Knitting For Profit

If you love knitting and have ever wished you could make money from it, then make sure you keep reading because I


Archive for July, 2009

Knitting For Profit Teleseminar Questions

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

I have been getting some great questions to answer on our first teleseminar!

Here’s a couple that will be great to cover…

$$ How do you start out knitting or crocheting for profit?

$$ How do you find a profitable knitting or crochet niche market?

$$ How do you find people who need contract knitters?

$$ Should I have a website?

$$ How do you advertise and get known without spending too much money?

$$ What is the first step towards getting your knitting designs published?

We’ll be chatting for an hour and cover as much as we can in that time – and it’s not too late to register! Go to www.knittingforprofit.com/teleseminar.html to register and be in the draw to win a free copy of the Knitting For Profit Book!

Looking forward to having you on the call!

 

 

 

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Free Knitting For Profit Teleseminar!

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

It’s been a while in the making, but the very first live Knitting For Profit Teleseminar is going to be on Thursday 23rd July (or Friday for Aussies and New Zealanders) – that’s only 2 days away (I like to put pressure on myself…!)

I’m going to be answering your questions about making money from Knitting and Crochet, as well as giving you the chance to win a copy of my new and updated book in paperback, which will be available soon.

So what is a teleseminar??

All you’ll need to do is call in to a number and you’ll be able to hear me live answering your questions. You will have the chance to ask a question if you would like to, or you can just listen in and learn from other people from around the world who are setting up and running knitting or crochet businesses.

I have set up a registration page where you can register for the call and enter your questions that you would like to have answered or discussed. And don’t worry – you don’t have to speak if you don’t want to! Just come along and listen in – I’d love for you to be there.

So make sure you register now because there are a limited number of lines on the call and everyone who is registered will be in the draw to win.

Just go to www.knittingforprofit.com/teleseminar.html

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Posted in Knitting Resources | 2 Comments »

Sell Your Knitting And Crochet Online – Without A Website!

Friday, July 17th, 2009

Did you know that you don’t have to have your own website to make a profit selling knitting and crochet online? In this post I’ll be revealing the top online craft sites for selling knitting and crochet, and what may surprise you – E-bay isn’t one of them…

But isn’t there heaps of opportunity on E-bay because it’s so huge? (you may ask), isn’t there heaps of traffic and don’t people pay more because it’s and auction? Well I wouldn’t list any knitting or crocheted items on there…ever.

Why not? Most people who are shopping on E-bay are after one of two things – something that is very rare or hard to find, or a BARGAIN. And most people who are shopping on E-bay do not put enough value on the time and effort that goes into making handcrafted items. It  breaks my heart to see such beautiful pieces being sold on there for so little money.

I would much rather see your products listed on quality craft and knitting sites where people appreciate their value and you aren’t paying outrageous listing fees.

So here is a list of quality craft sites with their advertising and selling fees. I have listed them in order of highest traffic first (according to Alexa at time of writing). Try them as a great way to sell your knitted products without having your own online knitting website, and safe in the knowledge that the people who come to these sites to buy are more likely to realise the true value of your skill and time.

www.etsy.com – Probably the most well known craft mall, with a wide range of high quality crafts and lots of traffic (ie customers!). Etsy lets you set up a "shop" with your own URL based on your username, for example, http://niceknits.etsy.com, and a customised banner, profile and shop policy. It’s easy and you dont have to be too web-savvy to set it all up. They also provide secure shopping and an artisans community where you can ask other sellers for advice or tips. Fee: Free to sign up, $0.20 to list each item for 4 months, plus 3.5% comission upon sale.

www.kinfolkcrafts.com – Great for country crafts, this site has a friendly country feel. Created in 2000 as a resource for crafters who want a web presence but don’t have time to maintain their own site. They offer customised service and will design a web page and even a unique logo for you. Fee: The Standard package includes one web page for 10 of your products and costs $75 for set up and design, then $10 per month for hosting, minimum 3 months hosting and no commission fees.  As you grow, there is an option to upgrade your site, and you have the ability to have your own unique URL, eg www.niceknits.com (no mention of kinfolk in the name)

www.handmadecatalog.com – A nicely presented site, designed for crafters to be able to sell online without maintaining their own website. They do national advertising in the US, and marketing to bring in targeted customers. There are there levels of membership, with the premium allowing you to have your own webpage address eg www.handmadecatalog.com/niceknits and list up to 1200 items. Fee: Basic is $4.95 per month, plus a 15% commission, Standard charges $7.95 per month, plus a 10% commission, and Professional is $12.95 per month with a 5% commission on top. Annual payment discounts are also available.

