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
Posts Tagged ‘knitting website’
Last Chance To Hear The Knitting For Profit Teleseminar!
Friday, September 25th, 2009
I’ve just finished the new Knitting For Profit Teleseminar about making money from knitting and crochet online – we had a great time on the call today, thanks to you all for taking part!
We covered lots of info about getting started online and the many ways you can make money from your blog or website or etsy store – and we even came up with a couple of new online knitting business ideas!
It’s not too late to register to listen to the call, just click here and you’ll get special access to the recording when it becomes available later today.
Thanks again to everyone on the call, and I’ll look forward to our next one!
Knitting Online Success Story – JJ from begintoknit.com Part 2
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
This is Part 2 of my interview with JJ, Click Here for Part 1.
[Liz]: Can I just ask you while we were talking about begintoknit and the internet marketing and setting up – I think a lot of people find the challenge of when you first start getting online and learning how set things up, because there’s just so many courses out there. And there’s so much that you can do, so it’s quite hard to get focused sometimes. So how did you decide, and how did you learn how to set up your blog and your orders and everything that you’ve done, how did you learn to do that?
[J.J]: Well I actually ran into a program online; see I had seen time and time again this stuff about lists. What is your list- grow your list. I’m like whatever, what does that even mean? And I had kept coming across it every time I started investigating something about internet marketing and initially it turned me off because I’m like- ‘what are you doing? Are you creating your own cult or what?’ [A knitting cult?!] There you go!
And as I started to investigate it, it made more sense. Internet marketing is the epitome of relationship marketing and relationship marketing is all about interacting with the people you’re marketing too, and in fact I’m almost a little uncomfortable using the term marketing. Because when people talk about marketing, they think; commercials, they think print ads, they think high pressure sales and with internet marketing it really is not about that at all.
I’ve had absolutely no problem for asking someone to pay for a good product that I put out there. I don’t think there is anything at all wrong with that, I really do not, but if as an internet marketer your first goal is not to help people and to improve the lives of individuals- you’re going to get eaten alive and people are not going to come to you for anything. Our goal-my husband and I- our whole goal in anything that we do is always about how can we improve a person’s individual state, how can we elevate people? How can we help people to be better? And absolutely the products that we are providing- what we do- we give people all kinds of freebies. We really like to give stuff away but we recognize the value of paying for something that’s worth having. I can’t reiterate that enough investment makes something more valuable.
I myself, I’m currently in an internet marketing course or internship program or however you want to term it with an organization called Prosperity Based Living and it’s in a larger organization called Champion Vision and the leader of that is Dan Kushel. If anybody whose listening has done anything with internet marketing, they’re very much familiar with that name. He’s very much a self made man, in many ways and when he’s interacting with people, he just doesn’t talk about- well let’s get you started in internet marketing, let me give you three or four things that you can do and from there on out blah blah blah. It’s really not about the hard sell, they are actually literally about walking you through your beginning and encouraging you to continue and when you work with these people you really get a sense of them trying to improve your quality of life- that’s their goal.
So for me that’s very impressive and to me ultimately that’s what internet marketing should be about, monetizing your internet marketing should be secondary. And I know that sounds counter-intuitive, we tend to think of wanting to make everyone wanting to pay for every little tid-bit you give there, but really monetizing your products are secondary you really want to give people quality information, to build that trust with them, they know that you’re giving them something worth having. So if you do give them a product that you are selling them, it’s that much more worth it to them.
Investment makes something… Investment makes the heart grow fonder? I don’t know if that makes sense to you. But your book, “Knitting For Profit” – see we’re affiliates for your information also, my husband and I- see this is something we wanted to do we wanted to monetize his knitting ability and he enjoys putting himself out there with it now which is really awesome I see so much change in him. It’s amazing to me, it’s thrilling and it’s encouraging. So it makes me want to put myself out there that much more you know? So we started looking through ClickBank anybody who’s tried to market their own information products knows about ClickBank, it’s basically a real simple, easy way to put your product out there and have other people help you sell it. And Liz we found your product “Knitting For Profit” on ClickBank we bought it, we looked at it and I was very impressed with the knitting for profit E-Book. I went to your blog and I was very impressed with the blog and the quantity and quality of the information that you put out there.
Our blog is just starting and we have a specific challenge in that-and this is kind of funny- our blog is dual language, we actually have two blogs. Anything we post on our main blog which is just begintoknit.com/blog we duplicate that in Spanish on begintoknit.com/blog2. [That’s a fantastic idea, I really like that.] And you would not imagine the thrill I got when we published our first article and I went through- and I started looking for where it was on Google and someone had actually translated my first article into Spanish on their website. I was so thrilled I was unbelievably thrilled, and it’s neat because, you know my husband being Spanish, Spanish being my second language it’s another passion of mine.
We’re able to head a whole different niche and our true goal is to get out there and give people something to work with- we want to give people information. So our information is building, its building slowly but its building and we’re trying to get as much quality information out there as possible and we’re trying to provide people with some free resources as well as connecting up with wonderful resources like your website. And obviously as affiliates for your product, your product is one that we’re also out there providing to people and currently on begintoknit.com what we do provide initially is a free e-course.
So anybody listening- if you know somebody that wants to learn how to knit so they can fully take advantage of Liz’s product- send them on over we’ll give them a free e-course on beginning knitting.
Liz: [And that’s using your unique set of teaching… the way your husband teaches?]
Yes it is extraordinarily simple; we did as much as we could to provide as many full colored photographs as we could to illustrate as closely and as specifically as we could how to do the actual movements with your hands. It’s a five step course but the first step is actually just about what you need. So it only takes four specific steps to allow you to get started on a simple knitting project and after we go through the initial e-course then we start providing patterns for beginning knitters to be able to do confidently and effectively.
Then as we go forward we’re going to provide the intermediate knitting e-book as a purchased product. We’re working right now on the video series on the initial e-course and the intermediate as well.
