December 2017 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 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”?

December 2017 Income

• AdThrive: $10,061
• Sponsored Content: $1,100
  • Sponsored video: $0
  • Sponsored blog posts: $1,100
• Youtube: $990.82
• Amazon Associates: $27.50
• Bluehost: $300
• Beautiful Dawn Designs Affiliate: $30.00
• Etsy Pattern Sales: $835.33

EARNINGS TOTAL = $13,344.65

• MadMimi: $42
• Adobe Creative Cloud: $9.99
• Etsy Seller Fees: $99.82
• 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!

December 2017 Traffic

Some screenshots from google analytics:

• AdThrive is still amazing.
  • My RPM (Rate per 1000 pageviews) has been higher than I’ve ever seen it this month. So I did a ton of pageviews (more on that below) compared to my usual and it really made an impact with the higher RPM. Right around Christmas it dropped because nobody was online but that’s the only time I saw it dip down, yay!
  • The AdThrive video player is continuing to make more money, which is awesome! I’m excited to see how this continues to grow when I add more and more videos to the player. Thanks for watching my videos, guys!
• This month I did not upload a SINGLE VIDEO to youtube – yikes! The holidays just got away from me and I struggled to keep up, but that’s okay because the Youtube earnings were still in the $1k range with no effort. Residual income is my favorite!
  • More videos to come – make sure you’re subscribed to my channel!
  • Even having skipped uploading videos, the earnings stayed consistent because my most recent video (this one) is doing really well! Rarely do my videos do that well that quickly so I’m stoked about that.
  • My subscriber count grew from about 50k to 65k – again with no effort. I’ve been waiting for two years to hit a good stride with Youtube where it grows organically on its own. Just imagine if I’d been posting videos all month!
  • I’ve got solid plans in place for creating more consistent video content for you guys this year, and I’ve already got some progress made on those goals! So I can’t wait to see where the earnings and subscriber count go with more video tutorials (heyyyy visual learners, I’m coming for ya!)
    • I know I’ve said “more videos soon!” for about a year now but I’m serious this time! Ha!
• Sponsored content was decent this month! This is one of those areas that’s always changing and will never be predictable income. This is the time of year when sponsors are spending more money on campaigns for the holidays, especially in my niche.
  • It’s taken a while to figure out what my “thing” is. Some designers have a very well defined style or area of crochet & knitting that they excel at. I never really felt that way and floundered for the first 18 months of blogging. No doubt I had some successful patterns and did well overall, but I didn’t narrow in on what I was passionate about or where I thrived until I started making garments about six months ago. Ever since I made my Lana Kimono last summer, you’ll notice almost all of my original patterns here on the blog have been some sort of sweater. I’ve had so much fun learning and growing in this area and it’s proved a more trusting and confident relationship with my sponsors!
    • I’m still dialing in my overall style and aesthetic, but I think you’ll see these areas really shine in 2018. I have some fun plans for showing more of my personality and style here on my blog through my garment and accessory design, yay!
• Pageviews are growing like a weed!!!
  • See above that pageview number?! Holy smokes!
  • I’ve done quite a few roundups in December to help take advantage of that high RPM we talked about. Roundups are a wonderful, less labor-intensive way of providing your blog with content while sharing some awesome patterns your readers may not have seen before! Plus it mostly means you’re scrolling on Pinterest for a while saying “ooh, ahh!” and that’s always something I want to be doing anyway. They’ve definitely contributed to my higher pageview count but they’re not the whole reason that pageview number is so high…
  • Google has FINALLY started listing more and more of my blog posts and patterns in their search engine, hallelujah! You may remember from October and November’s income reports (here and here) that my website was unlisted on Google for about 20 months. That’s 20 months of content that I got no referrals from Google! That’s a big problem!
    • Things are finally starting to turn a corner in this area and I’m so happy for it. I’ve still got lots of back end, boring data entry style stuff to do on all my old blog posts to optimize them for Google but all in all, we are headed in a good direction. Better late than never!
  • I’m still not producing content at the speed of lighting like I was last year, but I’ve got a few guest posters coming on the team to help bring you more free patterns & that’s bringing me a little boost in traffic while letting them start growing their blogs! Win/win for everyone!
• 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!