Helloooooo my creative peeps! Today I’m going to be sharing some of secrets to blogging and building your blog/brand and to build your following! In the crafting industry it can be a very competitive market but by following these steps and guidelines I promise you will Create a Profitable Craft Blog in no time!

Create a Profitable Craft Blog

So, I had my blogger blog, StampinMindy a couple of years ago and I had that blog for 8 years!!! I started off slow and at the peek of my StampinMindy blogging days I was averaging close to 30,000 pageviews a month. Unfortunately, I didn’t consistently sell anything. Cards I made, a few online classes and a little of advertising my local classes. after about 4 years of blogging on StampinMindy, which was on a blogger platform, I noticed a HUGE drop in pageviews and activity on my blog, literally half of what I was getting.. then it dropped some more.. I got down to about 6,000 hits a month and I was still posting 3-5 times a week. I figured blogging was a thing of the past and social media has taken over.

So, 2 years ago I decided to make a ‘Lifestyle’ blog. I would write a little about my card making, DIY, maybe a few recipes and printables. So, I tried that on my new Blog, My Creative Scoop. I signed up with a bunch of programs to place ads on my site. and really tried to get my numbers up so I can do paid opportunity posts… I thought this was how you made money blogging. Boy, was I WRONG!

Then, 1 year ago I found this amazing blogger, Melyssa Griffin and I was instantly pulled into her blog and would spend hours and hours and yes, some more hours on her blog. It was one year ago exactly that I made a plan, with the help of Melyssa’s SUPER valuable content.

What Melyssa has taught me over the last year!

• Find your niche
• Build your Brand
• Focus on QUALITY content
• Build your e-mail list
• Learn to use Pinterest to promote your blog
• Create a FREE Opt-in
• Create, promote and sell your Courses/Products

Now, Let’s go down a little time line here.

This is when I first discovered Melyssa Griffin. Watch how my numbers grow because of what she has taught me! All the months before November Were pretty much around the same numbers. Just dragging.. not really growing.

Finding your Niche

After discovering Melyssa Griffin and decided to really FOCUS on one niche. With just a few small changes I already started to see some progress in December and January. I decided to focus on Coloring. I had spent years promoting products and suing all these embellishments and papers. But when it came down to it all I love to color! Period! So, that is what I honed in on, Coloring using Copic Markers.

If you need help on starting your new blog Check out my post on Step by Step How to Set up & Create a Craft Blog.

Email List – 28

Quality Content + Free Opt-in = Build your email list!

So, In January I wanted to focus on building my e-mail list. So, I signed up with Convertkit and started My FREE Creative Library. Free digital images that my readers can color exchange for their email. So in February I created and launched my Library.. and look at these results. I almost doubled my traffic.

Email List – 265

More Free Content – FREE – E-Course

Melyssa Griffin is always giving away so much content in her posts, webinars and on social media. One of the things she walked me through is creating an e-course. This is a series of emails you create giving your readers valuable content to build a relationship. After creating my FREE Beginner Copic E-Course. My traffic almost doubled again!

Email List – 723

• Create, promote and sell your Courses/Products

So, once May rolled around I started seeing Melyssa’s Blog to Biz Hive Course advertising. I was already ready to start taking my site to the next level and focus on creating my paid product – Online Coloring Classes. Melyssa offered an amazing bundle of goodies and throughout her entire launch she gave away so much amazing content that you will learn from! So, once again I started putting all the knowledge I was learning, from the Blog to Biz Course, into action and look at my July results.

Email List – 1,683

Social Media Growth

Not only have I grown my blog through content upgrades I’ve also grown my Social Media Platforms. Back in April I signed up for the Social Media Superhero course which helps with understanding how to advertise yourself on Social Media. I also discovered an AMAZING TOOL – Hootsuite! This is such a time saver! You can schedule your posts ahead of time. Here’s how I promote one blog post. So each time I finish a post I go and schedule it on all these platforms at all these different times and days.

Back in January 2016 these were My Creative Scoop Stats:

• Facebook – 580

• Twitter – 77

• Instagram – 950

• Pinterest – 744

• Google + – 32

• Email – 39

• Average Monthly Pageviews – 1,988

• After Melyssa Griffins Course and reading her blog religiously I’ve grown my blog and following drastically! Check out these numbers!

• Facebook – 900

• Twitter – 161

• Instagram 1,880

• Pinterest – 3,233

• Google+ – 39

• E-mail – 2,810

• Average Monthly Pageviews – 16,904

I’ve had great success with this course and Melyssa Griffin was so excited about my progress I was able to get an interview with her!

WATCH MY INTERVIEW HERE!!!

• I couldn’t be more happy with my brand and website growth and I can’t wait to see what 2017 is in store for my little ole home on the world wide web!
• If you sell ANYTHING online or are looking to start I HIGHLY recommend taking any of Melyssa Griffins courses. She will help you get started with that online business and or to improve the company you have.