How I made 5K in a month as a creative blogger
(& Boosted Etsy Orders)

Let me share a little bit about my background.

When I found I that I was pregnant with my first daughter, I was still going to a University and working part time at a local restaurant.

When I had my second baby, I was making $100-200 a month, by working as a freelancer graphic designer, juggling two kids at the same time.

Thanks to my husband, I could stay home with my kids and take care of them without working somewhere else. But the dilemma that I had as a stay home mom, the dilemma of not being able to work and contribute to the family financially, really made me think about what kind of options I have to earn money, as a stay-home mom.

I tried setting up and sell my designs on Etsy, but did’t work at all. I was lucky if I made 2 orders a day. Even if I sell few listings, I’d had to pay ridiculously expensive “handling” fees, leavening me with no profits.

I searched and searched the way out, day and night. After all, what could possibly hurt me, I really did’t have nothing to lose.

This is where blogging comes in. Ever since I started doing this website, I never looked back. Not only I absolutely LOVE doing this, but it is actually letting me contribute to my family financially.

MORE THAN what I expected.

Despite the fact I had lots of figuring out to do, and the fact that I really needed to COMMIT to this blogging business, my monthly earning changed from $100 to 5K per month over the first 4 months of blogging.

If I can do it, YOU can do it.

And good news to the CRAFTERS like yourself, you already have the advantages, believe me!

In this article, I will share all to you crafters out there- how I successfully made over 5K in a month, while juggling two kids, as a craft influencer!

This article may contain affiliate link. Please read more details from HERE

1. Say hello to Blogging

When I was not making money just by selling my work on Etsy, I immediately tried to do something new. So while my store is still open, I have decided to launch a website. My idea was to share my knowledge and skills as a graphic designer by providing freebies and articles about crafts and designing.

It was a perfect idea. I love arts & crafts, graphic designing was my passion.

Important thing is this:
KNOW that you already have special skills and knowledge you can share with the world as a crafter, and you will more likely to make money by sharing your skills and knowledge with other crafters in the world.

People are dying to know what you do and how you do it!

Like Francis Bacon once said,

“Knowledge is power”.

Let’s see the examples, shall we?

If you make digital graphics, your blog can be about that- share how to make graphics with software(s), craft inspirations with your graphic work, tips and hacks as a graphic designer and such.

If you sell knitted products, share the crochet / knitting patterns, how to start crocheting, introduce different types of yarn, explain basic terms and tools.

If you sell kids outfit, share how to make them, do giveaway promotions, share “easy-to-make” DIY sewing patterns with your readers.

Your experiences, passion about what you do and your extended knowledge as a skilled crafter is something you OWN and others don’t. Be smart and share these all elements with people who wish to know more- that’s your money making tools right there!  

 Growing number of bloggers over the several years is the proof, everyone is realizing where the money is now- on the Internet. It’t like we have two different worlds, a physical world that we live in and a virtual world we carry around in your pocket. Don’t underestimate the business opportunities in this virtual world- and the possibilities are endless.

In response to the demand, server hosting company such as BLUE HOST made setting up your own blog with your own domain name REALLY easy. Starting from $3.95, you can have your own blog with WordPress platform (The biggest blog editing platform) WITH your own domain. Few clicks and ta-da! You will be ready to start your journey as money making blogger.

You can read “Simple Steps on How To Start a Successful Blog” from HERE.  

Check to learn more about BLUE HOST from HERE.

2. Helping others with Freebies

One the website is all set up, it’s time show what you can do to the audience. This is your selling point, the reason why people come to your site.

I was using adobe illustrator since 16 years old, and I have been working as a freelance graphic designer, & was minoring graphic design as a university student. With these experiences, I  decided to do something with graphic- and had an idea to provide free SVG cut files to crafters.

The result? This blog generated over 400,000 page views and earned over $5K on its 5th month.

Freebies are your best friend- Do not underestimate the power of freebies.
As I mentioned in the previous section, you can write many different topics and share some of your knowledge with people. When you do, don’t hesitate to share them for FREE.

Especially in the beginning, freebies will help you to bring new readers and subscribers. Just think about what’s your specialities are, and you can easily come up with freebie ideas for your blog.

Important Note:
It’s best to make the freebies digitally downloadable. That way people engage with your website more and share more.

Freebies examples:
-Free planner printable
-Free sticker printable
-Free Crochet patterns
-Free Slime Recipes
-Free DIY craft step-by-step tutorials
-Free SVG cut files
-Free Seasonal Clipart ….etc

List goes on.
If you’d like to read more about the benefit of freebies, you can read it all about it HERE.