www.craftmall.com – Large online mall, wide range of categories Fee: Basic accounts range from $7.95-$47.95 per month for 15-500 products, Premium accounts range from $14.95-$54.95 a month for 25-650 products. Alexa Ranking (at time of writing): 816,209

www.artsefest.com – Another large online mall with a big range of categories Fee: between $14-$18 per month if you build a site through them, $8 monthly if you already have a website (long-term sign up discounts also available)

www.youcraftylot.com – This is a UK based site created by Hazel Allen, who aim is to create an online crafting community and become the biggest craft sales site in the UK! Fee: Free to join, 10 pence listing fee and no sales commissions!

www.handmadefusion.com – This is a relatively new site offering quality handmade items. Fee: $0.15 c perlisting for up to 4 months, 3% commission on sold items.

www.artisansmarket.com – This site was created by a group of artisans and small business owners that wanted to provide a network for artisans as well as better services and education for the public. It is a clean and well presented site. Fee: $10 a month plus 10% of sales. Annual payment discounts are also available.

Three Quick Tips:

1. When you chose a site, you should take into consideration how much it will cost to list or rent ‘space’, compared to how much traffic they actually get.

2. You should also make sure that the site is relevant for your products, for example, don’t list on a country-craft site if you are trying to sell high-fashion products to young city-dwellers.

3. You may need to test a few different sites to see where your products sell best.

My Knitting For Profit Book has more tips and advice for listing in online malls, and how to sell knitting online without your own website. If you have found another good site for selling knitting or crochet online, let us all know by leaving a reply below!

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Posted in Knitting Resources, Knitting Websites, Make Money Knitting | 4 Comments »

How To Make Money From A Knitting or Crochet Blog

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

I have been getting some questions about how to make money online from knitting and crochet, especially from blogs which many of you already have.

If you are going to the effort of regularly writing on your knitting blog (knitting website), and you have built up a following of people who like to get your information and ideas, then it's worth setting up a system so that you are rewarded financially too!

There are many ways to make money from a knitting or crochet blog besides selling your own knitting or crochet products, two that you may not have considered are:

1. Adsense Advertising – you allow Google to place those small text ads on your site, and you get paid every time someone clicks on them. This strategy may not make you millions, but its great to have a little flow of money coming in each month that covers your hosting and gives you a bit of cashflow.

2. Affiliate Marketing – if you have a blog that has a reasonable amount of traffic and subscribers, then you can actually make a nice income online by finding information, products and services that would benefit your readers and putting them in touch with the people who provide them. I learned how to set up a blog like this from Yaro Starak, who is a really down-to-earth guy from Australia. I actually met him a couple of weeks ago and was inspired by his relaxed and friendly style, and how he has created a six figure income just from blogging!

After chatting with him, I realised that his information and ideas would be really valuable for anyone writing a knitting or crochet blog. So with his permission I have included one of his articles that gives you his top 10 tips for starting a money-making blog. He also has an amazing report that gives you his complete blog building system for free – if you are at all interested in making money from blogging, I would highly recommend getting a copy.

Click here to get your copy of "The Blog Profits Blueprint" for free.

And now here are Yaro's top 10 tips for starting a blog (you might be past this stage, but there are some great ideas for increasing your readership and also giving your readers really great value)…

It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called "traction", which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.

Top 10 Tips

10. Write at least five major "pillar" articles. A pillar article is a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good "how-to" lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn't news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.

9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don't have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.

8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need a easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that's the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you've done a good job!).

7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people's blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.

Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.

6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger's article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry – it's sort of like your blog telling someone else's blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.

This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important – it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will likely come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.

5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.

4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival often enjoy a spike in new readers.

To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at blogcarnival.com.

3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it's so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it's worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!

2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn't bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it's worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have – your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.

How you benefit is through what is called your "Resource Box". You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.

1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I've listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won't stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.

I hope you enjoyed my list of traffic tips. Everything listed above are techniques I've put into place myself for my blogs and have worked for me, however it's certainly not a comprehensive list. There are many more things you can do. Finding readers is all about testing to see what works best for you and your audience and I have no doubt if you put your mind to it you will find a balance that works for you.

This article was by Yaro Starak, who is now a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is also the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.

To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link:

www.BlogMastermind.com

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Posted in Home Business Tips, Knitting Websites, Make Money Knitting | No Comments »