Liz: [That’s fantastic, to get ranked on Google as well as to get some video on YouTube as well.]
Absolutely and I also I have four little hams, also known as my children-and Ruth has actually told me that she wants to be active in this process so the whole thing I mean, not only has it been beneficial from a monetary perspective, not only has it been beneficial in that we have a way to help people which is the cry of our hearts- we want to help people but it’s also become this amazing family project. Everyone in the family has something they can do. Even my littlest child, she’s three years old, and she’s singing the farmer in the dell and it’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen. And I actually did unashamedly put a big plug in there for begintoknit.com and why not? She’s a beautiful adorable little girl and people can get a free e-course out of watching her- why not?
Ruth actually did a Squidoo Page, squidoo.com, and that’s a fun little web directory. You can go in there and you can donate part of your money or all of it if you want- you can donate it to whatever cause may be beneficial to you, one that you personally support. Ruth and I both have Squidoo pages; my son wants to put one up about Lego’s. Hey he’s a boy- he’s all boy so he may as well. And we’re both supporting the local Salvation Army through it and mine is specifically about knitting, her own is about crafting in general. There’s links on the blog about it and I’m so proud of my kids what they’re also doing with this particular aspect of our family life. It’s been amazing just to watch –especially Ruth- flourish with her writing skills in this. So it’s become such a family affair and the internet marketing aspect of it, the more I see of that interacting with people the more I enjoy it
[Liz]: Wonderful, so is that how you are going to promote begintoknit? Because I think that’s something else that a lot of people initially struggle with, how to get known, how to get out there and to connect with people and build that list. So what’s your strategy for doing that?
[J.J]: Well I have actually come up with two strategies that have begun to really show fruit for me, one of them is article marketing. Now here’s the really cool thing about article marketing. Often times when you start studying about search engine optimization, I know that’s a big giant word. Basically all that is, is Google Rankings. When someone plugs in your keyword- you want your page to be close to the top because you’re going to have people more likely to click on you.
Part of what Google uses to decide whether or not your blog, your website, your forum, or whatever is worth people going to is how many different places are linked to it, that’s incoming links. Now obviously you also want a lot of outgoing links on your site that lead to other people who do similar things as what you do. Which- I’ve linked to you, you’ve linked to me, and there’s a couple of other people out there that I’ve linked up to, there’s a number of products I’ve linked up to. But getting the articles out there, that’s other websites that have articles that are linking back to me. Other people get in there and they start looking at my articles then they come back to my website. Article marketing is very powerful, and I love writing, so it’s a joy for me to get out there, put out stuff that’s good quality information, touching stories, inspirational stories- stuff to encourage people, stuff to inform people.
And that’s all free for the taking, they can take it as much as they want and do whatever they want with it and then they can read that article and they link back to my website. So that’s one way I generate traffic.
The other thing has been very, very effective for me, have been give-a-way programs. Now that, I kind of accidently came upon and I’m definitely going to have to put something about this in my blog-just because it’s been so interesting. There’s a whole side to internet marketing that’s about people reselling private label rights products. Basically they go and they pull up as many private products that they can, that other people would give them the right to alter; brand and sell- and they really make a lot of money doing this.
And one little section of that kind of marketing are the JV Giveaways. What is that? Well a number of people with a free product get on these give-a-ways and they put their product in there. Let’s say they have three different products and they’re trying to build three different lists. Remember I said something about the list earlier, that’s when you get people set up on an email list, that you send them emails. That’s what my e-course is, it’s through email and basically you have permission to contact these people. Ideally you’re going to give them free products, you’re going to give them quality information, and you’re going to present them quality monetized products.
I’m only going to sell stuff that I think is quality and I want people to realize that when they see my product, they’re going to see I’m giving them a good product. So these JV partnerships, these give-a-way programs- the whole point is you get in there and you give away a good product. You start getting people to opt into your list and you’re able then to take advantage of that relationship- they saw your product, they know it’s good, if they like it they stay subscribed if they don’t they unsubscribe and you haven’t lost anything. It doesn’t cost you anything if you’re only putting in one product.
Now a lot of times people will upgrade and that’s how they make their money. Well I’ve never upgraded and I would say a full third of my opt-ins on my email list has come through these free give-aways. Yeah- and I’m not even trying. I put in this little product and they do their give-away program and people see my product, and they’re interested and intrigued and they sign up for it-Boom there you go.
[Liz]: I was just going to say, there’s probably people listening now who would be interested to learn more about that or actually going to do that, do you have a website address or anything that you can send them to?
[J.J]: Oh you know what? Not initially, but right now as a family we’re working on developing a whole new website aside from begintoknit, and I think that’s one of the aspects of that new website- as soon as it comes up- if people stay connected to begintoknit.com and that email list- I would absolutely be able to send them that information. And at some point I’m also going to pick out the one’s that do the best at this, because I only want to work with the best, I only want to give out quality products and I only want to provide people with quality contacts, so at this point right I’m looking for people that do the best quality program and have actually gotten me the most quality leads. I’m in a lot of different programs right now where that is concerned, and I need to backtrack and see exactly where the best leads have come from. I do have a contact that I have a relationship with and I’m going to kind of touch base with him specifically on who he recommends but if people just keep in contact with me on begintoknit.com, especially in the blog – so it’s begintoknit.com/blog. I’m going to be putting that on the blog very soon, I’ve got to interact with my contact and then and I want to make sure that I’m getting people the absolute best product and contact that they can get.
Liz: [Fantastic, and that’s a great value.] It is, it’s wonderful and it’s free!
Liz: [You can’t get better value than that] Absolutely, and something else I’ve begun to notice as far as traffic is twitter.
