. Thanks in advance!
Sponsored posts are something that come along after you really get going blogging. It took me several months of full-time blogging before I ever got approached by a brand. You have to build up a bit of a following before you really appeal to brands so much that they want to spend money sponsoring your blog. You can apply for sponsored blog post jobs through sites like Linquia and Social Fabric, and many bloggers start out that way. Once your blog builds up some you may be approached (or can approach) bigger brands. Hope this helps!
Hello there, I have had a blog going for a good three years now. I don’t have any advertising on my blog as I find trying to install too difficult. My main question is: I get constantly reminded by google to pay for my domain name by a certain date or I will lose it…..just wondering if this could be spam as I already pay a web host once a year for this. Thanks in advance. Also if I wanted to change it all over to WordPress that would be extremely difficult, yes?
I like the colors of your blog and am interested in trying some of your patterns. I am pretty new to pintrest and how it works. I hope you continue to do well.
Firstly Ashleigh I want to thank for putting all this information out there, it has certainly made me think of what I may be doing wrong. I have 2 crochet websites and a blog, you seem to be earning as much from AdSense with one site as I have yet to reach from my two sites. My blog was only created in October 2016 so traffic is still being built and I am taking baby steps and learning as I go. Blogging is very different to running a static website.
I will keep watching and picking up tips from you and I hope over the coming months I will be able to reach the same levels as you have done, hope this is ok.
Hi Heather! Thanks for your kind words. It definitely took a lot of work and patience to see the results that I have, and blogging really is a lot more work than most people think! Certainly more than I thought when I started this whole thing, but I wouldn’t have it any other way! Keep at it, and I hope to see great things from your blog 🙂
Thank you, my work ethic is good so I will stick at it, I having been working on my websites since 2006 and have never reached your levels, so I’m kinda excited that at last it could be possible to succeed. Good luck to you also to do even better in 2017!
Thanks Heather! I wish you all the success in the world!
Hi, I really appreciate all the information. I would like to start my crochet blog but my first language is not english, so i am not really confident about making my blog in english but i would like. I have a question, about patterns and diagrams. If i want to desing and sell what is more profitable sell patterns, diagrams or both in the same file?
Offering more information in one file (both diagrams and written patterns) will be your best bet, as its a more thorough pattern and will sell better. Good luck with your business!
Thank you so much for your reply. 🙂