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Blogging

2 June 2018

June 10, 2018 by Annie Leave a Comment

Hello 🙂  Welcome to the third weekly update on my journey to being a full time craft blogger and designer.    Ooooh that sounds exciting when written down….  but to put it into perspective, this journey could take me the remainder of my working life and I might not actually be a full time craft blogger until I retire from paid employment in my 70’s!

This week I have been working on defining my goals and developing a tracker so I can measure progress.   Some of my goals feel like an awfully big stretch from where I am now but all the advice out there says to aim high!   The goals needed to be broken down into smaller targets for the next six months.   Here they are from my bullet journal…..   I will be adding to these targets as I work out what is most important and what works.

One of the top tips for beginner bloggers is to set up and manage your own mailing list.   I learnt quite a lot this week whilst researching  and setting up my mailing list.  If you are reading this you might have been invited to join mine!    I hope you will join 🙂  I will write a separate post on this in a couple of weeks when I can comment on how well it is working for me.

Focussing on the technical side of my blog this week I have also been researching hints and tips for bloggers on Pinterest.   There seem to be so many blogs out there about blogging and many of them are promoting courses that claim to enable bloggers to turn their hobby into full time income.   The courses are expensive!!   I am not against investing in my blog.   I have spent a little already on getting set up with my own website using 1&1  there is a link to 1&1 below (note this is an affiliate link which could give me a little income at no increased cost to you).   1&1 have several low cost entry plans where you can set up and really own your blog from the start giving more flexibility and protection for your work.   Many of the plans come with free domain names and it is good fun checking out which names are available – checking costs nothing 🙂

1&1 Ionos

At the moment, I believe that there is so much more I can learn from reading and researching without spending money on courses.   I have a long list of things to work on and I will share with you anything that makes a big difference.    The top tips I will be working on this week are as follows:

  • Improve board descriptions on Pinterest – include key words
  • Apply to join group boards – although this is getting a mixed press currently
  • Declutter my blog

On the creative side this week I have merged two projects!!   My sample blanket that was stalled because I couldn’t come up with a design I really liked, and the heart patterns from last week.   I have made a pattern for the heart within a square and it is the same size as the sample square pattern I produced earlier this year.   Here is a link to the free pattern for the sample square.   I will be writing up the pattern for the heart square this week so I can share it in next week’s update.

I have worked up a few heart squares in the Drops Paris – 100% cotton yarn and here they are laid out in the start of the design I plan to complete.   This is a great stash busting project.   The other really good thing about this project is that it is perfect for working up on the train!   I have worked out that I am going to need more yarn though…. not a help to my stash busting efforts.    I have a room full of yarn and seem to keep needing to buy more!! 🙂

I picked up a tip from Kat over at KrazyKabbage on the best conditions to photograph large projects outside and I have managed to take this photo of my big Sunshine Flower blanket.   This is the best photo I have taken so far – very happy with it.

In the evenings this week I worked a few more sections of my Spring Flower blanket.   I am really pleased with the way this is coming on and I am documenting the pattern at every stage so I will have another item to list on Etsy when I am done.  I don’t have a photo this week but will share again next week.

I will probably list the blanket on Etsy too but when I cost the blankets in terms of the time they take to make, plus materials, the price I need to charge makes them unaffordable.   I am listing them with little hope of a sale but at least they show the patterns.

Finally a weekly status report.  I am hugely excited by the leap in my advertising income which has almost doubled…… to 31p  🙂

  • Pinterest followers – 556
  • AdSense income to date – 31p
  • Subscribers – 1 (me – it was a test)
  • Etsy listings – 10
  • Etsy sales – 0
  • Page views last seven days – 34

I am starting to track page views – apparently this is key to success.    Stickytapeandstring.co.uk is currently running at around 140 page views per month.   Some bloggers quote 1000 per day as being the level you need to be taken seriously…. As I say – this is not going to be a short journey!    More next week….

happy crocheting and happy blogging,

Annie 🙂

Filed Under: Blog diary, Blogging Tagged With: beginner blog, blankets, blocks, commuter crochet, crochet, design, handmade, ideas, projects, stash busting

Tasks to complete before you set up your blog

June 4, 2017 by Annie Leave a Comment

If you are really keen to get started on your blog but baffled by the number of articles and help out there, it can be very frustrating.    I spent months reading and reading and getting nowhere. This post contains a list of tasks you should complete before you start to set up your blog. It will help you focus on your subject area and speed up the process of getting your blog up and running.