Liz: [Ah Yes, yes I’ve seen that too.] Yeah! I was really surprised I just went in and just did a search on how many people knit on twitter and all I did was go into their help screen and I did a specific search by topic for ‘Knit’ and it’s like wow- there are so many people out there that do that. So that’s another tremendous resource, you interact with these people and you can actually start specifically, I mean this is all relationship stuff so you don’t want to start bombarding people with your product. That’s not where it’s at. The idea is you want to learn about people so you take advantage first of all of the lists that you’ve built, you ask them what they want and you give them what they want. You want to give people something that they’re going to consider valuable. And with twitter it’s a great resource because you also find out what people enjoy, what their looking for, what they need and I have learned a huge amount of information just by floating through twitter and just seeing what people are talking about.
[Liz]: The other thing actually you’ve mentioned to me before with your blog, you were talking about getting other contributors in. I think one of the things with blogging is that keeping up with a blog, keeping up with a lot of articles can be daunting for some people. That was a really bright idea that you had there- that you started getting other people to contribute to your blog as well.
[J.J]: Absolutely, I especially have a tender heart towards previous generations. Mostly because I don’t think our older folks are valued in society in general, especially in the United States. I can tell you there’s not the reverence for the older generation as there ought to be that’s my personal opinion. I would love to hear from those seasoned knitters, who have had specific experiences or who have some little kind of trick or tip about different ways knitting has helped them or ways they have found to really explode their ability with knitting.
Just how knitting makes them feel- all of these sorts of things my husband and I are just really fascinated hearing people’s stories- learning from them. A couple of older gals that are at our church, interacting with them and looking at some of the stuff they’ve created – I’ve been just absolutely amazed at what they have been able to show us and I have been really astonished, surprised and thrilled to see some of the younger girls- who have taken up the needles on their own and we have been able to actually interact with some of them.
My husband has actually given some tips and tricks to some of the younger girls in our church. Yeah! This one gal was like I really want to knit, but I’m not sure how to go about it, you know- do you have any suggestions? Because she always sees me with the shawls or the scarves, the sweater my husband made me, one thing or another. And she’s like I always see you with these great handmade items where do I get more information on it? And I said- talk to him, and she’s like you’re kidding, ‘No-talk to him, he can help you, he wants to do this’. So a number of people have gone to my husband for this information, but yes I am fascinated by people’s stories. It’s not just technique that I’m interested in finding out about, I want to hear people talk about why they started to knit or why knitting is an important part of their life.
Knitting is part of a lifestyle and it is something that will stop you and slow you down, and it will teach you patience and teaches you perseverance sometimes it teaches you how to overcome frustration- when you have that new stitch that you’re trying to learn. I can’t tell you how many times, and remarkably it can be so interactive if you have a partner that you can knit with. My husband, there have been a number of times when he’s seen a pattern or something in a book that he’s gotten from the library- which is a great resource by the way, go to your local library get books on knitting- and that’s how he’s developed so many patterns, he’ll take something out of a book that he’s gotten at the library and he’ll put a couple of things together- boom he’s got a new stitch. And there have been a number of times where he’s just sitting there and he sees something, and it looks so pretty and he’s like I just really want to do this I just can’t get it to work. And we’ll sit there and we’ll puzzle over it and I’ll read the pattern and I’ll try it and I’ll be like well I’m not sure but I think this is what its saying. And he’ll take the needles and say I think you’ve got it up to there but I think this is what happens next. It’s fun and it’s a good way to get that television turned off and to get the interaction happening.
I’m fascinated at hearing people’s why behind the knitting and that’s some of the stuff I really want people to contribute to the blog about. I want to read it, if for no other reason and we want to share people’s personal stories and their testimonials about knitting and it’s just touching to me, to hear that.
[Liz]: Ok, well the final question I just wanted to ask you was in terms of starting, we’re talking to a lot of people obviously who are looking to starting a knitting business or starting up online, what would be your piece of advice for someone just starting out?
[J.J]: Oh… The biggest, the biggest thing is about passion. If there’s one thing that you may have picked up about me is that when I am doing something it has to come from my gut, it has to be something I am passionate about. Having that passion is going to carry you through those times when you’re starting to get frustrated, it’s going to carry you through those times when it doesn’t look like it’s quite going the way you’re expecting it to. That passion is going to help push you through seeking help when you need it and people are going to pick up on that- if you are not passionate about doing it, don’t do it. And by all means I’m not telling you don’t try to make money knitting, that’s not at all what I’m telling you. I would venture to say that if you’re even looking at the possibility, chances are you’re more passionate about knitting than most people out there. But anything that you do, that you want to make a business out of, if you are not passionate about it you will not make it. Honestly, it’s that simple, that’s number one.
Number two I would say get as much information as you can- and not just from mediocre resources, get information from top-notch resources. I hate the term ‘Guru’, honestly, but if you are looking to getting into an internet business you need to talk to the gurus, I really do hate that word. But if you’re talking to someone who has made money online chances are they’re going to tell you how to make money online. If you’re talking to someone that has made money knitting, then that person is someone you want to interact with.
You need quality resources you need quality information. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there a little bit- my relationship with Liz has developed just because I shot her off an email. And was I nervous about doing that? Yeah I was a little nervous because you obviously have a well developed concept, you have a well developed idea, and you have a well developed blog, so yeah that was a little intimidating. But you’re a very personable person; you’re very knowledgeable about what you’re doing so I consider you a tremendous resource- your book Knitting For Profit is very good. What you have done, you have obviously done what you set out to do and that’s what you need to do. You need to interact with people that have done what they set out to do; you need to get those suggestions and advice from those people.
Number one is passion, number two is information, number three—be willing to invest whatever it takes, and that’s not necessarily money, that’s about time, that’s about personal commitment that is about being able to sacrifice something in order to do it. Let’s say for example that you’re looking at your budget and you’re realize you’re only a few dollars away for being able to pay for that Domain Hosting, you know what? Give up Star Bucks; give up Dunkin Donuts or whatever- that McDonald’s stop in the morning or whatever it is that you don’t need. Be willing to give that up- who knows you might actually end up with better health out of it, you never know, but be willing to sacrifice those things.
