You have a fantastic sense of style. You always know how to accessorise perfectly. You assist buddies in putting together costumes to wow their date on date night. You are well-versed in the fashion industry trends to look out for in 2020. So, why not take your love of fashion to the next level by sharing your expertise and excitement with the rest of the world?
Starting a fashion blog, like any wonderful thing in life, may appear to be a daunting task. You must select a blogging platform, create amazing material, and ensure that your blog appears professional enough to steal the show. Otherwise, it’s doubtful that admirers would return, eager for more.
It’s easy to become disheartened if you’re unfamiliar with content management systems, plugins, or editorial calendars. You might just publish your casual or evening attire, as well as your office outfits on Instagram and hope for the best. But here’s the thing — there are restrictions on what and how you may share on Instagram. Furthermore, because the algorithm is continuously changing, you don’t have perfect control over how many people you reach, especially if you’re unwilling to invest in advertising your expertly-crafted content.
While social media networks are useful for bloggers, having your own platform to communicate with the fashion world has significant advantages, such as having:
- Complete command over this little sliver of the Internet. This means you may dress it up and style yourself as you like.
- The ability to play around with stuff. Post a full photograph, for example, or a #longread about a topic you’re passionate about.
- Your own website, from which you may effortlessly advertise a newsletter. This allows you to collect emails from your followers and maintain a direct channel of connection with them.
What is Fashion Blogging really?
Fashion blogs cover subjects such as the fashion industry, clothes, and lifestyle. A fashion blog can cover a wide range of topics, including specific clothes and accessories, beauty suggestions, trends in various clothing marketplaces (such as haute couture, prêt-à-porter, and so on), celebrity fashion choices, and street fashion trends.
How to get started on it?
You do not need to employ a designer or developer to assist you to put up a fashion blog.
With a minimal investment and a desire to read, you may easily start your own fashion blog.
To get started as a fashion blogger, follow the steps below:
Choose a blogging platform, domain and hosting service
The first step in creating your fashion blog is to select a blogging platform. You have two choices. You have the option of using an all-in-one solution on a hosted website or going the self-hosted way. A hosted website is one that is created with the help of a platform that provides both hosting (the servers that contain your website files) and the software that allows you to create your website.
Consider a hosted website to be a rental; you won’t have to deal with things like software upgrades or blocked drains. A free blog platform, such as WordPress.com, Blogger, or Tumblr, is simple to set up and use.
Their tools are sometimes as simple as drag-and-drop. They do, however, limit your personalization, features, and functionality. Furthermore, you’re putting your confidence in these websites to not only continue in business but also to keep your files safe.
Self-hosting, on the other hand, entails creating your website with your preferred software and then paying a web hosting firm to keep it. This is harder, but you have complete control over what you make. It’s the same as owning your own home.
Another factor to examine is the major domain. If you host your website on WordPress, for example, your domain name will be something like fashionblog.wordpress.com, which does not appear professional.
A free blog is not an option if you are serious about becoming a fashion blogger. I would advise you to acquire your own domain and proceed from there. You can still utilise all-in-one platforms to get it set up, but you may choose a more personalized and memorable URL and appear more professional.
Selecting a Blogging Platform
As of this writing, the most popular website creation platforms are Weebly, Wix, SquareSpace, WordPress.org and Hostinger. Let’s take a look at them one by one —
- SquareSpace
SquareSpace allows users to design websites using simple drag-and-drop tools. As a result, it’s a good option for total novices who aren’t especially tech-savvy. It provides stunning website layouts and has an excellent support team. You will, however, be restricted to utilising the capabilities built into their proprietary platform. Plans begin at $12 per month (billed annually). All SquareSpace annual plans provide one year of free domain registration on eligible domains.
- WIX
WIX also allows you to design a website with drag-and-drop tools, requiring no coding knowledge. Wix is free to use, but its features are restricted. You’ll obtain a Wix subdomain (https://username.wixsite.com/example) but won’t be able to access the platform’s full functionality. Users may add a custom domain for $4.50/month (please keep in mind that this plan displays Wix brand adverts on your site, which is never ideal) or upgrade to a premium plan, which starts at $8.50/month.
