Behind the scenes: November 2021
November 🦃 🍁
Well, that flew by! It’s still strange to me that web design is a seasonal business, but after 3 years of working full time, I can see the patterns. At the end of the year in November and December when I’m ready to slow down and enjoy the holidays, inquiries go up and I do more discovery calls in these months and in January than other months.
I’ve raised my prices for custom web design, so I’m getting fewer inquires there. But that’s okay because I want the right clients for those projects - people who are willing to invest in branding, photography, and copywriting. When those are in place, you can create a beautiful site that performs incredibly well.
Because there are so many people (and I was one of them for many years!) who aren’t ready to make that investment, I’m rolling out a “Simple Site” Web Design service for 2022. Clients will choose one of the templates from my Squarespace Template Shop, provide their text and images, and get a professional website in just a week at a fraction of the cost for a custom design.
Income Streams
This month had three income streams: 1:1 work, course and template sales, and affiliate income. And I took a few days off Thanksgiving week. Mmm… pie.
1:1 Work
I launched theivoryatx.com for a sustainable and affordable living development in East Austin.
And I had 9 one-hour Squarespace help sessions and 1 Designer for a Day® in November.
Course & Tempalte Sales
I had 3 template sales and 1 course sale this month. Two of the template sales were for SWAY and one was for SPICE. One of the SWAY purchasers in November already launched her site and it looks amazing! Check out my Squarespace Template shop here.
If you are a designer and want to use one of the templates for a client, you totally can… and you can make affiliate income from the template sales too. If you’re interested in becoming an affiliate for my templates and course, just fill out this form.
Affiliate Income
My affiliate income was a little lower than normal again this month at about $1300, but should have been about $1600. Some payouts that should have come through didn’t (a little over $300), so I’m hoping I see those earnings reflected next month. And I’m working on blogging more regularly to boost traffic to my site which should also have a positive impact. Want to learn how I regularly bring in $1500+ a month in affiliate sales? Take my course Make Money with your Blog and I’ll show you how!
- HoneyBook - CRM / business management tools
- The Ghost Company - Squarespace templates and plugins
- Termageddon - website legal policies
- Canva - easily create website graphics and social media posts
- Peachs - affiliate software for Squarespace eCommerce
- 23&9 Creative - Squarespace templates
- Elizabeth Goddard - online business strategist
- Flodesk - email marketing
- Memberspace - add a Members Only area to Squarespace
- Squarestylist - Squarespace mega menu plugin
- Moyo Studio - stock photos
- Memberstack - add a Members Only area to Squarespace
- Weglot - multilingual website solution
- Squarespace - website builder
This Month’s Income Percentages
This month was heavy on the 1:1 work. I’m excited to start using these pie charts to see how things shift each month! Hat tip to Natalie of digitalie.eu for the idea.
Expenses
This month I spent money on:
- A client gift ($29)
- Flodesk because I forgot to cancel it when I moved back to MailerLite. Argh. ($19)
- A half-hour with my accountant ($90)
- Office supplies ($25)
- Freelancing Females annual membership ($59)
- A course that was a waste of money ($62)
- A Buy Me a Coffee for code help ($25)
- Domain name renewals ($30)
- SquareCertify a social proof plugin for a month ($19)
- Nudgify social proof plugin for a year ($104)
- Crowdcast for hosting my virtual office hours ($29)
- Rytr an AI writing assistant lifetime deal (and I'm pleasantly surprised at how helpful it is given the low price) ($39)
- SEO Workbook: Search Engine Optimization Success in Seven Steps (2022 Online Marketing) for some fun holiday reading ($21)
- Subcontracted services ($80)
Learning
I'm still working my way through Squarestylist’s Standout Squarespace, and it's so full of valuable information that I'm having to take it slow. This is an incredibly comprehensive course on everything from client management to custom code, and the price reflects that. I’m learning a LOT about Rache's coding methods and they are a great way to save time developing sites.
Content Creation
Blog
Trying to get back in the swing of regular blogging to see if that helps drive visitors and affiliate income.
Instagram @christypricewebdesign
I’m still sticking with the roughly once-a-week post schedule on Instagram. It’s nice to not feel like I have to post 3x a week. And I’m still gaining about the same number of subscribers each month.
Email Newsletter
My monthly email went out to subscribers in early November. You can read it here. I’m back to MailerLite. It’s not as pretty or easy as Flodesk, but it’s where all my email automations live. And Flodesk wasn’t different/better enough to make me want to move.
Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn
I use MissingLettr to schedule my blog posts to automatically share on each of these platforms on a set schedule.
Tools & Tech
Here are the tools and tech I relied on this month:
- Will Myers' split layout plugin for some nice style on The Ivory website
- Loom for recording quick screenshares for clients & course videos
- Squarespace for my site and client builds
- Canva for blog thumbnails, website mockups, and Instagram posts
- SquarespaceWebsites Tools Extension PRO for porting over blogs from Squarespace 7.0 sites to new 7.1 sites
- SQSP Themes plugin bundle for lightbox anything for a client site
- Heather Tovey's Squarespace Block ID Finder Chrome extension to easily target blocks with CSS code
- HoneyBook for proposals, invocing, and all the CRM for my full website design service
- MailerLite for my monthly email newsletter
- Wave for accounting and one-off invoicing
- Zapier for adding transactions to Wave automatically
- Teachable for hosting courses and templates for sale
- Zoom for client calls and screenshares
The Numbers (compared to October)
Website Visitors: ~11,000 (holding steady). This is still lower than I’d like, so I’m planning more blog posts.
Email List Subscribers: 1,608 (+33). Most new subscribers sign up for my lead magnet. I had about the same number of subscribers, but I had a bunch of unsubscribes this month. I sent out two extra emails (one for my free office hours in December and one about my template shop), and that usually leads to more unsubscribes.
Instagram Followers: 1,191 (+35). Still gaining followers each month, but with a LOT less posting. I’m thinking about doing some reels to answer questions about Squarespace and my templates, so we’ll see…
YouTube Subscribers: 573 (+2). I haven’t posted here since May. Maybe I’ll get back to it next year?
The Wrap-Up
It’s always a good month when you launch a client’s custom site, so November was great in that respect. I also had time to add the SPICE Squarespace template to my template shop. Thanksgiving here in the US was a welcome break and I’ve decided to NOT take on a custom build for December, as I’ve hit my revenue target for this year and want to concentrate on completing SWOON and IDYLL for the template shop. And take off a chunk of December to just relax and spend time with family. Wishing you a peaceful month as well!
