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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 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”?
June 2017 Income
- AdThrive: $2,250.23
- Sponsored Content: $0
- Sponsored video: $0
- Sponsored blog posts: $0
- Youtube: $383.70
- Amazon Associates: $9.81
- Bluehost: $910
- Beautiful Dawn Designs Affiliate: $40.50
- Etsy Pattern Sales: $356.51
- MadMimi: $42
- Adobe Creative Cloud: $9.99
- Etsy Seller Fees: $52.87
- 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!
June 2017 Traffic
Some screenshots from google analytics:
Pageviews for the month of May:Top ten traffic sources:
- AdThrive is still amazing.
- My RPM (Rate per 1000 pageviews) has moved up to OVER $12!!! This is the highest I’ve ever seen, so even with less than stellar traffic – I’m still making a decent income.
- The AdThrive video player is continuing to make more and more money. I am in the process of uploading more videos to this awesome income stream, but until then I only have about 5 videos uploaded to the AdThrive video player (just because it’s a longer process to upload here and integrate on my page instead of copy/pasting the youtube code). These videos are really only in the sidebar of the main blog page and have required NO extra effort on my part, and this month it earned enough to pay for a trunk full of groceries? WIN!
- I’ve worked on YouTube videos even more this month and it’s helping my channel to continue growing. I uploaded several new videos this month & I’m starting to restructure things to devote more time to YouTube.
- More videos to come – make sure you’re subscribed to my channel!
- I’ve earned a few more dollars here than in previous months, but YouTube is not a world of quick gratification (maybe it is if you go viral). For my niche and my videos, its a slow and steady climb to great income. I’m still at the bottom of that hill, but with time and consistent watering – this plant is sure to grow.
- My subscriber count is really starting to grow too, I just broke 32,000! With YouTube, there is a “snowball effect.” What that means is that there is slow and steady growth for a while, but as you start to pick up steam (as far as subscriber counts) that number only grows more rapidly as it gets larger. Imagine a small snowball rolling down a hill – every time it gets slightly bigger, it rolls faster and thus get’s even bigger. Make sense?
- I’m having a lot of fun shooting videos and trying to upload 2-3 times per week is forcing me to remain consistent with blog posting as well (because I always link up a blog post to my videos — this means DOUBLE MONEY due to ads on my site and youtube).
- Sponsored content was not really great this month. This is one of those areas that’s always changing and will never be predictable income. So even though I’m super motivated to work with sponsors, this is the time of year that it’s really not in their budget to hand out sponsorships all day long.
- I’ve got some new relationships with brands blooming, even though during this time of the year my niche is slow so brands aren’t spending lots of cash on sponsoring bloggers. Rather, they are sending lots of free product. So the money I’m saving on supplies is in the neighborhood of HUNDREDS per month. Not a bad gig, y’all!
- (These notes from last month are even more true –) Those page view counts are less than stellar, considering the counts I’ve had over last winter. I took a big dip in a less than ideal direction but I attribute this to a few things:
- June, and the couple of months following are the slowest of the entire year. So I’m hanging in there! The pageview counts this month made me cringe a little bit, but that’s to be expected this time of the year. I’m still plugging along creating content, and all of this hard work will pay off come fall/winter!
- We are moving through Q2 – which automatically means a big dip is coming. Companies I usually work with are pulling back on advertising expenditures and this is the part of the year when everyone is stingy with their pennies. The populous is spending less frivolously and creative industries are seen more as a luxury than a necessity.
- With getting my new spinoff business (Happy Yarn Mail) up and running, my blog has gotten less attention than it usually would. I’m trying to pay as much attention to my blog as possible, but I’m not posting as much as I was before starting up HYM. It’s all good though, because there are entire weeks of the month I don’t touch or think about my blog but guess what? IT’S STILL EARNING MONEY.
- All of these things combined resulted in less traffic and less moo-lah. I’ve still got enough to pay the bills, though so I’m a happy camper!
- 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 money 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!
- Expenses were low 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.
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!
Shady Creek Lane says
A huge congratulations! This is wonderful and I’m so happy for you. And thank you for sharing this with us, as it IS encouraging and inspiring.
Janelle
Jewels says
Amazing! Sounds like the best kind of work–fun work!
You asked what I’d like to see from the blog and I have to say, the length of the mystery CAL hooked me into tackling a CAL. They always seemed so huge that I would shy away before. I wouldn’t mind doing another some time!
Tricia Marie says
How do you approach businesses to sponsor you?
Caitie says
Thank you so much for sharing this info! Really encouraging. I’d love to know a bit more about the kit you use to photograph all your work? How you set up a tri-pod (particularly for flat lays or videoing your hands at work **hint hint, new blog post please!) etc. Do you tend to photograph and edit everything on the fly? Or do you do a bit more planning?
I’m new(ish) to blogging in the crochet space – I’m a mom to a busy toddler and I blog in my ‘spare’ [what is that?!] time. I really have found your blog so helpful and encouraging with my journey!