I love, love, love selling on Etsy and blogging. My husband, Tim, and I both work online full-time. The freedom to work from anywhere while doing something you love and hopefully helping a few people along the way makes it a dream worth the effort!
The business model we suggest spreads your income out over three areas: Etsy, Blogging, and establishing your own domain. These are the tools I use for each of these and I recommend them highly. ~ Kim
WordPress
We believe that one of the first keys to success online is becoming an active blogger on your own self-hosted blog.
We use WordPress for this site and for a number of other sites we operate every day.
Genesis
When we built our first blog, we had to learn everything from scratch, including how to code a website. You don’t need to learn all that
Use Genesis Themes for your WordPress blog and look like a pro from day one. StudioPress
Hostgator
Who knew you could love a web hosting company? You can and we love Hostgator!
Hostgator is great in more ways than we can fit in this box. See below! Web Hosting for Creative Bloggers!
Stamps.com
When you sell online, shipping is a huge part of your to-do list! Stamps.com is what we use to make that process faster, easier, and more accurate.
Big Commerce
Once you get your feet wet selling online, you may want to start thinking about your own domain.
We use Big Commerce for our shopping cart and eCommerce platform. It’s so so good.
PDF Download Coming Soon
WordPress
I hate to state the obvious, but here goes: In order to succeed online, whether selling on Etsy, blogging, or anything else, you need people to see your stuff! One of the most effective tools you can have in your toolkit for getting traffic is a blog. A good blog can be so effective that I think it really should be considered a requirement of online business.
If you’re going to have a blog, you want it to be a self-hosted WordPress blog. Self-hosted because you’re building a long-term asset that you’re going to want total ownership of and control over in the future. WordPress because it’s the best, the most versatile, has the most resources available, and because the core software is free.
You can usually install WordPress very easily through the company that hosts your website and it doesn’t cost anything. See below for hosting and theme information and links to get you started.
Hostgator
Once you’ve decided to do a self-hosted WordPress blog, you need two things to get started: a domain name and a hosting account. Web hosting is very inexpensive so don’t worry. However, you should be careful which hosting company you choose, because they are not all created equal.
We suggest HostGator for a number of reasons. Many of those reasons won’t matter to you until after you’ve grown, but believe me when I tell you that when you get there, you’ll be glad you’re with a good hosting company. A few of those reasons, however, matter right from the start:
- Month-to-month billing: Most competitors want you to pay for a year up-front. Hostgator only asks for one month at a time.
- Excellent Support: Hostgator customer support and extensive community forums can’t be beat. 24/7 phone, email, and chat support.
- Great prices: You won’t find a lower price on a comparable hosting package.
- Easy Upgrades: Hostgator can handle your site no matter how large it gets and they’ll do any transfers and upgrade related work for you.
Another great thing about Hostgator is that they have Reseller Hosting accounts. These accounts start at only $24.95 per month and give you the ability to build your own little hosting business. If you plan to include services such as blog design in your online business, you may find out that you can add a decent bit of income with reseller hosting.Reseller Hosting Starting at $24.95!
We know this stuff can be kind of hard to figure out for a first timer, so Tim will answer any hosting or WordPress related questions for free in the comments at the bottom of this page.
Genesis
One of the great things about WordPress is the availability of thousands of custom themes. Themes are what make your WordPress blog look and work exactly how it does. The way pages are arranged, the backgrounds and colors, and unique features such as social media integration are all often packaged with WordPress themes.
An experienced coder/designer can take just about any theme do just about anything they want with it. But none of them do! Why would they put the time and effort into transforming WordPress into something amazing when StudioPress has already done the work for them with the Genesis Theme and the vast collection of Child Themes?
Also, if you were intrigued by the reseller hosting idea above, you’ll love the Pro-Plus package that includes all the themes. We bought it and it has paid for itself many times over. As with anything on this page, Tim will answer theme related questions in the comments at the bottom of the page.
Mailchimp and Craftmonkey
For Etsy sellers with a mailing list size of less than 2000 people, this is a great combination. You need a mailchimp account, and then head over to Craftmonkeyapp.com and connect it all up. You’ll be sending out awesome looking emails for free in no time.
We have a detailed video showing you how to sign-up for and set this all up. Email Marketing App for Etsy Sellers Video
Disclosure: After using these services ourselves and finding them valuable and worth recommending, we signed-up for the respective affiliate programs for these vendors, so we get a commission if you purchase through our links.
It doesn’t cost you a penny more, but helps us keep the bills paid and the kids fed!
Thank you very much! – Kim & Tim
Thank you for your great tips on the blog post!!
I will search about e-mail lists service for my shop promotion.
Thank you so very much for your inspiration and guidence.
I want to build my dreams and the information on blogs, etc. will help me get a little closer.
Very informative and helpful, thank you so much for the information. Have shared with my followers. (@ChanelledC)
Thanks so much! I signed up for wordpress, and keep “meaning” to blog-(about my studio, the constant battle to keep it clean, without shards of glass taking over the floorspace) but “just haven’t gotten around to it.” Thanks for the push!
Hello! We are looking to start a business for my 15-year old daughter, Alex. She has been knitting, sewing, and baking for many years and is a budding entrepreneur. Alex is a sophomore in high school and is involved with a few extra-curricular activities. Therefore, we will be developing a side business limited to family and friends to assess what level of activity Alex can handle.
I am helping Alex get started because I have my own company, and I am very familiar with business and marketing. I would appreciate any advice on how to either use Etsy or create our own extranet in order to start off slowly. I am definitely concerned with overwhelming Alex. There is so much information available on the web, but I haven’t found the correct solution for us yet.
Alex is a frequent user of your website, so I’ve spent some time reading your stories and understanding your business model. I am very impressed and enjoyed reading the travel stories as my family loves traveling also. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Wishing you continued success,
Drew
Send bulk sms application help in increasing sales and revenues of organization via attracting targeted audience through messages.
I have wanting to switch from Blogger to WP FORever! I even bought my domain name maybe 2 yrs ago now from godaddy. I have been asking around for someone to help me make the switch over but I do not want to lose my original blog. From what I’ve read all this time is that I will have to simply start over. I’m okay w/this now. I can still have a link/blog to book printed in the future… At this point, I’m not sure what the next step is to start using my domain.com name & do I have to still go through godaddy? I want to own on my blog period. ??? any suggestions? I would like to make the switch asap. =) thx for any help!
Hi, of course this post is truly pleasant and I have learned
lot of things from it on the topic of blogging. thanks.
When I originally left a comment I appear to have clicked on the -Notify
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Cheers!
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Hi,
Your site is really helpful with much info, thanks so much.
I will try to keep this brief.
I am trying to launch a succsesful Etsy business so while Im waiting for my photos to get to me I have purchased a domain name in order to blog as you suggest. I am trying to decide on a web hosting. Most likely will go with hostgator but my real question is this.
I am terrified of WordPress. I simply can not buy studiopress to help me!
Realisticly how long will it take me to get a decent blog up and going? I taught Photoshop and illustrator but I’m not that good with all this IT stuff? I downloaded you html shortcuts but will that be enough to create a blog?
I do not have a sweet husband like you to help me so ..What do you honestly suggest?
Sincerely,
Mimi
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