Make sure your team is in on this with you, when I talk about my team, my team is my family. My husband has actually been after me for a while, he knew that I wanted to do something; he knew that I was capable of doing something but I hadn’t found it. I hadn’t found the ‘it’ I was looking for, when I found it my passion began to grow, I began to get the information I needed to make it work and I saw his support. I said I need this I need your support on this I need to know that you’d be behind me if I did this. He said absolutely I support you, I said it’s going to take a sacrifice of time, it’s going to take a sacrifice of money, and it’s going to take a sacrifice of energy on my part. I’m not going to be able to do as much in the house keeping and all of those things. You know obviously I’m not slacking off on everything in my household but it has taken a huge chunk of my time and I don’t begrudge that because I do still at this point have a part time job. But I am very close of working myself out of that part time job and I’m willing to do that, I’m willing to put that time and that energy into it.
So number one is passion, number two is information, number three is do whatever it takes. So just don’t be afraid if you find a good resource, if it costs you a little money, it takes a monetary investment. You know what the fact of the matter is that if everything you invest in your business is free, you may not take it as seriously. If the information that you’re getting is all free information, you may not be getting the quality of information that you deserve to make your business really work.
Honestly the initial information I got for the internet marketing, for the affiliate marketing, for the website design all of this stuff that I gleamed through the free information. You know what it was good information but I kept finding hurdles that I had to overcome and that was because I hadn’t developed the relationship with the people that had the information that I needed, I got that relationship and I got that information by paying for it. It’s a tremendous resource if you can find somebody that has what you need. If you are willing to pay for it do so, and I’m not going to tell you who to go to because it really depends on how you want to monetize your knitting business or your information business or whatever type of business you want to go into. Obviously there’s a lot of different avenues people can take- if they want to do the public domain marketing or whatever it is they want to do with this. Re-sale products, or if they’re selling hard products, if they want to sell something on E-Bay or Etsy or whatever it is that they’re trying to sell on.
There’s a number of different people out there that have successful, good businesses that they have developed over those sorts of resources and those people would be the one that they would need to go to. I can give suggestions- I have some tremendous mentors and I can definitely suggest them. But a lot of times the best resources and the most valuable resources are going to be the ones that you find, that you have gotten quality information from. I encourage people to do their research, get their information. So number on passion, number two information, number three, do what it takes, and number four be willing to pay for it. So there you go that’s what I would tell someone who wants to start their own business.
[Liz]: Excellent that is a really fantastic summary! Well hey, I think we’re at the end here, I really appreciate you spending the time today, I found this really interesting I’ve learnt a lot. I’m impressed and I love your passion and I love the way you love knitting and this new direction in your life. It’s really inspiring.
[J.J] It’s wonderful, and I’m glad I can share it and I’m honored that you wanted to share this with people and that you want and that you wanted to talk to me about it, I was really touched. But I was excited to have the opportunity to do this and thank you very much for the opportunity to share.
[Liz]: Well thank you, I think people will have learned a lot from this, and if anyone wants to contact you- I highly recommend they sign up with your newsletter which is at begintoknit.com or check out the blog at begintoknit.com/blog or if you speak Spanish, begintoknit.com/blog2. OK, so thank you very much for being with us J.J
[J.J] You’re absolutely welcome and thank you for having me!
If you would also like to make some money from promoting the Knitting For Profit E-Book like JJ, learn more about becoming an affiliate at www.knittingforprofit.com/affiliates.html. It's a fast, easy way to start making money from your existing knitting or crochet website or blog!
Knitting Online Success Story – JJ from begintoknit.com
Monday, September 21st, 2009
This is a great interview to listen to if you are keen to get your knitting or crochet online, and we’ll be following up with the teleseminar on Thursday/Friday to answer all your questions (check out the post below to register). As I mentioned in my last post, I really enjoyed this interview and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you!
Just click on the play button below and you’ll be able to hear the recording which runs for about 50 minutes, or you can read the transcript in the two posts below.
Knitting Online Success Story – JJ from begintoknit.com Part 1
Monday, September 21st, 2009
This is the transcript from my interview with JJ so if you prefer reading to listening, or you want to check a resource that is mentioned you’ll find the entire interview here – enjoy!
[Liz]: Today I’m talking to Jenny Vasquez from www.begintoknit.com, or J.J. as she actually likes to be known because that name includes the other half of her team – her husband who is also a knitter. Now J.J. has a wonderful and inspiring story which I wanted to share with you.
Because of the economic conditions at the moment in the U.S. she made the decision to take control of her own future and she’s taken the most important steps towards achieving this by starting her own business. She’s using a combination of strategies in her business; including teaching and the volume strategies. So now she’s using the power of the internet to get herself and her fabulous products and services going.
So J.J. would you like to tell us a bit about your background and perhaps introduce your husband and how you discovered his secret talents?
[J.J]: Absolutely – well my husband whose name is Juan; he’s a wonderful, wonderful man and an incredibly talented man, who was actually quite shy about his ability with knitting. We had been married about a month and we had very much a very quick relationship, so we hadn’t probably known each other more than about seven months all told, after we had been married about a month and I actually pulled out a magazine that had some crochet patterns in it and I said— Oh look I wonder if I can make this and he said well can’t you just make it by looking at the picture? And I said no… I absolutely have to go by the pattern, I’m a good knitter, but I’m not an exceptional knitter. I have to have a pattern to follow. He says well I can do that by just looking at it, and I didn’t take him seriously I thought he was joking with me. And the next thing I knew we started hitting the local discount stores and bulk retailers and getting all kinds of knitting needles and crochet hooks and yarns of all different colors and variations and shortly thereafter I found out we were expecting our first child, we’d only been married a couple of months and here’s my husband with this incredible skill so we started making all sorts of stuff for the baby before she was even born.
