How Blog Hops Work for Designers: The Shockingly Simple Trick to Flood Your Site with Crafters

Ever wondered how blog hops work for designers—or how they could skyrocket your crochet or knitting business? When I first started designing patterns and blogging, I was drowning in questions: How do I join? What’s in it for me? Where do I even find these opportunities? The crafting world is full of generous creators willing to help, but piecing together the answers? That’s a puzzle.
This post is your one-stop guide. As part of my 9-week series on collaborative opportunities for designers, I’m breaking down how blog hops work, why they’re a game-changer for visibility, and how you can use them to grow—even if you’ve never tried one before.

Too long, didn’t read summary

A blog hop is a collaborative event where an organizer promotes a list of free patterns or resources to their audience, driving traffic to participating designers. They’re especially popular in crochet—but knitters, let me know if you’ve spotted any knitting blog hops!

What is a blog hop.

What is a blog hop? A blog hop is an event where an organiser will curate a list of resources, and share them with their audience. It’s called a ‘blog hop’ because the participant will then hop from blog to blog on a little treasure hunt, to gather up the resources.
The most typical way it happens in the crochet niche is this: An organiser (a well known designer with a good following) will promote one other designer’s pattern per day, for one month. A crocheter who takes part will sign up to hear about the daily offers. This might be through a newsletter or Facebook group, depending on the organiser.

Each day of the hop, the organiser will send their followers a message about today’s free crochet pattern. The crocheter, if they like the pattern, will hop over to the organisers blog to grab the link, and possibly coupon code. They will then hop to your blog (or, very occasionally, ravelry listing) to get the free pattern. You will have a button on your web site to send the crocheter hopping back to the organisers blog.

How do I find this opportunity? Where does recruitment happen?

I have found most of the blog hops I’ve taken part in through the ‘Crochet and Knit blogger Social’, or through the ‘Crochet Designer Support Group’ on Facebook. Both these Facebook groups are well worth joining for any crochet designer. The first one covers knitting designers too.

A couple of the blog hops I’ve participated in have been by secret invite I received by email (with instructions not to share! It was all amusingly cloak-and-dagger) However, I believe the organiser knew about tiny little me, and my fledgling blog, through active participation in the Crochet and Knit Blogger Social group. So I do advise joining and being active (post, comment, help out others when you can) if you want to be known and invited to take part in group events.
In niches beyond knitting and crochet, look for the backroom spaces where content creators gather to support each other, or general support groups for bloggers. They exist on Facebook, reddit and other platforms. You could also search for annual blog hops in your niche on Google, then contact the organiser and ask directly how you would go about being a featured Blogger the following year.

The nuts and bolts of taking part in a blog hop- what do I need to do, step by step

The organiser of the blog hop chooses the theme. For example, I took part in 2 blog hops in March this year. One was for international crochet month, with the theme ‘what I love most about crochet’. While the other one was ‘March Maker Madness’ with the theme of crochet patterns for spring.

First, the organiser invites designers or bloggers to take part. They invite by email, or post on Facebook, as mentioned above. They provide a way for designers to sign up. This is usually a Google sheets link.
Most typically, the sheet contains the key rules.
Pay close attention to these rules. Does this blog hop suit you? If not, there will be another soon.

Pay attention to:

The theme.

No point joining a summer hop, if all your patterns are winter woolies. Do you have an appropriate pattern for this theme?

The timeline.

Some hops require all materials in advance before the hop starts. Others just want it the day before your featured day.

Your marketing contribution.

All hops will ask you to do something to help promote the event. For some, that might just be a commitment to send one newsletter to all your subscribers. Others might expect a daily Instagram post, featuring every pattern, for the whole month. Take note how much heavy lifting is required on the marketing front, and if you can carry that weight.

Free or paid?

You must give the PDF download for free on your day. Some ‘blog hops’ don’t require a blog at all. You can create a coupon code in Ravelry, and have crocheters land directly on your Ravelry store. Many blog hops however require that the pattern remain forever free on your blog. They want their blog hop post to be an evergreen resource to crocheters looking for free patterns, even after the hop is over. The PDF is only free on the day, but the pattern must have a forever free blog version.

New or previously published?

Some blog hops will include patterns published at any time, no limits. In the previously mentioned March Maker Madness Blog Hop, I used a pattern published about a year ago, which was closest to the ‘spring’ theme. On the other hand, the International Crochet Month hop required a new, never before seen pattern, which needed to be released especially for that hop. Some hops will sit in the middle and ask for ‘fresh content published in the last 2 years’ or similar.

Once you have checked that this is the right hop for you, go ahead and sign up. You will be asked for, at a minimum, your name, business name, email, and the link to the pattern. You will also need to provide images by a specific date. A link to a Google drive is usually provided to upload them into.

What do I gain? – benefits to the designer

A designer or blogger can gain much from taking part. These benefits include:

Visitors to your blog.

Lots of lovely visitors. If you are already running adds on your blog, that’s money in the bank. If you are working towards that, more visitors means one step closer to meeting targets and being accepted by Mediavine or similar.

Visibility.