- Weebly
Weebly, another platform with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop website builder, will host your site for you, with premium options beginning at $12 per month. Weebly is especially handy if you want to start an online store because it provides amazing features to help you develop a business. Store pricing plans, as predicted, cost a little more.
- WordPress.org
WordPress is a free and open source platform. It’s the most adaptable blogging platform, with thousands of materials on how to create a professional-looking website. You’ll need to acquire a domain name and set up a web hosting account, but you’ll have total control over how your site looks and feels.
WordPress is open-source, there are literally hundreds of themes and plugins available, many of which are free.
Important pages that must be included when blogging
After you’ve completed the preceding steps, it’s time to add the following vital pages:
- About Us: Represents who you are and what your site is about.
- Contact Us: Is for general queries and recommendations.
- The Privacy Policy Page: Informs readers about what you do with their personal information.
- Disclaimer: The purpose of this page is to show you how to generate money from your fashion blog.
Create Content
Now that you’ve gotten the fundamentals out of the way, you can finally focus on what’s truly important—providing meaningful content for the fashion community.
For good reason, they say content is king. You can have the sleekest, optimised website in history, but if you don’t load it with information that people find valuable, you won’t get anywhere.
The first step is to identify your niche and develop a realistic content strategy. What do you care about the most? Do you wish to share both personal and fashion-related information? Do you wish to include any decorating or vacation advice?
There is no right or wrong way to accomplish this. Simply brainstorm some ideas and discover what type of material makes your heart sing. But, no matter what, never underestimate your readers. They can tell if you’re not interested in the topics you blog about and they will most likely move on to someone they believe is more real.
However, in order to be successful, you do not have to focus entirely on one area.
There are several well-known fashion bloggers that manage to balance their material so that it includes a little bit of everything like — picture shoots, life updates, trip logs, and so on. Just because you specialise in DIY hack topics doesn’t mean you can’t post about high-priced lingerie if you come across a good deal or have a lot of ideas on the issue.
This is your website. You’re on the correct track as long as you stay true to yourself and try your best to provide information that users find useful.
Still, struggling to identify a niche? I’ve included a few popular fashion blog themes in the list below. These topics might be able to give you some pointers on where to begin:
- Top Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter Fashion Trends
- How to Dress in a Transitional Wardrobe
- Tips for Building a Capsule Wardrobe
- Wish List for Holiday Fashion
- How to Incorporate Color Into Your Wardrobe
- Summer Travel Requirements
- Winter Holiday Must-Haves
- How to Figure Out Which Colors Go Well With You When Shopping For Shoe Wardrobe
- Why I Became a Fashion Blogger and How to Take Amazing Outfit Photos
- How to Launch a Fashion Blog
- My Camera and Blogging Equipment Shop
- How to Work With Brands as a Fashion Blogger
- How to Look Fabulous in Workwear
- What to Bring on Your Next Vacation
- How to Plan Your Travel Outfits
- Where Should You Save and Where Should You Splurge on Clothing and Accessories?
- How to Put Together a Day-to-Night Look
- What Should You Wear to a Job Interview?
- How to Select the Appropriate Wedding Guest Attire
- How to Prepare Your Wardrobe for the Fashion Week Season
- Best Places to Buy Workwear and Workout Gear
- Essentials for the Gym and Workout
- My Fashion Icons and Sources of Inspiration
- Top Instagram Fashion Bloggers to Follow
- Top Fashion Documentaries and Films to Watch Online
- Top Fashion Books to Read in 2022 (Mention The Year)
As you can see, fashion is a vast, rich, and inventive subject. Whether you prefer to focus on a topic or mix and match, you can always come up with content ideas to keep your audience interested.
Since we’re on the subject, I’ll give you some insider information—blogging and writing are difficult tasks that improve with practice. Don’t be hesitant to try new things, toss out draughts that don’t work, or to tackle new topics. Writing many articles at once might appear to be an insurmountable chore when you’re just starting out. Allow yourself to take it slowly at first, one post at a time.
