February 2018 Traffic & Income Report

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Hey there everyone!

As some of you may know I started this little bloggy right at the beginning of 2016 with yarn in hand, creativity abounding, and no expectations.

It’s been a while 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”?

February 2018 Income

• AdThrive: $5,430
• Sponsored Content: $1,100
• Youtube: $716.62
• Amazon Associates: $11.07
• Bluehost: $1,250
• Beautiful Dawn Designs Affiliate: $24
• Etsy Pattern Sales: $1,224.07

EARNINGS TOTAL = $9,755.76

• MadMimi: $42
• Adobe Creative Cloud: $9.99
• Etsy Seller Fees: $120.64
• Supplies for blog posts: $0

*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!

February 2018 Traffic

Some screenshots from google analytics:

• AdThrive is still amazing.
  • My RPM (rate per thousand pageviews) has been holding steady at a number I’m happy with, even though my pageviews have taken a hit.
  • From what I understand, the crochet blogging world sees this kind of downward turn together – meaning the industry as a whole all experience a general slope in pageviews when spring begins that lasts til summer.
  • I’m trying to think outside the box on how to combat this, but honestly it seems that no matter how much harder/faster we work, the readers just aren’t there in the warmer months. Which is really a shame because a lot of designers are putting out great content then!
• This month I uploaded only two videos to youtube, but it still earned me several hundred dollars and my subscriber count is now almost 80,000 Wahoo!
  • I’m usually not one for tracking follower numbers like this, but in the case of youtube, more subscribers mean more income (unlike Instagram for example where almost no traffic converts and more followers don’t mean more earnings)
  • Every month I tell myself that I’m going to create more videos, some with a shorter run time (my videos are always full tutorials that last over 30 minutes). Quick, easy videos that I can produce easily and will perform well. And every month it doesn’t happen because of my big, labor intensive projects. We’ll see if I can ever get ahead enough to bring some of these ideas to life!
  • More videos to come – make sure you’re subscribed to my channel!
• Sponsored content was decent this month! This is one of those areas that’s always changing and will never be predictable income.
  • You might have noticed my photography looking better lately – well, that’s no accident. I’ve finally started to really hunker down and decide to limit myself to the projects/looks/photography/editing style that I LIKE. It’s hard to commit to one style and one aesthetic when there are so many options. So when I decided to become more narrow, I decided to just do what feels good to me. I have this dream job where I get to create a perfect little home on the internet – so I asked myself what I wanted that to look like? In my perfect little world would I wear stretched out leggings with holes in them to model my new garment I spent 60 hours making? Hell no! Even though that’s something I *may* have done last year (oops).
  • Instead I pulled out the prettiest skirt in my closet and actually fixed my hair for once. And you know what? They’re my favorite photos on the blog to date – enter, Crochet Le Nuage Wrap!
  • Anyway, what I’m saying is there is a bit more refined look starting to happen here on the blog and I think it’s resulting in *more sponsored gigs*. When sponsors can look at your brand and know what they’re going to get, it makes them a whole lot more inclined to invest in you and your content.
• Do you see that Amazon Affiliates number? HAHA. Laughable.
  • Amazon will never be reliable income for me. I could work harder at it, but honestly my efforts are better spent elsewhere.
• Pageviews are dipping, le sigh.
  • See above that pageview number? It’s starting its downward turn and not gonna lie, it makes me sad.
  • The crochet blogging world is a weird one because in most niches like food blogging, mom blogging, or other areas – you put more work into the site and the pageviews continue to climb. In general, you see slight upward trends every month that you work hard at growing your blog.
  • Crochet blogging happens to be much more seasonally driven, though. Most of my readers are in the Northern Hemisphere and really only crochet and knit adamantly from September to February. I do have some readers who follow along all year round but there are definitely hundreds of thousands less during the spring/summer months.
  • This downward trend will continue to happen, no matter how many blog posts I publish or designs I release. You never know what will happen, but I can say I expect this to be the beginning of the end… until September.
• HAPPY YARN MAIL IS STILL AMAZING! (Click HERE if you haven’t heard of HYM!) We sold out again this month and that means that where my Sewrella productivity has dipped, HYM is making up for it.
  • I’m not including those numbers here because it’s really a separate business from my blogging business.
• Bluehost and Beautiful Dawn Designs have continued to do well – I’m so glad you guys are taking what I write to heart and starting those blogs!
• If you haven’t started your blog yet, need I say more?? Click here to get started! I’ve even got special pricing for you guys to start your blogs super cheap!
• Expenses weren’t high this month, without spending much money on reinvestment in my blog, and a lot of my supplies being donated or sent for free via sponsorship collabs, I didn’t invest anything this month, just focusing on getting through the hustle of the season with what I have!

If you want to quit that dead-end job and make amazing money blogging at home, check out my FREE START A BLOG GUIDE!

Earning a Living with my Handmade Home

If you love crocheting and knitting, you should think about starting a blog! I’ll help you get started to turn your hobby into a money-making career with my free “Start a Blog” guide.

Or you can check out my last income report to see how this blog earned over $10,000 last month!