[Liz]: Fantastic and were you actually selling some of your products at that point?
[J.J]: At that point immediately? No – mostly because he was just shy about anyone knowing that he did this. And for myself, it wasn’t really something that occurred to me because even though I knew how to crochet, it didn’t seem like something that I would be able to make lucrative because I did it for my own hobby. My husband on the other hand, he was very proficient – I had no idea, but because he’s a man, he’s a Hispanic man and that’s not typical hobby for a Hispanic man, he was very shy about it. It took probably about two years before the cat got out of the bag. That he had this incredible skill and then we started occasionally selling some stuffed animals and the occasional baby layette and stuff like that and I kinda had to take the hit for a while – “Oh yeah I made that”- even though I felt horrible about fibbing about it but he justified it saying— you know the two are one, you’re my wife so it’s just as much you as me. But once the ball started to roll on that- yeah we had people that were very interested in the products that he was making, for purchases…
It started really slow, it wasn’t something that came regular or frequently, it was sporadic just people would see something that they were interested in. Most of the stuff initially that we made was just for our own personal use as family members and as gifts for other people. But this past year we really saw the value of his ability to knit not only is he a creative knitter but he’s a prolific knitter. He knits very quickly, very accurately with a great deal of skill. We could be sitting there watching a movie and he’s knitting away. He could finish a scarf by the time we’re done with the movie!
[Liz: Wow !] Yes he’s incredibly gifted. Now mind you that wouldn’t be something that’s a terribly complicated pattern but you’re basic just switching out colors or something like that- he could do that fairly quickly.
Now winter around here business is not very good, this area is highly industrialized and we’re hit very hard with winter. Because our local economy is so based on the RV industry and mobile homes, in the winter time business drops off, sales drop off and business all over the place in one fashion or another just drops off. Well this past year was particularly bad – there were about three weeks solid that he didn’t work at all. One day I just happened to be wearing one of the scarves he knit me (it’s just something he does every now and then – he’ll come up with something and surprise me – and I really love it I feel so special), and a girl at work came up and said “Oh, I love that scarf – where’d you get it?” And I said well my husband made it for me… She’s like “no way! I don’t believe you” Oh yeah- I’ve got three of them just like it but different colors and different patterns. Well how much for him to make me one? I said well how much would you pay, and it just kinda blew, up from there all of a sudden.
I happen to mention to someone else – oh yeah my husband made this. “Oh really” You know? And it just kept growing like that- and she mentioned it to someone- that my husband was making her one, and I couldn’t believe how fast the orders started coming in. Even with the economy as bad as it is, around Christmas time people wouldn’t think anything of spending ten dollars on a gift for someone. And it’s just really surprising- and they’re very…. handmade high quality and we can do them custom. Around here, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the university of Notre Dame but it’s a big deal around here there’s a lot of Notre Dame fans. And we can do them custom- there’s just all kinds of ways that we were able to really tailor make the business for the area.
It really was tremendous. We actually covered the income that he lost through that time of not working- we were able to almost completely replace it with the knitting orders.
[Liz: Fantastic] I can tell you he was tired, but he worked hard and he was so proud of the work he did. And it felt really good to me because I was able to see other people- see I really did the marketing on it, and I assisted him on picking out the patterns and there were some things that he wasn’t really sure what the best way to edge it may be or something along those lines. I helped him do the tassels and I helped him do the edging on some of them. I basically did the cleanup work because I was still working regularly at that point- I worked for a retailer and Christmas is a big time for us. So I was actually working a little overtime. But it was wonderful for me, because I’m so proud of his skill and his tremendous talent. I was really, really happy to see him really take ownership of that and he was able to say “I did this”, and it really felt good.
[Liz]: What a really fantastic story! So now from there are you going to keep doing that or are you now going to focus on your online business? Give us an idea of what you’re up to now, you have your scarves..
[J.J] That’s one thing that my husband does- he’s actually proficient in both knitting and crochet, so as our business grows we will become more inclusive of other crafts and hobbies of that fashion. He has a wide selection of- he’s actually begun to develop his own knitting and crochet patterns for rugs different kinds of home items- home décor items. He does doilies- he just covered a whole realm of possibilities. We’ve noticed that knitting is a very good seasonal business, we have been put on to a few bazaars in the area, where knitters would actually get together the day after thanksgiving- it’s the biggest day in the states here. Thanksgiving falls on the third Thursday of every November- so it’s the almost the unofficial beginning of the Christmas shopping season.
So as we go forward he’s been building up his stock, because I’ve been focusing more on the online business, he’s been focusing on what we call the hard products, which are the actual knitted products.
I have been working on developing his information products which are the patterns that he’s creating, and his techniques – the way he learned to knit, because the way he learned was very organic. As a child he would watch his older sister knit and crochet, and he’s a very visual learner. He picked up a huge amount just by watching her and then he actually fell ill for a period of time where he was unable to do physical work, but he didn’t want to just lay there like a lump, he needed to do something- he’s one of these busy bodies that is not happy unless he’s active and he’s a highly motivated individual so he was very frustrated at that point.
He picked up the knitting again and he kinda taught himself some specific techniques, and this is the kicker- he taught me how to knit! Yes absolutely, I knew how to crochet, I was familiar with the idea of how yarn is manipulated but as far as manipulating it with two needles- I felt very awkward with that, I actually tried to teach myself to knit a number of years ago and was just like blahhh forget it, it’s not working for me. But using the techniques that he has developed – he taught me to knit in very short order; I was very impressed as to how easy it was with the methods that he was teaching me. And I’ve actually been working on developing his teaching methods into usable, easy to follow programs that anyone- I feel- can pick up these skills.
