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 the ‘Home Business Tips’ Category
Guilt-Free (Knitting) Business Mothers!
Friday, January 29th, 2010
This might sound a little off-topic, but two amazing Australian women I know are running a free teleseminar series that is starting next week about balancing business and work with mothering, which I thought might be of interest.
As a mother of two small children, I often get pangs of guilt when I get busy and spend more time on my business than with my little ones.
But I do love running my home business too!
If you are already running a business from home, or are planning to start up your knitting business, then I think this series will have some valuable advice for keeping that balance and enjoying both your family and your new business. It also includes some great advice for success in life and business for women – and it costs nothing!
I'm going to be listening in, and you can join in too by clicking the link below to register: http://guiltfreebusinessmothers.com/seminars/tspub9lr.html
I'm looking forward to hearing what all 7 of the speakers have to say and taking away some great ideas and strategies for us work-at-home mums.
I hope you enjoy them too!
Learn How To Make Money From Home
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
After my last post, I had a lot of emails asking for more information about what steps you need to take to get a website or blog making good money online.
There is so much information available about internet marketing and making money online that it can get a bit confusing and very hard to know where to start.
But it is certainly a skill worth learning - I absolutely love working from home and making a living by providing people with great information. There is a huge amount of money spent online every day, and with the right knowledge and a willingness to have a go, you can start bringing some of it into your life and your bank account too!
Through my experiences in starting up blogs and websites and writing my books, I have realised that there is just one simple key to succeeding in making money online – and that is to take things one a step at a time.
If you bombard yourself with all the information available all at once, it just gets overwhelming and a bit stressful (I know because I did that too…). I learned a lot from an amazing Australian couple who run workshops here teaching the basics of internet marketing, if you are from Australia drop me an email and I can get you into one of their workshops as my guest (the tickets are usually around $2,000) – but this won’t help if you are living anywhere else in the world!
So I thought I would also let you know about another amazing couple I recently found who teach internet marketing one step at a time. Judith and Jim are psychologists and a husband and wife team who wanted to get their business online, but had no idea how. When they started out, they found all the high-tech information from the internet "gurus" very confusing and frustrating, so they created a very simple, step-by-step system for learning the basics of online business and internet marketing.
This is the kind of thing that everyone wishes they had known about when they first started – it is a program that will take you from complete beginner to making your very first dollar online. It’s even good if you have a bit of knowledge but are not sure the best way to move forward.
So if you would really like to learn step-by-step how to start making money online, both with your knitting site and other websites, then this is definitely worth checking out – it’s not cheap, but it’s worth the investment if you are serious about making some money from home.
Go to http://budurl.com/FirstStepOnline
Let me know if you have any other questions about setting up and marketing your knitting or crochet website – I’m happy to help!
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:
How Much Do I Charge For A Knitting Job?
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
In this post I wanted to share a question that was sent to me by Trina, who is about to do her very first knitting for profit contract work. Here is her original email and my reply:
"Hi,
I just wanted to ask your advice – my aunty wants me to knit a cardigan for her baby daughter – she's already got the pattern and the yarn – and wants to pay me for my time. Where do I start thinking about how much to charge her? Would it work on a per-hour basis, or just a 'finger in the air' full amount?"
This is a great great question – and one of the trickiest to answer because every situation is different. In my Knitting For Profit book I go through the essentials for people who want to "contract knit" professionally, and many of these apply to you even though it is a family member you are knitting for. In my answer I am assuming you haven't been paid for your knitting before.
The main thing to remember is that you want to still be friends when the project is finished and paid for! This means the less surprises the better. Here are some questions to ask yourself:
Do you know how long the project will take? can you estimate reasonable accurately? Have you ever knitted that pattern before? And are you sure that your aunt has bought enough yarn? Is the yarn appropriate for the pattern, and is it all of the same dye lot? What sort of time frame does she have and can you get it done fairly easily in that time frame?