We’ve got your back, so we’ve got some fantastic recommendations to help you remain ahead of the curve.
Consistency
Readers value consistency. It will be difficult to gain traction if you publish one article today and another two weeks later. Before you start sharing your blog with friends and on social media, you should have a few entries up so that prospective readers can get a sense of what you’re all about.
Following that, blogging on a regular basis will keep followers coming back for more.
We don’t expect you to publish every day. Even the most seasoned fashion bloggers may find this difficult. It’s also a demanding schedule if you have a full-time job or are still in school, and your blog is something you wish to do on the side.
However, whether you post once, twice, or three times per week, try to have articles up on the same days. For example, you may attempt a Monday/Wednesday/Friday posting schedule, or whatever works best for your other responsibilities. Readers will become accustomed to it and, in time, will visit your site on days when they expect new content. When it comes to community development, this goes a long way.
Keep an editorial schedule and plan out your content ahead of time to make things simpler. Writer’s block is a genuine phenomenon, so be ready if it decides to pop up at the most inopportune moments.
If you don’t want to install a sophisticated content calendar programme, use a wall calendar or bullet journal to organise your blog entries.
Writing posts ahead of time is also encouraged so that you always have something to share. I would recommend composing them in batches whenever you have a spare window of time or are feeling exceptionally inspired for the best productivity. Having all of your posts for the following week drafted up and ready to go on Sunday evening will make you feel like a glorified star with your life completely under control.
Make your content simple to read.
It’s tiring to read endless blocks of text. Always use subheadings, bullet points, photographs, videos, or whatever else you can get away with to break up your content. On the Internet, short paragraphs perform best.
Make your content as easy to read as possible, otherwise, you will lose people with short attention spans. Why do you believe we utilised so many bullet points and brief paragraphs in this guide?
Make use of high-quality photos.
Because fashion is all about aesthetics, make it a practice to incorporate high-quality photographs with your articles.
In an ideal world, your photographs would include looks, photo sessions, selfies, and so on. However, if you’re writing a piece and can’t think of a good way to illustrate it, stock photographs might come in handy. Always offer credit if and when it is required. Unsplash, Pixabay, and Pexels are three excellent websites that offer royalty-free photos.
Create an About and Contact page
Visitors to your website should be able to quickly learn who you are and how to contact you. It is critical to have a well-crafted About Page. Give your followers some background information on who you are, what you are enthusiastic about, why you created a blog, and so on. Your contact details should be freely available as well. After all, you never know when a company might wish to contact you!
Communicate with your community
Your readers are vital. I cannot emphasise on this enough. Always be courteous to your community and reply to any comments people leave on your postings.
Encourage others to follow you on social media and exhibit your social links with pride. Ask questions at the conclusion of each post to initiate a conversation and to include calls to action. This allows you to form a stronger relationship with your readers and, eventually, a devoted community that will encourage and support you along the road.
You will be able to build an excellent blog following in no time if you follow these recommendations and are polite to your viewers. And do you know what happens next? Reaping the benefits!
Network
Networking will assist you in being recognised and creating exposure for your business and content. Find out who the finest fashion bloggers are and try if you can strike up a discussion with one of them (comment on their articles, social media posts).
Browse their fashion blogs and social media profiles to discover what they are doing well and what you can discover about fashion blogging from them.
How to Monetize your Fashion Blog
When your fashion blog begins to get traction, it’s time to capitalise on it. This involves determining how to generate money. Those gleaming shoes don’t grow on trees.
Fashion bloggers may earn a career in a variety of ways through their websites. Depending on your goals, you may get started as soon as your blog is up and running, or you can wait until you have a large enough readership to attract the notice of businesses looking to collaborate for promotions.
To keep things simple, fashion bloggers earn money in four ways: display advertisements, affiliate marketing, brand promotions, and selling items or services.
Here’s a summary of each:
- Google AdSense Display Ads
Advertising networks might assist you in making money from your fashion blog. Even if you’re just getting started, Google AdSense allows you to show adverts on your site.
- Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing allows you to promote things you like and earn a referral commission when your audience buys anything after clicking on your link.