[Liz] Fantastic, is that where the idea of begintoknit came from?
[JJ] Yes, absolutely. I knew I wanted to do something on the internet. Because aside from all the other things that fascinate me, I’m fascinated by interacting with people of all different kinds of cultures, all over the world. And its fun to interact with all these people all over, not only that but if you widen your scope to an internet business, you are not limited to the local economic issues [Yes that’s true] Yes and I mean, why not cast your net very wide? If we have something to offer people, something like the information products- and it’s so easy to provide that to people. And we’re giving them quality information, we’re not just coming up with something hodge-podge and half made, it’s stuff that we’re really putting some effort into creating for people.
We’re excited about the products that we’re developing and the internet really is the best place to do that. So as I began to kind of investigate how can I work this out, what’s going to be the best way to do this, I stumbled on a couple programs that led me in the right direction.
Now understand; I have tried so many different home based businesses. I have been in any kind of market that you would want to try to be in, I think at one point I mentioned to you I did data entry-which is a very nebulous kind of term which basically means filling out data on a computer that completely flopped. I’ve done the multi level marketing that completely flopped, for me- mind you these are things that can work for other people. But for myself- they weren’t working simply because I wasn’t really able to feel comfortable hitting up everybody that I knew individually. I didn’t want to be like- oh my goodness here she comes, she is going to sell me something today- you know? And I personally knew people like that and I didn’t want to be that way, so I just really didn’t want to, I was just completely turned off by that idea. So with all of the things that I’ve tried to do; internet marketing and the way I’ve begun to learn how to do internet marketing really has become the way for me to get the message out there on how wonderful knitting is as a hobby, how wonderful it is as a way to augment your income….it helps so many different aspects of your life, it makes you feel good, you look at something that you created and you’re like wow I did this, you know?
My husband recently taught my nine year old daughter to knit using the program that we developed. She grasped it in a matter of a couple of hours, I mean it was very quick – and she’s all excited, she’s like’ mom look at this’, and she’s making a scarf for herself and she is so thrilled with it and it’s just so awesome to see. And we’re teaching our son to crochet and knit as well. [That’s great!] I think s,o and as I begun to really try to connect with other people on the internet I am really impressed as to how many men are out there unabashedly and unashamedly admitting to their knitting skill and I pull my husband over and I say ‘look honey look I just found three more guys that know how to knit isn’t this cool?’ And he’s like ‘well I guess I’m not alone’, it’s like “no you certainly are not!”.
So that’s why we really decided to go with the internet, because there’s so many more people like you out there it’s easy to relate and yeah. This is my joy I’m the internet person and he’s the creative person and I make his creativity shine.
[Liz]: Fantastic, you’re a great team!
[J.J]: Oh yeah. It’s amazing, I don’t know- I can’t help but think god planned this out; he planned him just for me you know? And it’s so funny because in so many ways we’re so opposite of the normal gender roles, I also happen to home school my children- I have four children their ages are three, five, seven and nine. Yes they are a handful, they’re very beautiful, smart, amazing kids and I couldn’t be more proud of them. But in our family when it comes to the schooling of our children I’m the one teaching them the math, I’m the one teaching them the science; I’m the one teaching them all the nuts and bolts of everything they need to learn. And my husband is doing all of the home economics and the creative teaching- he teaches them the cooking; he teaches the knitting and crocheting. It’s a really amazing teamwork that we put together to teach our kids.
The second part of this transcript will be posted tomorrow…
A Real Knitting Income Story!
Friday, September 11th, 2009
Following on from my previous posts about how to start making money online from your knitting or crochet, yesterday I had the very good fortune to speak to JJ Vazquez, from www.begintoknit.com.
JJ’s story is really motivational, and her excitement and passion are very infectious! With the economic times being pretty tough in the US, her husband found himself out of a job and JJ realised that she and her family couldn’t always rely on employment to bring in the money. So she made the decision to take control of her own destiny and get into business – a knitting business!
After the sales of their knitting replaced her husbands income for the time he was not working, they decided to broaden their vision and market, and get online. It’s great to hear her experiences, and she gave some fantastic advice for anyone who wants to start making some extra income using the internet.
I’m really looking forward to sharing her story – you’ll be able to hear the full recording right here on the blog so make sure you check back next week!
We’ll also be having another "Knitting For Profit Teleseminar" on Friday about how to promote and sell your knitting or crochet online, and other creative ways you can make an income from your passion.
So whether you are just starting out, or you would like some great new ways to get sales and traffic to your site, join us on Friday for some inspiration, ideas and more!
How To Turn Your Knitting Website Into A Shopping Site
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
Many people ask me how they can start selling their knitting from their own blog or from knitting websites, so in this post I'll show you how easy it is to add a Paypal function to your knitting or crochet site to instantly start accepting payments for your goods or services – yay!
Many knitters and crocheters don't realise how easy it is to start making some money from their creations online. If you already have a website or blog, and you would like to start selling your products or services, then using Paypal's payment buttons is the fastest, easiest and possibly cheapest way to get started.
And you may not realise Paypal buttons can also give you the ability to collect donations for charity fund-raising (like sponsored knit-alongs) or even let people give gift certificates for your sites products!
First of all you need a Paypal account, which is easy and free to set up. Then when you log in, you'll see this screen, choose the “Merchant Services” tab (circled).
To create your payment buttons, choose “Website Payments Standard” (circled on the left).
Now you have a few choices:
The “Buy Now” buttons will take people straight to the payment page and will not allow them to add anything else to their order. This button is for “once-only” product sales, and probably won't be as suitable for you as the free shopping cart option below.
The “Add To Cart” button allows people to buy many different products and as many of each product as they want. This encourages them to buy more than one thing at a time, which is always a good thing!
You can also set up a “Donate” button which allows you to collect donations over the web – this makes it much easier for people to support your fundraiser, and allows you to reach a world-wide audience with your cause.
