2021 Year in Review of my Squarespace Web Design Business
In late 2021, I started writing Behind the Scenes posts each month. But rather than do a December post, I’ve decided to write a full year wrap-up. In this post, I’ll walk through my web design business in 2021 and share what went well, what didn’t, and what I’ll be adjusting in 2022.
Throughout 2021, I had a post-it note on my monitor that said “Work less and make the same or more money.” In 2020, I was working well over 40 hour weeks and didn’t prioritize my physical and mental health. My goal for 2021 was to work on creating some more passive income streams and to take more time away from the computer. And I’m happy to say that I did work less and earn more! I had the most successful year of my business so far and actually took some time off.
We’ll take a close look at Revenue Streams, Content Creation, Community, and the MVP tools and apps I used in my business in 2021.
Then I’ll share a wrap-up, my plans for 2022, and my new word of the year. (Interestingly enough, I wasn’t going to have a word of the year until I wrote this post, then it became clear to me what it should be.)
💰 Revenue Streams
In 2021, I had 3 main revenue streams:
1:1 Work (Custom Web Design, Designer for a Day®, and Squarespace Help)
Affiliate Income
Course & Template Sales (Make Money with your Blog course and the new Squarespace Template shop)
And here’s how those made up my total revenue:
This was exactly the shift I was looking for. In 2020, 1:1 work made up 91% of my revenue, followed by 6.4% affiliate income, and 2.6% course/webinar sales. In 2021, I grew my more passive* income from 9% of my revenue to 26.8%!
(I’d like to take a moment to comment on “passive” income and just note that it doesn’t mean no work went into it. Passive income takes work to plan and put into motion, so it’s not magical in any way. It still takes effort, but after the initial work, you aren’t putting in nearly as much time month-to-month.)
Now let’s dive into each of those buckets and see how the year shook out.
⬇️ 1:1 Work
Overall fewer projects than in 2020, but with increased pricing and slightly less revenue from 2020 to 2021.
Custom Web Design: 10 websites
These are great projects because I get to build the site from the ground up, based on the client’s branding, images, and copy.Two of those clients chose the branding add-on, so I got started with creating a brand and then built their websites. It’s so much easier to build a great site when you start with a solid brand.
One of these projects was when I was offering copywriting and SEO and I didn’t enjoy that process as much, so I’ve stopped offering it for now. I may go back to offering copywriting, but I’m not sure. SEO is not something I like doing for other people so that won’t be back.
One was a nonprofit at a discounted rate, something that I almost never do, but this one was close to my heart AND I was able to work with just one decision-maker.
Designer for a Day®: 20 sessions
These are exhausting, but I love them so much! My clients for these sessions have an existing Squarespace website and we work together for the day to level up the design and function. It’s fun to see the BIG WINS you can get in just a few hours of dedicated, focused work.Squarespace Help: 80 sessions
Some of these were past custom or DfaD clients and others were people who found me on Google. These are one-hour Zoom screen-shares where we talk strategy or jump in and work together to make changes on the client’s website. They are some of the most educational work I do and I really enjoy them.
⬆️ Affiliate Income
This was my biggest area of income growth this year and I teach the exact methods I use in my course Make Money with your Blog. I walk you through my own content creation formula that drives over $1500/month of affiliate income (and more than half of my 1:1 clients). You’ll learn how to choose topics to blog about, how to write those posts, and how to monetize them without being sleazy.
⬆️ Course & Squarespace Template Sales
Courses
Make Money with your Blog launched in April 2021. I have just over 100 students at the moment. The course will be getting a revamp in 2022 with more content, more blog post examples, and new best practices. I loved creating this course and I’ve gotten such wonderful feedback that I’m considering spending more time on course creation in 2022.
In 2021, I made my Squarespace Image Optimization mini-course completely free. It’s a quick text-based course and I decided to stop charging for it. So, no direct revenue here, but some people who take the course do sign up for my newsletter and make other purchases.
Squarespace Templates
This year, I also launched three premium Squarespace templates for DIYers:
Sway - launched September 2021 - for service providers, course creators, and bloggers
Spice - launched November 2021 - for virtual assistants or other service providers
Idyll - launched December 2021 - for authors
I’ve not done a very good job marketing these, so that’s something I want to work on in 2022. Each template takes quite a while to create, as it’s not just the website build, but I also have a resources library of 20+ videos on how to customize each template and a 20+ page pdf workbook that goes along with each template as well. I’ve gotten great feedback on the templates and you can see a couple of customer builds as examples at the bottom of the Sway page.
