Utilizing Your Crochet Blog for Business
Starting a crochet business can mean different things to many people. One way to earn income with your love of crocheting is to add affiliate marketing to your crochet blog.
You already have a crochet blog and you are probably already talking about your favorite yarn and patterns right? Why not partner with some of your favorite craft suppliers and earn a little bit of commission for doing what you already do?
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Recommending products online is affiliate marketing. It is Internet-based marketing much like people who sell at stores or on television for a commission. What you need to do is find products that your readers are interested in. This will be yarn, crochet hooks, crochet patterns and even crochet conferences.
Download This Article as a PDF Document
Your job as an online marketer is to send traffic to the targeted site. Two companies you might try are Craftsy and JoAnn’s. Both cater to the crocheter and most likely your readers will know and trust these brands.
The partnership between the company and you works both ways. You drive customers to their site and in exchange for any purchases made you get a commission. Basically, you are paid for your results. If you don’t bring paying customers, you don’t get paid.
How To Start
To start you need to fill out an application with your information including your tax information. This is income so even though you may start out making under $5.00 per month it is still taxable income. Next, you need to find out about the company, its products and if possible purchase some items to review them. First hand knowledge is always the best way to recommend a product or service.
Companies to Start with include Shareasale, CJ (commission junction), or Amazon.
Once you know the product and the company you can start adding your referral link to your website along with any product reviews. Be sure to include a disclosure statement in the post or on a separate page, as the law requires this. Letting your readers know that cookies will be stored on their computers is also nice as they can opt out if they choose.
How To Promote
Just go about your regular blogging routine mentioning a product or two as you go on. Don’t make all the posts about selling because that is not why people visit you. They visit your blog for your crochet tutorials, your news, or even for tips and techniques you share. People are more open to recommended products when they know you, so do keep your readers as your number one priority.
Download This Article as a PDF Document
You might want to start a newsletter so you can personally let your readers know about different sales that happen throughout the year. A newsletter helps your readers get to know you thus building a relationship with them. The more they know you the more your recommendations are accepted.
Case Study: Tamara of Moogly Blog
A perfect example of ethical use of affiliate relationships is Tamara of MooglyBlog. She has a coupon round up post and I’ve seen her on Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter mentioning various coupon codes and specials that her partner companies have. She is straight up with her readers stating that she does earn a commission from sales.
Some key actions she is taking is providing awesome content that her readers want and promoting her posts to grow her audience. (Content + Traffic + Affiliates + Sales = Profit) She isn’t pushy she shares naturally and only the products her readers are interested in.
image: Pucca by Pinien, on Flickr
Will I Get Rich?
Affiliate marketing won’t make you rich but it will make you a bit of cash that can help you pay a bill or two. It might even help you pay your hosting and domain costs for your blog. (Note: Your income is directly dependent upon your Work. This means you can earn a part-time or full-time income depending on the commissions on products you choose to promote, your traffic and your total sales.)
One more thing that needs mentioning is that it is very important to read the terms of service for your particular company. You need to know the rules about advertising – spam of course is out of the question. You also need to know when payments are sent as some companies have a payment threshold. This means that you won’t get paid until you reach a minimum amount. Sometimes this amount is as low as $5.00 but other times it is as high as $100.00.
As a crochet blogger you can monetize your blog in a number of ways. Affiliate marketing is just one way that you can turn what you already do into something that can earn you extra money.
Some great tips here. I’ve never thought of trying affiliate marketing. I did start using Google Adsense but dropped it because some of the ads were a bit incongruous.
Google Ads work for high traffic sites. As far as the ads I’m pretty sure you can choose which ads to display on your site. I’m not a G.A. person but I’m sure it is answered on their site.
Great advice. I have been incorporating affiliate marketing into my web sites and blogs for several years now. It is not easy money, but done right it can go a long way towards making a blog profitable. Some places to look for affiliate opportunities include CJ.com and Linkshare.com as well as ShareASale.com.
Great resources Julie. All the above sites are useful for crochet bloggers as they have craft stores and patterns that can be incorporated into a blog. Thanks for your input.
Sara, it makes sense to try and monetise your blog, I have accounts set up and just get sidetracked. Memo to self put some time aside and get on with it.
PS: I love knitting dolls, very relaxing and de-stressing.
crochet is relaxing for me too. I like writing (blogging) so monetizing the blog only makes sense – it merges my two favorite things.
I don’t know how to crochet – at least, not past the first row!
But I’d love to learn someday.
Found your blog through the Ultimate Blog Challenge FB group. Happy A-Z!
Could of, would of, should of – Mixed messages and misused words from A to Z
Crocheting takes a little time to learn but eventually you will be making blankets, hats, and scarves – maybe even a baby dragon or two. With youtube videos it is super easy to learn.