Hey guys! Did you miss me? Sorry to all of those who are here for a crafting project. Today’s post is strictly business. But it can help you to DIY a blog – if that’s something you’re looking into.
As I promised when I posted my first revenue report back in January, I want to keep you all candidly updated on how my blogging venture is going – the good, the bad, and the ugly. All of it.
I have to admit, these posts are the hardest for me to write. They leave me completely vulnerable to you as my audience. I candidly told you about my decision to leave my lucrative sales job to focus more on my passion – DIY. I knew it would be a long journey to accomplish writing a successful blog. And by successful, I mean one that brings in some sort of revenue.
What I didn’t realize, is that by writing these posts, I would feel inclined to accomplish my goal quicker. And often, I feel that by reporting a loss, I am failing all those who have faith in my new venture. For both December 2014 and January 2015, I reported net losses.
And I’m here to tell you that February 2015 is no different. Again, I lost money. $435.18 to be exact. But below I’d like to explain how I’m slowly growing traffic to my blog, where my money is going, and what my plans on for future growth.
Laying this foundation is hard work, so I hope you’re in this with me for the long haul! Stay patient, I’ll be profitable. I just can’t tell you when.
February 2015 Blog Traffic
February was my third full month up and running and it was my best month yet! So I’m headed in the right direction – first positive step.
In total, I saw 1465 unique visits to my site. That’s a 238% increase over January’s 614 unique visitors. It may not look like it innitially in the graphs above. But take a closer look. In January, my visitors barely ever reached 100 per day. While in February, the large spike is at 500 visitors, while the other peaks are well over 100. MUCH higher visits, and with consistent frequency. I attribute this growth to a couple things.
First, interesting content. To kick off February, I wrote about my decision to quit my job and focus on my crafting and blogging. Apparently, this is a topic that can stretch across MANY social circles, and not just the DIY audience. It drove over 500 people to my site in one day, and is my #1 performing blog post to date.
Although it has virtually no cross product links I can profit from, it’s a great insight into the woman behind the blog. As are these monthly revenue reports. And if people are interested in me, and what I have to say, they may poke around at other posts of mine. Hey, it’s bringing traffic to my site, so I’ll continue to write. I’ll figure out how to monetize the traffic sooner or later.
Second, is building upon previous content I’ve posted. The more I post, the more subjects are open for people to search for and land on. Thus, the more traffic I get to my site. Pretty simple math.
Popular Posts
There are posts that seem to do much better than others. Most notably my DIY Vinyasa scarf – a tutorial to make your own Lululemon knockoff. It was posted in January, yet brought 243 people to my site in February. People really like luxury for less, and they’re actively searching for it.
It’s my goal to try to make all my posts do this well residually. Although that’s probably never going to happen, I’m trying to focus my energies on posts like this one that help to drive traffic long after they’re posted. Some will be winners, and some not. But the only way I can hone in on the “good” ones, is to keep writing and refine my subject matter as I go.
In addition to good content, I am continuing my practice of “boosting” each blog post that goes live on Facebook. And although both my organic and direct traffic grew in February over January, the majority of my traffic still comes from social media (mostly Facebook).
Where My Money is Going
As I mentioned above, I am boosting each post on my Facebook site. Each time I do, it’s for 24 hours, and a max of $5 per post. In total for February, I spent $40.73. Why the $0.73? Funny enough, Facebook has this rule that your featured image cannot be more than 20% text.
Well, when I tried to promote my post about me quitting my job, Facebook let me promote it for a whole $0.73 before they rejected my boost (because my featured picture was mostly inspirational text). However, it was shared so many times by so many people, it didn’t even matter. It reached over 8k Facebook users WITHOUT a boost. Thus showing the power of good, interesting content.
Also, I have crafting costs. I decided in February to invest in an embroidery machine that would enable me to do so many more upscale crafts. It will hopefully enable me to make more revenue in my Etsy shop in the long run, but is a $225 hole in my pocket now.
In addition to the embroidery hardware, I spent $116.85 on Fabric and accessories at Jo-Ann’s, $23.71 on crafting supplies at Michaels, and $75.61 on miscellaneous supplies on Amazon. As I am looking through my January expenditures, the crafting expenditures look extremely similar. Therefore, I can conclude that I’ll be spending approximately $200-250 every month on supplies (give or take).
Hey, at least it helps me plan for the future and approximate what I need to make to break even on this venture. I assume as I move forward, I’ll be able to better assess what people like to read about, what they don’t, and what is worth spending my money on. As I continue to better refine this, I expect my costs to decrease. But not anytime soon.
