This post may contain affiliate links. See my full disclosure here for more info…however it is totally boring!
Hello everyone, welcome to my second blog report. Here’s where my test of all my research on money making blogs is put to the test. This is my first month where I started Google Adsense. Next month (June) I’m hoping to add Amazon Affiliates to the list, but for now I’m just working on gaining more traffic and ads. I also started posting regularly and added a ton of patterns to my shop (Approx. 45 new Patterns). I can’t wait to see the numbers!
As a learning blogger, I find these blog reports extremely helpful and inspiring. I like them because they keep me, the blogger, honest and keeps me accountable for my progress, or lack there-of… But let’s not focus on the negative, I’m shooting for the stars! I hope my journey into making a money making craft blog is helpful or just inspirational for you too.
Here we are at the beginning of June and I can tell you right now that I believe May was a success. I made sales at my craft show and met a few people who get my emails like holey-cow awesome! I made a few pattern sales online, and made some passive income with Google Adsense. My website traffic is up and I’m feeling more motivated than before!
And, best news yet, my boyfriend Bret fully supports my plan to quit my day job as soon as I’m matching my income with my blog! I need to hurry up and make it happen! I can’t wait to blog and work on my craft business full time. That’s the dream.
Enough of that, let’s get onto the numbers to really see how well I’ve improved my blog in the last month!
Traffic and Income Report
Traffic/Page Views
Let’s take a look at April and Mays numbers together so we can see the change.
| April | May | |
| Blog Page Views | 383 | 573 |
| Blog Followers | 9 | 10 |
| Facebook Views | 18 | 25 |
| Newsletter Subscribers | 13 | 15 |
Not a huge change, but enough that I’m proud of myself. My may goal was 500 Blog page Views and I reached that goal so go me. I’d like to see my newsletter subscribers grow a little more, but for now, that’s ok.
I’m just excited to have increased every number on that board. If I can keep it up this month, I’ll be super proud of myself. They say, you have to do something 30 days in a row to make it a habit, so I have about 2 more weeks of blogging regularly to make it a habit. I’m pretty sure that won’t be hard. I’m already eating, sleeping, and dreaming about blogging 24/7.
Income
I’m excited to report I made some money this month! Go me! No where near my eventual, quit my day job, goal of $3000 a month, but hey you have to start somewhere.
As you know, I started Google Adsense this month. I’ve heard a lot of things about Google Adsense, both good and bad. But for a newish blog, with low traffic, I gave it a shot and was accepted. And I’ve made a whopping $2.18! Go me!
I can’t tell you how exciting that $2.18 is. I can’t believe I’m making money by just going to work, weaving or even sleeping. It’s crazy to think how easy it is, and the best part is, it’s at no cost to my visitors! So I’m definitely going to keep Google Adsense and maybe one day, when my traffic is awesome, I’ll move to a better paying ad service. Until then, go me!
I’ve added approximately 45 new patterns to my shop this month and it paid off. I managed to sell $20 in online patterns vs last month where I sold $0.
This has inspired me so much that I’m planning to keep making patterns and posting them regularly. I noticed every time I posted a new pattern I’d have a spike in traffic. Is there any particular loom you want to see a pattern on? I’d like to hear your thoughts!
I vended this month at the Fingerlakes Celtic Festival in Shortsville, NY and managed to sell more items than I thought I would. After my vending fee and taxes, I made around $360. Not bad for a one day show on a warm day. I’m looking forward to my fall shows when everyone is getting ready for winter weather and flocks to wool/alpaca items.
Here’s my income breakdown:
Google Adsense: $2.18
Online Pattern Sales: $20
May Events: $360
Blog Income Total: $22.18
May All together Total: $382.18
*Not bad for my first month. Now to double everything this month! Wish me luck.
Expenses
As always, I try to keep my expenses to a minimum. To keep this simple I’m going to exclude all my yarn/material purchases. I want to keep this as close to the blog/online as I can so I’ll worry about my physical supply costs elsewhere. If you’re curious about that aspect of my business, please send me a message and we can talk.
This month I ran out of my free tailwind pins. I thought about it for awhile and I’ve been watching my stats on my blog and noticed about 1/2 of my traffic is coming from pinterest and the other half from facebook while a small percentage is coming from organic searches in google. This made my decision to pay for tailwind for the year ($119.88). I’ll give it a year and see if it helps me grow traffic. I think it will, but we will see.
I also signed up for another show this month ($205). Fingerlakes Celtic Festival proved to me that I can sell wool shawls in warm weather. Who knew air conditioned offices make my shawls sellable? So, I signed up for the Keuka Arts Festival June 8-9. I’m hoping I can make more sales than I did at Celtic. I’m also working on summery shawls that are lighter, almost lace like. I’m hoping those will do well too. Again we will see what happens next week.
Expense Breakdown:
Tailwind Subscription: $119.88
Vending Fees: $205
Total Expenses: $324.88
Total Profit: $57.30
After taking all my expenses out for the month, I still made $57.30. I’m proud of myself. If I can continue to keep my expenses down and continue to increase traffic to my blog, I’m feeling good about next months profits. Looking forward to seeing what next month brings!
June 2019 Goals
Gotta have goals to work towards, so here are my goals for June.
Publish 8 Blog Posts
I had this same goal last month and managed to publish 6 out of 8 blog posts. I was so stickin’ close! There is no room for excuses, but I will say I started late in the month and lost a day or two to being sick. I’m hopeful that means this month I’ll be able to catch up on blog posts and manage to publish 8 more posts.
Once again I’ve already planned my posts, just have to get together pictures, write it, and publish it. It’s only 2 posts a week, I think I can handle it. We are going to try again this month and see what happens. If I can’t make it happen, maybe I’ll drop this goal to 6 posts for July.
Reach 800 Page Views
Once again I am aiming low, but I feel this is an attainable goal for this type of blog at this stage. I’m going to keep posting posts, patterns, and adding to social media.
Post 5-10 Patterns
Speaking of patterns, I want to keep posting patterns. My goal is to post patterns as I create them on my looms. I’m hoping to work on patterns from Continuous Strand Weaving for Beginners: On the 5ft and 6ft Triangle Loom and posting them ASAP since I only have 2 triangle loom patterns currently. I’m hoping I can increase my triangle loom patterns and hopefully sales with them.
*Again, what kind of patterns would you like to see? Any particular loom? I’m open to requests!
Eventually, I’d like to create knitting patterns for both hand knitting and machine knitting. But for now, I’d like to focus on our looms. If you’d like to see knitted patterns from me, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
Affiliate Links
Next item on the money making blog list is affiliate links. I started in May, but didn’t really understand what I was doing. So I’m thinking I might find a class this month to sign up for and get to work figuring out affiliate links. I’m hoping I can make my first $1 from affiliate links before the end of June.
Stay Motivated
I know this sounds a little silly since I’m constantly thinking about what I can do to make my blog better. But I have had a few days where I’m just not motivated. That’s not good. I need to find a way to build up my motivation and keep going.
I’m on a weaving kick right now, so I’m thinking I can use that to my advantage and make some patterns to post whenever I’m in a slump. My day job has been getting a little better, now that I’m not focused on how much I hate it, and instead am focused on what will I do when I get home to improve my sales/income?
I have a plan, which is great, it’s just sticking to the plan that will be hard. I’m sure I can do it. Just got to keep weaving! 🙂
That’s everything for now. Can’t wait to see next months report!