✅ What I Enjoyed Working on the Most
I really loved creating the course and Squarespace templates this year. If I can figure out how to market them, I may do more course and template creation in 2022 since these were the things that brought me the most joy in my work. But doing that means I have to give up some time doing 1:1 work and give up the “sure thing” revenue there. It’s a leap. I’m not ready to go all-in on courses and templates at the expense of 1:1 work, but I may shift more of my energy here and see what happens.
✍️ Content Creation
In 2021 I created content across my blog, YouTube, Instagram, and a few other assorted channels. Looking back, I spent a LOT of time in 2021 creating free content. Some of it brought me joy and some I experimented with and then pivoted.
👩🏼💻 christyprice.com Blog
I give big credit to my blog for SEO rank as well as positioning me as an expert in my field, allowing me to charge what I do for my services. I’m also able to highlight products I feel would be helpful to my audience which brings in affiliate income. (And, yes, you can find out lots more about HOW I do that in my Make Money with your Blog course.)
In 2021, I shared 37 blog posts. My most-visited posts in 2021 were:
My favorite posts to write were:
The Behind the Scenes posts - they allow me to take a bird’s eye view of my business
Teachable vs. Squarespace Members Areas - I love Squarespace, but I don’t believe it works well for courses
How to Swap Elements on Mobile View in Squarespace - CSS posts like this are so useful and sometimes people even take the time to send an appreciative note, which always makes my day. Here’s one I got recently: ”Hello Christy! I just wanted to reach out to say thank you so much for this how-to you have. Not only was this the resource that I was looking for to resolve my issue, but best of all it was free to access which I am so thankful for because I am trying to get up and running and low on funds. So genuinely thank you so much for putting this out there, I truly appreciate it!”
According to Google analytics, I had 158K site users in 2021, an increase of 35% over 2020, with 221K sessions. Mostly from organic search which stems in large part from creating useful content and getting backlinks to my site.
🎥 YouTube Videos
From January through mid-April I posted one YouTube video a week. This was a challenge I set for myself to post a video a week for the year, but after 4 months I was done. Even though my videos are not high-production, it does take a significant amount of time to record, edit, create graphics, and load to YouTube.
The thing that drove me crazy was that as soon as I posted a video (for example, how to change colors on your Squarespace website), I’d have to re-record it because Squarespace changed the way the platform worked. It was frustrating. So I stopped after 21 videos. I have been thinking about videos I can post about web design that aren’t so platform-dependent, so I may pick that up again in 2022. Maybe.
I did grow from 0 to 599 subscribers though, so posting regularly does work for that.
In 2021, I created 116 posts @christypricewebdesign. I started off the year regularly scheduling 3 posts per week. Then sometime around September, I stopped. And just posted when I felt like it. That was SO freeing. I still enjoy Instagram, but it’s not where the majority of my clients and customers find me. Now that I don’t feel like I have to churn out content, it’s a joy instead of a chore.
I’m not sure exactly how many followers I started with at the beginning. of the year, but it was less than 1000. I ended the year with 1214 followers.
My #topnine in terms of interactions were:
❇️ Free Webinars
In 2021, I hosted three free webinars:
Ask Us Anything sessions in June and September in partnership with Kerstin Martin
Office Hours in December
I really enjoyed the AMA sessions with Kerstin. I loved that people got to hear our shared perspectives and sometimes differing opinions about Squarespace and web design.
Normally in November, I offer complimentary short 1:1 sessions as first-come, first-served bookings for anyone on my email list. This year I decided to open it up as a free Office Hours session for anyone to attend and answer questions so that everyone could hear the responses.
I revisited the Office Hours recently and realized that I said “um” about a thousand times through the session. Definitely something I need to work on. I’m much better when I can script and record, like in my classes, than I am in live sessions. Even though I share good info, I just don’t come across as articulate as I’d like to. Stay tuned for more free office hours and hopefully fewer “ums” as I work on that in 2022.
📧 Email List
I sent out 12 monthly email newsletters in 2021. (You can join my mailing list here.) I played around with Flodesk for a few months, but am happily back at MailerLite now. Note: If you are just getting started with your email list, make your life easy and start with Squarespace Campaigns. When you outgrow it, MailerLite is a good option.