Lastly, packaging. I’m selling items on Etsy, so I needed to make sure I had boxes and packing supplies to send them out in. In February, I spent $31.89 on packaging supplies – which I consider a sort of 1 time cost. I bought in bulk, so I don’t expect to buy these again until I start selling items from my Etsy shop! Fortunately I’m baking the cost of the packing into each item, so when I need more, they’ll be paying for themselves.
Where Money Is Coming In From (or NOT Coming From)
February was a particularly bad month for revenue. I’d like to blame it on the fact that it’s a short month, but really, I have no clue why.
Well, I invested so much in crafts and ready-to-ship product for my Etsy shop – but I didn’t sell a thing. NOT ONE THING! I had multiple inquires about my products, but not one person pull the trigger. Whereas in January, I sold $168.60 worth of product.
Why? I have no idea. I did not promote any of my listings on Etsy, and relied solely on searches. But that was the same in both January and February. Weird, right? So in March, I plan to experiment with Etsy boosts to see if they have any effect on bringing buyers to my shop. I’ll report back to let you know how that goes.
But I’m also hoping that as my blog traffic grows, more people will discover my shop, which will in turn bring more buyers my way. We will see!
As for my #1 affiliate Amazon, again, I failed in February. Whereas in January I made $16.23 from Amazon affiliate links, in February I only made $2.21. I’m gaining traffic, yet my links aren’t converting. This is a problem I desperately need to figure out. And it’s at the top of my list for the coming months.
Additionally, I made absolutely NOTHING from my other affiliates over at CJ.com (if you’re looking to see what this is or how I’m making money, check out my December revenue report. It explains everything).
Granted, I spent absolutely NO time in February refining the ads on my site. As I mentioned in January, I began to run “set and forget” banner ads on the sidebar of my site. Well boy did I forget them. I didn’t do one thing to refine or tweak them to help their performance and hopefully, click through conversions. But that is on me. I’ll explain below why this is, and what I hope to do to change it.
However, I was in fact saved by the bell. Word of mouth has definitely spread amongst my friends and family, and I was contacted by 2 separate people to create custom crafts for them. One friend needed custom banners and thank you tags for a baby shower she was throwing, and another wanted soft, custom pillows for her two daughters.
I made these outside of Etsy, so was not charged any transaction or listing fees (which enabled me to keep costs down for them). Altogether, I made $83 from these custom requests, which help saved Miss Bizi Bee from reporting a total goose egg income for February.
February 2015 Revenue Numbers – Can You Make Money Blogging?
Now, to put it all together for you, here’s how Miss Bizi Bee fared last month:
Did I make money from blogging this month? NO! Not stellar, I know. But read below as to what my current struggles are, and how I’m trying to deal with them on the daily. The struggle is real, people! 😉
Current Struggles and Plans For Future Monetization
As I mentioned previously, there are many issues which need to be addressed. Highest on my list are: how to create more content people are interested in, how to increase link and ad conversions through my affiliates, and how to bring more buyers to my Etsy shop.
Unfortunately, the brutal truth is… I don’t have time! I find myself now struggling to get posts done on the 2 days a week I’ve set aside to blog (4 if you include the weekends- but it’s still not enough). In case you didn’t catch what I’ve said before, I’ve chosen to nanny 3 full days a week (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) to pay the bills.
And I’ve chosen a blog topic that I am in completely love with, but that takes a lot of manpower. Each craft is extremely labor intensive, and when you add in the pictures and the picture editing, can take forever. Between creating my content, writing the posts, and editing my pictures, I’ve left no time to foster the blog growth. Even working through the weekends, I’m struggling to get everything done that I would like to.
This is a HUGE struggle for me as I try to create something great. The plan I have to overcome this time challenge is to focus solely on content for the next couple months. I’m hoping to create enough for the blog that I’m running at least 4 months in advance. Once I have a buffer of posts that are ready to go, I plan to delve head first into my issues – reading what others are doing, and taking advice from those who do it best.
But I also know that if I don’t give myself at least 6 months of data to see what works and what doesn’t, I’ll be working on tweaking a machine that hasn’t yet been defined. I want my content to be refined and polished, and then run full speed ahead with fixing my monetary issues.
But everyday I keep reminding myself what I said when I started this blog. If I’m doing something I love, and I work hard at it, the money will come – eventually. Can you make money blogging? Absolutely! Just take a look at the blog income roundup that blogger Matthew Woodward puts together every month. It’s pretty inspiring, but makes me feel so lame at the same time (for ending up in the hole). But I just need to stay patient and diligent. And that’s exactly what I’m doing.
Until next month, business bloggers. Now back to crafting…
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