I am a complete beginner and am not claiming any kind of expertise.   The material I am sharing here relates only to my experiences and my limited knowledge.   I recommend reading widely and taking any useful advice you can find out there.  Hopefully you will this helpful.

In my post New to Blogging I lay out the choices I made and the tools I used to get my blog set up and running.

However, once I found my ideal set up and the magic free course that helped me get off the ground I was held up by a few basics that I could have prepared in advance.

Tasks to complete before you start your blog

  1.  Take some photos!    At the very least you need a portrait of yourself or something that you will use as your picture to represent your personality. (see note below)
  2. Write your ‘About Me’.   I made bullet point notes about the elements I wanted to cover.   Next I built the notes into sentences and paragraphs.   Finally I cut out a lot of material and left in only the elements that I hoped would resonate with my target audience.
  3. Start a collection of images that represent the feel and style you want to put across.   A tool like Canva is great fun to play with and can be free depending on the choices you make.   Alternatively as with my first bullet point, take some photos. (see note below)
  4. Draft a list of subject areas your blog will be about.
  5. Sketch ideas for your first three blog posts in each of your areas.   If you cannot easily come up with three posts then consider whether that is the subject area in which you can realistically expect to generate consistent regular posts.

(Note) – Be careful with the file sizes of any photos you take yourself.   Large files will slow down your blog, increasing the time it takes to load.   I am working on this area myself so will share any information I uncover!

The key thing is to make a start.   If you really want to start blogging just make a start.   Pick one small item in the list above and make a start.   I spent months thinking about it rather than taking action….. JUST MAKE A START!!

I would love to hear from anyone at the same stage as me or at any other stage in the process.   It feels so good to be making progress!!   Please share your experiences with me….

Happy Blogging!

Annie 🙂

Filed Under: Blogging, New to blogging Tagged With: advice for new bloggers, blogging, new blogger, set up a blog

New to blogging

May 7, 2017 by Annie Leave a Comment

Get your first blog up and running!!

I wrote this as my first post when I was just starting this blog. The advice contained below is exactly what I needed when I was new to blogging. I have loved my blogging journey and hope this helps you start yours…..

Original post starts here – May 2017. I am a new blogger and learning all the time from the huge number of articles out there.    I have found it to be a complete information overload.

Many articles claim to make the process of setting up a blog simple, then proceed with complicated instructions.

I am a complete beginner and have no qualification or expertise in this area.   I am only sharing my experience and limited knowledge in the hope that it helps you on your journey.

Below I share two links that are enough to make a proper start and get a working blog out there.   These are the best I have found.   I am still learning and I will continue to share as I find helpful information.

Firstly it is important to note that there are many free options out there for hosting your blog.   However, the solution I have chosen uses WordPress on my own domain hosted by 1&1.   This means I have paid for my own website name. My site is not part of another website. I read several horror stories about bloggers who put hours of work into blogs only to lose the content later.   Owning your own domain removes a big risk of this happening.

The links below take you to 1&1 Ionos where you can choose your own domain name and hosting package.   1&1 make this part very easy and quick.   Hosting packages can be very cheap and I would advise you start small.   You can always upgrade later as your requirements change.

get a domain name – 1&1 ionos

get hosting with 1&1 ionos

I found navigating WordPress and getting my blog up and running the hardest part.  I had made a small start using the welcome instructions in the WordPress software but I didn’t make any serious process until I found this free online course.

free wordpress tutorial

It really is free!   Signing up gives you access to a facebook based user group for support.  There are also discounts on offer for more WordPress support services.   I do not know yet whether I will need to use these but it is good to know they are there.

The only investment I made other than in hosting my own domain was to buy a WordPress Theme.  This is not essential and does cost money. However, the free themes are quite restrictive in what they allow you to do.   I bought the Genesis theme.  The course covers this subject.

This is all it took to get my first blog up and running!!   I did have to break off in the middle of setting up to complete a few tasks that I could have done in advance so I will put those into a separate post.   The main tasks were taking photos and preparing text.   I am still working on the photos!!

I hope this helps you and I wish you all the best in getting started on your own blog journey!   Please let me know how you get on 🙂

If you would like to read more of my blogging journey – click on Blogging in the menu above or follow this link to one of my more recent posts.

Filed Under: Blogging, New to blogging Tagged With: begin a blog, beginner blog, blog, blog set up, blogging, new blogger

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