Ideally, you'll know the answer to these and be able to recognise if there are any issues on the horizon. Deciding what to charge depends on the answer to these questions, and also remember that many people underestimate the time and effort that goes into knitting a garment (especially family if they aren't knitters themselves!)
It will probably come down to you giving a price that you feel is fair for your time and effort, and seeing whether your aunt is happy to pay that price. Being something for a family member means you're probably not in it for a huge profit. Contract knitters tend to charge between $5-10 an hour depending on the project, but that's assuming professional speed (so what may take you 10 hours to knit may take them significantly less time and thus have a lower total dollar cost).
If you decide to contract knit for a living, there are many different types of project you may do. Yarn stores and manufacturers need knitters to use their yarns to knit up patterns and swatches, and many designers need knitters to test their patterns. There are also high-end designers who need the skills of top knitters to help them create uniques and original works.
Whichever path you choose, the main message here is that if you knit something for someone and are being paid for it, you should ideally have a written agreement with the answers to the questions I mentioned above. This saves having unpleasant surprises and means that you will enjoy your work, and your customers will keep coming back for more.
Many thanks to Trina for letting me share her question with you all, you can visit her blog and say hello at www.ballatrina.blogspot.com.
If you have a question you would like answered, just write a reply below or message me on the contact page – I'd love to hear from you!
Top 7 Tips To Beat Procrastination
Thursday, April 30th, 2009
For many people, the biggest challenge of knitting for profit success is not lack of money or experience or ideas – it’s procrastination! So here’s 7 top tips to help you beat procrastination and start living your dream sooner…
Tip #1 – Write a list of what needs to be done each day, then cross things off as you finish them. This will give you a great sense of achievement and help keep you motivated and enthusiastic
Tip #2 – Prioritise your tasks and focus on the ones that are most important for getting your business off the ground and making money. There’s a difference between being busy and being productive – you can fiddle around doing low priority things but it won’t get you any closer to your dreams of a knitting business
Tip #3 – Put the things that need to be done right in front of you. This way you just won’t be able to avoid doing what needs to be done. And do the things you really don’t want to first – then they are out of the way and you can enjoy the rest of the day – yay!
Tip #4 – Focus on doing and finishing, not perfection. You have to get over the idea that things need to be just right, sometimes a slightly less than perfect job is better than none at all (especially in the online world where things don’t have to look perfect to be effective). This tip applies more to "running the business" kind of tasks than your actual knitting – I am certainly not suggesting you try to sell unfinished or bad quality products!
Tip #4 – Write down your goals for the future and a plan of how you’re going to get there. Again this doesn’t have to be perfect and it’s not set in stone, but it will give you a good overall picture of where you are going and what you need to do to get there.
Tip #5 – Get help from mentors and advisors. Don’t be shy about asking for help and advice from people you admire and respect, they can probably give you ideas that will save you time and help you through tough times. And don’t be closed minded about management and personal development books and courses, you could discover an idea or breakthrough that could be worth thousands of dollars to you (not to mention make your life easier and happier!)
Tip #6 – Learn to say no and mean it. It’s easy to get caught doing useless tasks or engaging in idle chat when you can’t say no. When you work for yourself, you are wasting your own time and money when you accept tasks that don’t take you closer to YOUR dreams. Keep socialising and unproductive tasks for your leisure time, not your working time.
Tip #7 – Stay positive and avoid worrying. Psychologists have proven that worrying uses up huge amounts of energy, and worrying never solved any problems. If you find yourself anxious, write down everything that is on your mind and then write out the tasks you need to do to solve the problems – just doing that process will relieve stress enormously. Try changing your state by talking to someone who inspires you, or reading a book that encourages you, or by doing some guided meditation. Working on yourself and your positive attitude is the most valuable thing you can do – not only for your knitting business but for your whole life too!
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About Liz
Welcome! My name is Liz and I am a work at home mother of two. I am also the author of the new book “Knitting for Profit”. I have created this blog to give you more great information, ideas and resources for making money from your knitting passion! [more]
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