Or you can include a “Buy Gift Voucher” button, which I think every knitting or crochet website should have – why not encourage people to give your products or designs as thoughtful gifts to friends and family who also love knitting and crochet?
For this exercise, we'll look at setting up the Add To Cart button, which will probably be the first one you use. So click on “Create One Now” as shown circled above.
Step 1 on the next page allows you to customise your button to your needs. You need to create a separate “Add To Cart” button for each item you want to sell with the different price, payment currency and size/colour options for each. In the example below I have created my button for a US$35 beanie that comes in red, blue or black. You can add more than one of these drop-down menus if you also have size choices.
If you want to, you can use your own customised button images by putting in their URL in the “customise appearance” option.
Next add in the postage cost for that item (assuming it was bought as a single item) and choose the Merchant ID for transactions – the secure option uses your registered paypal email address as the ID, or you can choose another email address if you wish.
In Step 2 you can set up inventory tracking and profit and loss tracking which can be very handy. You will be alerted by email if the numbers of a certain product are low, and you can stop people ordering an item if it is out of stock.
In Step 3 you can customise your check-out pages. You can allow customers to add in special instructions, and choose whether or not you want their postal address (for example, if you are selling knitting patterns as pdf's you may not need their postal address to provide the products).
Then you can choose where the customer will go once they have finished paying (circled here). If you are selling knitting patterns, you can upload the pattern or pdf to a specific page on your website and send them there once they have paid (so only people who have made a payment can view that page). If you are selling products you might like to set up a special “thank you” page which thanks them for their order and gives them information like approximate delivery times.
Finally click on “Create Button” at the bottom of the page and you will get some <html> code and a preview of the button (see below).
Now all you need to do is click on “Select Code” and “copy” (using Control C on your keyboard) then go to your web page and paste the code in where you want your button to appear.
I have included an example of what the code looks like on your web page below – I have pasted the script from Paypal (circled) into a table, and then the preview of what it looks like on the website is below that.
Now you know how to start taking payments for your products, gift certificates and donations – if this brings up any more questions, please post them below and 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:
Online Knitting Success Story – Emilda From Hectanooga
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009
Emilda is a knitting designer with a difference, and you can’t help but be inspired by her positivity, generosity and joy of knitting! She is part of a growing group of designers who create with “knitterpreneurs” in mind, with fast easy to knit designs that she is happy for people to make a profit from knitting.
Find out why her products sell so well, and how this self-confessed technophobic now makes most of her sales online!
How it all started…
Emilda grew up in a small country village at a time when skills like knitting, crocheting, quilting and sewing were part of everyday life. “Women could do everything, and it was all of necessity, not a leisure activity as it is today. As a young girl, the clickety-click music of my mothers knitting needles, and the rhythmic movement of her hands dancing above her knitting needles was a mesmerizing and almost hypnotic nightly occurrence in our kitchen as we sat around the big wood stove by the light of a kerosene lamp!”
“We had no access to patterns back then, so I became adept at finding a way to make what was in my mind, and bring it into reality. I have always sewn without patterns, and knitted and crocheted without patterns.”
From knitting by lamp-light to online retailer!
Over the following years, Emilda built up a wide and wonderful range of knitted items, which sold well at countless craft shows and markets. But she wanted to go the next step, and start selling online.
The only problem was that she believed she didn’t have the knowledge or skills to be able to run her own website. “At my age, I probably just have a limited expectation that it is just too complicated for me to comprehend” – but this wasn’t going to stop her!
She decided to list her knitted pieces on a couple of crafting sites, but was disappointed with the results. Then one day she happened to find a discussion on a blog about Etsy.com, and after reading their positive comments she decided to find out more.
“When I saw how little the costs were, and realised that they do all the maintenance of the site, I was determined to join up!
“I had sales the first day I placed listings on the site! After that, I shifted my compulsive urges to listing, and making new items, and listing and listing and listing. My first sales were for wooden buttons which I make from tree branches, and in the beginning that was the main attraction to my site” she says.
Why are her products so popular?
Emilda started her Etsy.com store in November 2008, and in only 7 months she has made over 400 sales!
“When I joined Etsy, I was only selling the finished products. But I received emails from people who had visited my shop, asking if they were they my own designs, and if they could they buy the patterns. And so, being entrepreneurial in spirit, I saw that there was a need for that type of thing. I began the task of having a clipboard handy, and writing the instructions as I was knitting.
I think what makes my items unique, is the mere fact that I have not followed a pattern. When I was selling at craft shows, which was the main outlet for my creative endeavors for a great deal of the past 30 or so years, people would buy the finished hats, scarves, ornaments, and they were attracted to my booth because my items didn’t look like others.
Now my pattern range consists of over 100 hats, cowls, neck warmers, scarves, crocheted jewelry, knitted fashion accessories, mittens, shrugs and shawls. And I find that people keep coming back for more because once they have used one of my patterns, they realize how simple and easy they are. My biggest focus is on how to make an item with the least possible increases, decreases, or complicated patterns – without losing the cuteness factor!
And my tutorials include pictures of the progression, which is very helpful. When you have the visuals, it really leaves nothing to figure out.. you read the directions, and look at the picture, you pretty much know what is being explained!”
And you don’t mind people using your patterns to “knit for profit”?
“I want people to love knitting and crochet as much as I do, so my patterns aim to be simple, easy, quick, and made for people to be able to make a profit from them.”
I have lots of people coming back for more patterns, simply because they are free to sell and profit from the finished items they make. And I love that they will be giving birth to something that was in my imagination, because I just don’t have the time anymore to mass produce. My mind is full of patterns, so I think my purpose is to supply the whole world with wonderful patterns!”
Emilda is now retired, but loves that her hobby provides extra income and keeps her busy. “The best part of making money from knitting is being able to work whenever I want to. If I have a sleepless night, I just get up and let the creative juices flow – for me, the hardest part is actually shutting my imagination off!”