You have great patterns, or other resources. Someone out there wants them. But they don’t know about you. Yet. A blog hop brings you a new audience of people Interested in exactly what you provide. It’s a great way to promote your blog or business.

Algorithm boost.

In my last blog hop, I also got one of those spikes on Pinterest everyone dreams off. Why? Because a couple of the blog hop visitors (not many, but a few) hit the ‘pin this pattern’ button. And they must have had great Pinterest accounts, because those pins got lots more views than anything I pin ever does.
When it’s appropriate, depending on the specific blog hop, I like to send visitors over to Ravelry with a coupon code, rather than providing a direct download. When there, many will ‘like’ or ‘favourite’ my other free patterns.

So I get a big boost in the Ravelry Algorithm, not just for that 1 pattern, but lots of my patterns. In short, the traffic boost from a blog hop can filter through your whole business system. People discover you. And not just any people, but people happy to hop about online. If they like what they see, you get newsletter, Facebook, Pinterest and instagram boosts too.

Build relationships with other designers.

It’s good to know, and be known by, your fellow bloggers and designers. That’s how you create opportunities. You get to know the 30 other bloggers taking part.

SEO backlinks.

Even after the event is over, the link to your pattern will remain forever on a post by a big, well known designer. SEO backlinks are worth their weight in gold for building your blog authority and convincing Google you are a reliable source.

What are the pitfalls of a blog hop?

Blog hops can bring lots of viewers to your blog or pattern. But they might not be your ideal audience. You are giving them a valuable resource, for free. But will they appreciate it?
Worst case scenario. I took part in a blog hop, one time. One that required a new, never seen, pattern. I absolutely bust my hump getting a complex, multi sized garment written and tech edited on time. They came. A few thousand of them. Grabbed my pattern, and disappeared. Not one like, not one comment, not one ‘favourite’ or ‘add to que’ or project page created.
I was in a state of exhaustion from getting it all ready and set up on time. And it hurt. I was upset and regretted having put that much effort in.

And even thousands of visitors in a day won’t always help your place in the Ravelry algorithm. Ravelry staff have told me they will sometimes block traffic floods from affecting a pattern’s placement in metrics such as ‘hot right now’ or ‘best match’ as they don’t consider that ‘organic traffic’. So you bring huge traffic, and find your pattern still languishing at the bottom, not to be discovered by anyone doing a search in that platform.

Avoiding the pitfalls

But it’s not always like that. That was my worst experience. I’ve had very positive experiences too.
It is worth bearing in mind that blog hop participants are freebie seekers. Freebie seekers are notoriously hard to convert to paying customers. Not impossible, it can be done. But it’s admittedly challenging.
But it’s not a bad thing to be a freebie seeker. Especially for those of us who create free resources as part of our business model, we need our lovely crocheters, knitters, crafters and blog readers who want and appreciate good quality blog posts and free patterns.

Getting the most from a blog hop

A blog hop can bring anything from 500 to a few thousand people to your web site in one day. How can you leverage this to grow your business?

Be ready for newsletter sign ups,

And most importantly, know if a sign up wall is allowed or not. Most blog hops do not allow any barrier to the free resource. But a few will allow you to insist that people sign up for your newsletter to get the pattern or other freebie. If you can’t demand they sign up, make it attractive for them to do so. Have the link right there, with an additional offer that relates to the one in the hop.
The amazing designer Joanne from Made With Love And Fibres used a blog hop to launch a free wash cloth pattern, with a promise that she would release 1 per month for a year. Since the blog hop brought her people wanting a free washcloth pattern anyway, she got lots of sign ups.

Inspired by that, I used the blog hop to launch a cowl, with the promise that the matching hat and mittens were coming soon. ‘Sign up for my newsletter so you don’t miss the free hat or mitts (which match the cowl you already want)’. It worked, and I got more newsletter sign ups than usual for a blog hop. Not spectacular, but more than usual.

Get visitors moving around your web site.

Make sure related patterns are easy to find, and they can see at a glance as soon as they land, that your web site offers more than this one pattern.

Get visitors to move around your business.

Have easy links and reasons to pin images to Pinterest, follow on Instagram, or join a Facebook group.

Keep visitors on your page as long as possible.

Visitors who turn up, grab a link or coupon code without reading the blog can hurt your SEO. At the top of the page, put the ‘back to the blog hop’ button and a message that the download button or coupon code are at the bottom of the page. You are giving them a pattern that took you weeks (or months!) to write. It’s absolutely fair to ask them to scroll down the page.

Of course, doing that also helps your SEO, and increases the number of adds they scroll past, and as a result, your earnings. I learned this the hard way. (Thanks to the lovely Carmen from Annie Designs crochet who explained it to me. Link). Hopefully you can see what I didn’t at first. It just makes sense. Remember the blog hop I mentioned that didn’t go well? I do believe if I’d learned these strategies earlier, it would have been quite a different experience.

In summary

Blog hops are best for bloggers and designers who want to promote free resources. Very occasional specific blog hops can also have benefit for the designer who wants to promote mostly paid patterns.
They can help crocheters or other blog readers to discover you, and make them eager to come back. With a little strategy, a blog hop can be a great growth opportunity.

How blog hops work for designers – Frequently Asked questions