Do you have a passion for fashion?
Why not turn it into a way to make good money with a blog? Over the years, many people have turned their interests into money-making content on the Internet. The best part is that it doesn’t take a lot to get started today.
The Internet is full of websites that cover all kinds of interests. Many of them bring in enough money so the owners can quit regular full-time jobs. There’s no reason why you can’t have the same success. It just depends on how much time you really want to put into the blog.
Below is a 6-step guide showing you how to start a fashion blog that has the potential to make all of your dreams come true. All it takes is putting in the effort to create an amazing site that people will want to visit.
It all begins with an idea.
Step 1: Brainstorming an Idea
First, you’ll want to come up with a good plan for your blog. You want to cover fashion, but you also want it to be unique when compared to other websites. The more you stand out, the more likely you’ll generate traffic.
To keep your site relevant, you will need to focus on current trends. As you know, fashion can change rather quickly. Keeping an eye on how these evolve will make sure you’re offering the best information possible. Using tools like Google Trends may be of great assistance. It’ll also give you ideas about what people are looking for right now.
Having an idea will also play a part into creating a domain name. This is the address visitors will use when accessing your site. For instance, do you plan on covering all forms of fashion or just shoes? If you pick the latter, then a domain name about footwear would be more memorable.
Being Relevant to Your Niche
The domain name should be something that attracts visitors but tells about the blog’s topic. For example, a site named, “JensFootEmporium.com” sums up that someone named “Jen” features something about feet. By the way, something similar to this could also be a great name if you decide to add eCommerce to the blog at a later date.
Some site owners will include the use of hyphens to clarify the topic. So, the above example would read, “jens-foot-emporium.com.” This process is more of a cosmetic change that may affect how visitors perceive the site in things like search engines or social media.
Keeping it Short and Easy to Type
When choosing a domain, you also want to keep it short and to the point. Domains with ultra-long names are more difficult to type and too much can go wrong such as misspellings. Besides, you want the domain to fit should you decide to market the website.
Short site names are also much easier to remember. You wouldn’t use, “themostpopularsearchengineintheworld.com” when something as simple as, “google.com” will work.
Think about it. How many websites do you visit on a regular basis that has more than 15 characters in the title?
Step 2: Choosing a Web Hosting Plan
A web hosting provider is where your blog’s content will live and be stored on servers where it will become available to the Internet when accessed via a domain name. Choosing a fast & reliable web hosting provider is critical to your success as it impacts your overall ability to receive traffic from the search engines.
At GreenGeeks, we understand how vital the blog is to you in today’s digital world. This is why we offer some of the most competitive hosting on the Internet.
By starting a blog with GreenGeeks, you’ll receive:
- Free Custom Domain Name
- Fast Page Loads
- Marketing tools to help your fashion blog succeed
- Reliable up-time service at 99.9%
- Quick install of WordPress
- Excellent pro-active blog security
- 24/7 Expert support by chat, email or phone
- Servers optimized specifically for WordPress and blogging
- A 30-day money-back guarantee
This is just a handful of the perks by using GreenGeeks to support your website.
Not only is GreenGeeks a top-performing web host, but we’ve also won numerous awards for our services and have been featured in Inc’s 5000 Fastest Growing Companies in America every year since 2013. You can feel confident knowing that GreenGeeks has your back and can be a critical partner to your fashion blogging success.
Another thing… when you choose to start your fashion blog with GreenGeeks, you’re actually helping the environment. We replace three times the energy to power your blog with renewable energy making your blog carbon-reducing!
Step 3: Using WordPress to Drive Your Blog
When it comes to blogging, WordPress is one of the most popular platforms on the Internet. In fact, WordPress accounts for nearly 60 percent of the market share for websites created with a content management system. It’s also free.
Content management systems, or CMS, were created to make setting up a website easier for the common person. Instead of requiring HTML or PHP knowledge, these systems are essentially plug-and-play. This means your fashion blog can be up and running in no time at all.
What makes this system so popular is its ease of use and versatility when it comes to customizing. With WordPress, you get:
- A coding-free environment. You don’t need to know how to program a website to use it.
- Access to more than 35,000 plugins to boost your website. From security to the comment section, everything is covered.
- Access to a wide variety of themes. Developers are constantly creating new looks for virtually any purpose you can think of.
- A simple, yet effective, word editor to help you create amazing content.