A great tip for using Etsy…
I wish I had known that I could have started on Etsy with just one item. I thought I had to have a store full, so I was pressuring myself to hurry up and make lots of things, and then go through the photography and listings all at once. It is actually better to list slowly, because it keeps you at the top of Etsy’s search engines.
And her advice for someone who wants to make money knitting?
“Make one or two things you love to make, then open a store on Etsy!
You know, I don’t have any shares in Etsy… but as far as I am concerned its a great deal. Anyone, anywhere can try out their products on a well maintained, and well managed site…. and all for just 20 cents, because that’s all it costs to list an item. There are no registration fees, no start up costs, just set yourself up, and list an item! What have you got to lose?”
If you are interested in starting an Etsy store, you can click here to get started (and I don’t own shares in Etsy either, but maybe I should!!)
And have a look at the new Knitting Patterns pages right here on the Knitting For Profit Blog to see some of Emilda’s beautiful designs that you can buy through her Etsy store at www.hectanooga.etsy.com
How To Build Your Knitting Website – For Free!
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
The Internet can provide knitterpreneurs with a fantastic opportunity to find customers from all over the world. So how do you start your knitting business niche website, process payments and get your customers to find it – all for FREE?
There are so many ways to create a presence on the web these days it can all get a bit confusing – do you start a blog? a website? an e-commerce site? a craft-mall store? an E-bay store? And then how do you get people to find you – on search engines? From advertising or promotions? Through links and recommendations? Is your head spinning yet??
Don’t worry! In this article I’m going to show you how to decide what sort of site you’ll need for your knitting business, and where to find the resources to build it easily, and for FREE. But the first thing you need to do before jumping in and starting your site is to sit down and do a bit of planning – this will save you a lot of time and headache!
The first step is to decide what you want your knitting website to achieve. Think about the following questions:
• Do you just want an online catalogue so people can get more information about you and your products? (Like an electronic business card)
• Or have you found a knitting niche that you want to become well known in?
• Do you want to be able to make sales online? Can your products be shipped around the country or worldwide?
• Is your goal to get people to find you online? Do you want lots of traffic to your knitting website? Do you want to be found through search engines?
• Or are you going to be mainly promoting your knitted products or services in the real world (like at markets and fairs or in stores etc)?
• Do you want to keep in regular contact with your customers? Do you have lots of good information about knitting or crochet that you can share with them?
• How much time do you want to spend on this project? Do you want to ‘set and forget’ or are you willing to make a long term commitment to updating it?
Following are the three main types of knitting website you can create, and depending on your answers to the above questions, you’ll find that one will stand out as the most suitable for your knitting business.
A Static Knitting Website – often used as an online catalogue, these websites are called “static” because their content does not tend to change. They are designed to give people information about you and your knitting business and products, and they are the easiest site to set up and maintain because once you’ve got all your information and pictures there, you don’t need to do anything but get people to visit it!
Many static sites rely on off-line promotion for their traffic, in other words, they are great to list on your business card or in advertising so people can go and find out more information and see your complete range of knitting online.
You can create a great static knitting website for free on services like weebly.com. I created a sample site there today and it was really quick and easy, and looks great. Have a look at http://gentletouchknits.weebly.com to see what’s possible in about half an hour! This site was completely free as it is hosted on weebly, there is also the option to register a domain name and host it yourself (but this means you will need to set up a hosting account – which is easy and cheap, but not free!)
The main disadvantage of static sites is that search engines seem to prefer “dynamic” sites like blogs, whose content is regularly updated. This means that your static site may be more difficult to get listed high in search engine results, and if thats the main way you want to get traffic, then perhaps a blog is a better option.
A Knitting Blog – like the one you are reading! A blog is a website that is regularly updated with “posts”, rather than static pages with information and product listings. It can be a great interactive way to keep in contact with your customers, and also a good way to get listed quickly and prominently in the search engines.
There are lots of places where you can start a free blog, the two I have used are blogger.com (which is owned by Google, and some say is faster to get listed and ranked because of this), and wordpress.com, and if you’re looking for convenience you can also create a blog through weebly.com. All are easy to use and quick to get started.
Blogs can be very personal and friendly, and will help you create an ongoing relationship with your customers. They are also a good way to dominate a niche market. But you do need to keep them up to date, so in that sense they are an ongoing commitment where a static site requires less maintenance.
A Knitting Shopping Site – This is similar to a static site, with listings of your knitted products, photos and descriptions, but it is also able to take orders and process payments.
There are a couple of ways you can do this. The fastest, easiest way is to set up a shop front through one of the online craft malls like etsy.com (I will do a whole post about craft malls and which are the best value, so look out for that one very soon!).
These are great because there is already lots of people searching on there for handmade products, so you’ll probably get some good instant traffic. These services usually charge a listing fee or a monthly access fee, as well as a percentage commission on every sale, so they’re not free. And most of the time you won’t really own your own site, so you might be limited in design or layout, and with some your store won’t get listed in search engines.
The other option is to add a shopping cart to your already existing static website. There are services like romancart.com or paypal.com which provide you with order buttons to place next to your knitting items for sale. Payments are then processed by secure servers. These two services are free to set up, but they do charge a small percentage commission per sale.
Now, you don’t need to limit yourself to just one of these types of site. Many people start by building a static site, then adding a shopping cart, then adding a blog. By doing this you get the benefit of all three models – and this is of course a long term plan.
If you are new to the online world, just start by going to a site like weebly.com or blogger.com and have a play around. You can’t break anything, and the best way to learn is by having a go – you’ll have your knitting business up online before you know it!
Let me know how you go with these sites in a comment below, or if you have found any other good free services for creating websites, blogs or shopping carts that other knitters may find useful, please share your experiences with us!
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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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