3. Find the Ways To Monetize Your Blog

This is the key element to earn money. Having displayed ads on your website let you earn passive income. Once you decided your blog theme and filled it up with rich contents and freebies, apply affiliate program such as Google AdSense, Amazon affiliate program, ShareASale,… etc.
For craft influencers like you, signing up with Creative Market and Crafty affiliate program will bring extra cash by introducing their products.

Remember that if there’s 100 blogs out there, each of them earn money differently. 

What is importing is to figure out (eventually, in a long run) the ways to earn income that best suit to you and your blog. In order to to that, researching and studying about blogging is essential. Keep learning, look for new and creative way to monetize your blog.

4. Be smart and Sell your “rights”

Displaying ads is my main source of income as of right now, but I recommend you to think outside of the box and be creative. DO NOT SORELY DEPENDS ON DISPLAY ADS. 

My other main source of income is by selling “commercial license” for the free SVG cut files that I provide on caluyadesign.com .
I do this via Etsy by bringing traffic from my website to my Etsy shop. I make roughly about 1 – 1.3K per month with this strategy.

When you start blogging and owning your business, first thing you want to think about is how to receive passive income- meaning, how to make money while you are sleeping, traveling, eating, playing,…. Around the clock, 7 days a week.

Selling “rights” is one of the great ways to achieve this effectively as a creative blogger.

Few examples of “selling rights” are

– extended license for your digital creation
– e-books
– audio books
– video tutorials

and so on.

Such distributable products will generate passive income. Simply put, 1 distributable product can be sold over and over again; year after year once you’ve created it. How amazing is that.

5. Focused marketing on Facebook & Pinterest.

Let’s face it, promoting your website and contents is the CORE of blogging. Without effective marketing, your blog will be hidden forever, even if you have such an amazing articles and freebies to share.

From my experience with caluyadesign.com , it is best to start and focus on 1-2 promoting platforms. And personally recommend you to start with Facebook and Pinterest. With these two platforms, it is easier to reach to your targeted audiences.

Facebook’s “Facebook Group” feature helps you to jump right into your targeted audience, and Pinterest’s search engine system will help your targeted audience to reach out to your contents.

If you want to just start with one platform to see how everything goes, I strongly recommend you to start with Pinterest.
Scheduling system such as TailWind Optimize your marketing  strategy. Most of my traffic comes from Pinterest, and without TailWind, I could not achieve such exposure.  (Learn how I increased my monthly viewers of Pinterest to 9M from only 200K from HERE)

Reason why is the fact the Pinterest is NOT A SOCIAL NETWORK, it’s actually a SERCH ENGINE. Your contents never get buried with other posts and contents like Facebook does. When your followers pins your content, then it’s fresh again. In addition, people with specific interest will be able to reach out to you easily- that’s the nature of search engine.

How I promoted my blog and reached 15K followers within 5 month on Facebook is HERE
How I promoted my blog on Pinterest and increased my daily viewers by 850% (257K to 3M) without many followers is HERE.

6. Wok on E-mail Lists.

I know I have been telling you to be creatie and find your own way to promote & run your businesss, but E-mail list is something YOU CAN’T IGNORE. Reason why, is because people still prefer to get notified by e-mail. It makes the relationship between blogger to readers personal.

Research shows that people still prefer to be reached out via E-mail- they can read it on their own time, delete it if they don’t want it, or save it later to re-read it. Unlike any other types promotions, e-mail goes straight to their e-mail box, gets their full attention. And guess what, the reason why she / he subscribed, is because they are actually interested in what you have to offer.

It is BETTER to have 100 people who want to listen to you, than 1000 people who has no interested in you.

E-mail also have higher reach-out rate and more than anything, you have a FREEDOM on what you deliver. No restriction like Facebook groups, Pinterest group board- with your e-mail list, everything is UP TO YOU.

If you have not have e-mail setup, you need to do it immediately.
Especially if you have your blog already running and getting some traffic- you are missing the opportunities day by day, to increase your mailing list.
You want the person to COME BACK to your website and remember your website.
With Convertikit, you can try and see how it’s like to have e-mail list for free for 14 days. You can try from HERE.

Well, that was a lot of reading, but you made it through- that tells me you are so ready to start your own blog.
You can start launch your blog with your own name from BLUE HOST, with your own domain.
Or you can read my “How to Start a Money Making Blog: Ultimate 13 Step Summary” from HERE.

With our free 7-days e-mail course, we will send you step-by-step guide for you to follow on how to start your money making business.
Take this intense 7-days course and you will be joining as a professional blogger!
Let’s get it started, and see how far you can push it!

YOU CAN DO THIS!

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