Installing WordPress is easy when you use GreenGeeks to host your site. It’s an automated process that only takes a few moments of your time. Afterward, you would have access to one of the most popular blogging platforms to start creating your fashion-based material.
Since a lot of the processes in WordPress are automated, you can spend more time worrying about content and marketing instead of regular maintenance. In fact, you may even find plugins or other tools that can automate some of your marketing as well.
Step 4: Excellent Plugins to Consider
Once you setup the hosting plan and install WordPress, it’s a good idea to find a few plugins that can help you. As I mentioned earlier, plugins add more functionality to WordPress based on your needs. Many of them will help search engine optimization, security and content development.
Here are a few that might interest you when you begin creating a fashion blog.
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is an excellent system to use in WordPress. Not only will it help you get things organized for search engine optimization, but it will also teach you how to write better content. This is because the plugin will analyze your material in real time and give you suggestions about how to fix it.
TinyMCE Advanced
While the text editor in WordPress is useful, adding TinyMCE Advanced will give you a lot more tools. It adds an area where you can drag-and-drop functions and add tool bars without trouble. Essentially, it gives the text editor more of a word-processor feel like you would find in programs like Microsoft Word.
W3 Total Cache
As speed is an important aspect to being seen in search engines, W3 Total Cache is a great plugin to add. This gives you the ability to improve the speed of your fashion blog by creating a cache the visitor uses. This cuts down on loading time because the resources are already available. Since a fashion blog might be showing a lot of images, this is quite valuable.
Product Review
When reviewing fashion of any kind, visitors can be further engaged when you add a rating system. Product Review delivers a great platform to offer pros and cons, user voting and even add affiliate buttons for items you’re selling for other people or businesses. It’s easy to use and the rich snippet feature will help your site get noticed on search engines.
Jetpack
Jetpack comes with many installations of WordPress. It’s a plugin that has more than 30 modules to give the website additional features. Things like social sharing buttons, image galleries and proofreading can be a boon to any fashion blog. While some features require a free WordPress.com account, you can still use most of the modules without one.
Step 5: Adding Ways to Make Money
After getting your site ready for content, it’s time to monetize your blog. This can be done in several ways, and some of the best methods are automated. This means all you have to do is create content and your site will continuously make money.
Using Ad Sharing Networks
Ad networks, like Google Adsense, are perhaps the easiest methods to deploy on a website. You’ve probably noticed other websites with advertisements on them from Google or InfoLinks. Each time someone clicks on those ads, the website owner is paid. In fact, some ads will pay you for simply showing them on your site.
To use these networks, simply paste the code they give you into your website. That’s it. Of course, you’ll want to spend time finding the perfect place to put the ads to make the most money. For instance, a lot of WordPress users will add the advertisement to the sidebar so people will see it no matter what page they are on.
Using Affiliate Networks
Affiliated networks allow bloggers to earn a bit of money by referrals or purchases. When someone clicks on the advertisement to visit a company’s website and buys something, you’ll earn a commission.
When you build a fashion blog, it wouldn’t take much to add a clothing company or other trending product to the site from affiliate programs to tempt potential consumers. These banners or links can be placed in content, headers or in the sidebar. It all depends on what location is most effective for you.
Step 6: Promoting Your Blog
Promoting your website is a constant practice. However, it doesn’t have to be seen as a mundane chore. In reality, there are a number of ways you can promote the site without spending a great deal of money. Some of the most effective methods are actually free.
Social Profile Pages
Don’t use your personal social media profiles to power your blog. You want to give a professional appearance, and sharing your personal profiles will take away from that experience. Sites like Facebook will give you pages for free specifically to promote your fashion blog.
Connect with Fashion Groups
There are all kinds of groups on social media. To promote your blog, join those that are centered around fashion. Facebook and Google+ both have platforms for groups, and it may help build a network of followers and fans.
Sharing Buttons on Posts
When creating content, don’t forget to add social media buttons to your posts. This is when above plugins like Jetpack can be of great help. However, there are plenty of plugins to choose from that will let you add social connections to your posts automatically.
Blog Submission Sites
There are many submission sites on the Internet that will share your content with the world. Many of them will only require a link back to their website from a graphic button you can place anywhere.
Success is Determined by Effort
Effort is a key part of success for anything in life. While these six steps can help you get started, it will be up to your own drive to make the most out of a fashion blog. The more work you put into the process, the better off you’ll be. Have fun when you start a fashion blog, and add you’re own flare to the experience. You never know when that one special blog post will turn viral.