Hooking it all together...

My new website offers crochet workshops, pattern and tech support

12/15/20234 min read

“Why is this so difficult?” I yelled. “This stuff really shouldn’t be this hard - why do they make it so complicated?” I huffed.

I was frustrated and fed up. I was trying to add new workshop dates and upload patterns to my website. I wanted to make it easier for people to get support with their crochet.

When I have updates or changes to make to my website, I call this a ‘black-hole job’. Why? It fills me with utter dread because it sucks many valuable hours from my day.

Casting on: my first website

Initially, when I first started my business, my husband built my website for me. Which was great! He is a programmer by trade and, when I first started, I had no clue where to even begin. There was so much technical jargon, it completely bamboozled me. I was so grateful to him for his help and support at a time when I felt overwhelmed and a bit lost!

In the last year, I’ve worked hard on my business and have enlisted the help of a variety of specialists to help me get my business to where I want it to be. I’ve been lucky enough to work with business coaches, a copywriter and a Wordpress specialist who have all shared their valuable time and insight to help me move my business forward.

Initially, I used Wordpress for my website. I learnt how to back up my website, keep it secure and maintain the work my husband had done. Over time though, as my knowledge and understanding grew, I became more and more frustrated. Ultimately, I didn’t find it intuitive to use - it felt clunky and every job seemed to take an age to complete.

Finding a pattern I liked

So, when Paula Tadzik ran a free training session on how to build a website from scratch, I jumped at the chance! Paula’s aim was for us to get a website built and pushed live within a month - ambitious, I know!


She showed us a website builder to use called Hostinger and gave us a demo of how she had managed to create a website for one of her businesses from scratch.

I was impressed with what I saw and having someone to explain the technical bits made the whole process a lot easier. Paula is a master at just getting things done and would give us ‘homework tasks’ that we had to complete for the next session. In this way, the bones of my new website started to take shape.

5 reasons why it was time to redevelop my website

So why did I put myself through all of this you might ask?

Well, there were 5 key reasons I took on such a massive task.

  1. My business has developed quite a bit in the last year and I wanted my new website to reflect those changes. Now, as well as being a crochet tutor, I am a certified Technical Editor for Crochet and a budding designer and I wanted to offer these new services through my website. I also have two crochet books due to be published soon too!

  2. I found my old website frustrating to use and time consuming to update. Added to that, I found any work I had to do with my website a chore and would keep putting it to the bottom of my business to do list.

  3. I wanted my clients to be able to get more from my website. I wanted them to be able to find out more about me but also allow them the choice to decide how best I could help them.

  4. I wanted to add elements to my website that didn’t exist on the old one. In particular, I wanted to add a shop front where clients could purchase patterns and kits that I had for sale.

  5. I wanted to become more independent in my business. Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful that my husband built my first website, but my confidence had grown to a point where I knew I needed to step out on my own and become more independent in the running of my business.

My website now has a place for you to book workshops, children’s and adult’s classes as well as a shop where you can buy patterns and crochet kits. If you’re a crochet designer looking for Technical help with your patterns, you can also book time with me to check your design.

Take a look around

I’ll be honest, it took me more than 4 weeks to get it completed because, well, life gets in the way!

But, 8 weeks later and I was ready for it to go live. I’m so excited for you to see it and I really hope you enjoy using it as much as I’ve enjoyed making it.

I can’t thank Paula @ Magic Tadzik enough for her help, guidance and support and I have wholeheartedly subscribed to her ‘done not perfect’ approach. What has surprised me the most about this whole experience is how much I have enjoyed the process. I never thought that would happen given the levels of frustration I experienced before!


This new website is as ready as it’ll ever be but what’s exciting is that it’s a work in progress. MY work in progress. I’m really proud of what I have created and am excited to keep building it and changing it as me and my business grows.

So, feel free to explore the new website and get to know where things are. I hope you like it as much as I do! I’d love to hear your feedback, so please get in touch (especially if you find something isn’t working as well as you think it should!)

Thanks for reading,

Jen

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