I regularly clean my email list, so over 90% of my list are active readers. I started out 2021 with 1238 subscribers and ended with 1565, growing about 28 subscribers a month.
✨ Other Content
In addition to writing my own blog posts, I contributed two articles to The Rising Tide Society in 2021. I enjoyed writing these, but it’s hard when someone else edits your work and you don’t get to see that before it’s published. I’ll get over it though as the backlinks are so important for SEO:
I was also interviewed by PixelHaze Academy:
And I was hired by Squarespace to create a webinar for their 5 to 9 series:
Growing your Audience with Squarespace Campaigns
🙋♀️ Community
One challenging part of being a Company of One / solopreneur is that it can be isolating. I’m especially grateful for the connections I’ve made with other Squarespace designers. Here are two communities that have helped feed my soul this year:
LWS Design Collective Facebook Group, hosted by Sarah Moon
This group is one of the main reasons I’m still on Facebook. Supportive, smart designers who not only weigh in on challenges but also keep me laughing.Squarespace Circle
Once you have 3 sites in your Squarespace account, you can apply to be part of Squarespace Circle with access to their official forum. During a lull in the pandemic, I hosted a Circle get-together in Austin and hope to do that again in 2022. If you’d like to come, follow me on Instagram and I’ll post when we plan another one.
✨ MVP courses, code, and apps of 2021
I thought it would be fun to do a roundup of my favorite courses, plugins, and apps of the year. I’ve narrowed it down to just the top 3 in each category which was really challenging - especially in the code and apps sections!
Favorite Courses of 2021
This year I did a lot of education around selling Squarespace templates before I opened up my own Squarespace Template shop. Here were the three most helpful courses I took:
(1) Scale with Templates - this is a masterclass from Kate Scott, providing a comprehensive plan to launch your template shop with success
(2) The Template Factory - step-by-step guide to building and launching a Squarespace website template shop with a focus on how and where to sell your templates
(3) Standout Squarespace - okay, so I haven’t finished this course yet because it is MASSIVE, but the Squarespace Template module was amazing and I’ve been blown away by Rache’s teaching style
Favorite Code solutions in 2021
(1) SquarespaceWebsites Tools Extension PRO. This is a true MVP of my web design business. Port over entire blogs from one site to another and more. I dive into why I love this plugin in my post on Chrome Extensions Every Squarespace Designer Needs
(2) Ghost Plugins. An entire library of free Squarespace plugins plus some amazing paid super plugins. Use code CP15 for 15% off any of their paid plugins or templates.
(3) Will Myers split section. I used this code on a lot of projects… it’s a great way to make your Squarespace site look less “Squarespace-y”
Favorite Apps in 2021
(1) Squarespace. Of course. It’s been the foundation of my business since 2018.
(2) Teachable. The tech I use to house and sell my courses and template resources. I tried some other platforms and this one is my favorite at a great price point.
(3) HoneyBook. This was the year I moved from Dubsado to HoneyBook for my client management system for custom design projects - you can read more about why here.
🗓 The Wrap-Up
In 2021, I met my challenge to work less and earn more. The three main ways I accomplished this were by writing and recording solid content, creating a course, and building a template shop.
In 2022, I want to lean into the things that brought me joy and spend some time leveling up the course and creating additional templates. I don’t plan on giving up 1:1 work though - I think I would miss it too much and it’s more of a “sure thing” in terms of revenue.
My professional challenge for 2022 is definitely marketing my course and templates. I don’t like hustle or hard-sell tactics, so I need to find a way to market that is aligned with my no-fluff, more introverted nature.
My personal challenge for 2022 is to move more. I’m setting a goal to walk at least 5 miles every week this year. I know it’s not a lot, but it’s more than I’m doing now and is attainable. (I like to set myself up for success.)
My word for 2022 is “ease”. I love the dual meanings. As a noun it means “absence of difficulty” and as a verb “move carefully or gradually.” I want to lean into things that feel less effortful AND create my products (courses and templates) while still doing 1:1 work without a total leap from one to the other.
If you’d like to follow along on my journey, you can join my mailing list here. And if you made it this far, thanks so much for reading! I wish you a wonderful 2022. 🎉