To make money with affiliate marketing, look for stylish goods and businesses that have an affiliate programme. Begin with Amazon affiliates since they offer a plethora of fashion, apparel, and accessory goods that you may promote and get compensated for.
- Start Creating Content on Instagram
Instagram is the most popular social media platform for fashion and style influencers. You can do the same for your fashion blog, so register and start posting with the appropriate hashtags to reach the correct audience.
- Market Branded Content
Invite businesses, fashion startups, agencies, and others to collaborate. Display your Instagram feed and the quantity of your followers on your blog to demonstrate your impact.
- Sell Branded Merchandise
Create some branded merchandise to sell on your fashion blog once you’ve established a sizable readership. To manage the development, printing, and shipment of your t-shirts, mugs, jewellery, and other items, use a print-on-demand service like Printful, TeeSpring, or Gooten.
Conclusion
Summarising the article above by mentioning a few Pros and Cons of starting a fashion blog and creating content on social media handles like Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Tumblr, etc.
PRO: You can obtain free clothing from companies who want you to promote their products.
CON: You might not like the clothing they provide you.
PRO: You don’t need a “real” work because you are paid to snap photos and travel.
CON: Since, you spend all of your time shooting photographs and travelling, you can’t truly have a regular work.
PRO: You are compensated for posting photos on Instagram.
CON: Who has place in their closet for all of those clothes?
PRO: People are interested in what you’re doing, what you’re wearing, and where you’re going.
CON: Is there anything truly private about you?
Impact of Fashion Bloggers and Content Creators/Influencers on the Fashion Coomunity
Fashion brands are realising the power of bloggers and influencers and are utilising them as brand ambassadors. Here’s why this is a win-win situation for everyone:
The Element of Trust
Humans are creatures of habit by nature, and we have been long dependent on our friends and family to help us make decisions. What to dress and where to dine are frequently chosen after reading reviews or relying on word-of-mouth recommendations from friends.
The same is true in the fashion sector, where options abound and navigating them becomes challenging. Customers nowadays rely on bloggers and influencers to assist them make purchase decisions.
The most prevalent reason influencers are trusted is that they are relatable. Any fashion business pushing their product will present it in the best light possible, but a blogger will cover it comprehensively. As a result, consumers are likely to trust the endorser and purchase a product that they recommend.
Reviews are Essential
Choosing what is best in a world of options is not always easy. We frequently rely on the purchasing experiences of others and look for positive evaluations to ensure we are making the proper choice. According to the UK Domain, 95% of individuals aged 18-34 rely on reviews to help them make their decisions.
Of course, a company cannot evaluate itself, and product endorsement is not necessarily genuine. People like British Beauty Blogger Jane Cunningham, who is known for her honest and no-filler evaluations, enter the picture.
Such influencers offer their own experience with a product and a brand, emphasising all of the benefits and drawbacks. The consumer has a clear understanding of what the product is and what to anticipate from it, making it easier for them to make a decision.
A Personal Connection
If a company wants to thrive, it must have a solid relationship with its consumers. Nike understands the importance of excellent customer service and promptly responds to all inquiries. Nonetheless, despite their best efforts, they are unable to bridge the gap between the corporation and the consumer.
While a brand is a physical thing, an influencer is a person with whom people may engage more readily. Bloggers and influencers are open and honest with their audiences, and they frequently have a deep bond with them. Some influencers even create user-generated material in which they include their followers, resulting in the formation of a close-knit community.
Customers like it when someone slowly walks them through a product, describing its applications, going over all of the positive and bad aspects, and even making ideas on how to use it.
Assist with Decision Making
Everything for a company boils down to the client purchasing their goods, and influencers are an excellent tool for increasing sales. They have authority over individuals and may easily influence their purchasing decisions.
This is why, in order to gain a competitive advantage in an overcrowded market, more and more firms are cooperating with influencers.
To read more about Fashion and to get ideas about styling yourself better, visit my official website and follow me on the below mentioned social media handles:
- Instagram – @avantikaginodia
- Pinterest – @avantikaginodia
- Facebook – @StyleUpWithAG
