Whether you are a casual shopper, a fashion aficionado or a brand store owner, chances are you’ve given blogging some thought. The notion of writing online articles and putting your name out there is an exciting and worthwhile prospect to consider. According to published research, 53% of marketing experts claim that their top priority in terms of digital advertisement is blogging.
This means that blogging has a lot of potential for people with the know-how of the fashion industry as a whole. But how do you start a blog successfully and go through the unavoidable growth pains without a dent? Let’s take a look at just that through several tried and tested tips.
- Set Measurable Goals
Blogging is a very complex hobby to dedicate your time to. This makes it easy to give up on the notion of blogging due to the sheer volume of new information and terminology to cope with. For starters, set aside some goals and milestones for your blog to work towards.
Do you want to gain 10k followers in the first month of launching? What about your yearly goals? What fashion niches do you want to cover and expand toward over time? Systems such as SMART can help you identify what is important to you personally so that you can better understand the meaning behind your future blog. Once you know what is that you will write about, you can proceed to the blog itself.
- Choose your Platform
Let’s get technical for a minute and talk about blogging platforms. The website you choose as your host will serve as your CMS, or Content Management System. The most popular CMS on the web is WordPress, which you might have heard of before due to its widespread popularity. Besides that, you can launch your blog using Tumblr, Drupal and an assortment of other CMS websites.
Depending on how tech-savvy you are, you should typically lean towards WordPress since it offers the most flexibility and user-friendly options for new bloggers to use. Coupled with the best editing service on the web in terms of text editing, all of these CMS options can become viable to you over time. For now, however, stick to the one you are most familiar with so that you can focus on the more important aspect of blogging – such as blogging itself.
- Be Original, not a Copy
Originality has become something of a commodity on the internet, despite the open and free nature of the information. It cannot be overstated how important it is for your blog to be original in its topics, tone of voice and the overall style in which you will talk about trending topics.
While you will undoubtedly talk about famous brands, popular clothing or jewelry lines and so forth, you can do that quite well in your own words and point of view. Make sure to borrow what works for your favorite bloggers only in passing – focus on your own thing as much as you can if you want to succeed as a professional fashion blogger.
- Mind your SEO
A bit more about the technicalities of blogging (it won’t hurt, we promise). Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is another term you will undoubtedly come across while blogging. It concerns the general system in which search engines such as Google and Yahoo rank results on their pages. For example, if someone searches for winter shoe suggestions, your site will or will not show up on the first page depending on your SEO.
In order to be in the good graces of SEO, you should familiarize yourself with keyword optimization platforms. Tools such as Google Adwords and SEM Rush are quite intuitive and offer a lot of information on each distinct industry, fashion included. Use these tools handsomely in your blog optimization and your overall traffic will see a spike as a result.
- Share through Social Media
As an up-and-coming blogger, you should do whatever you can to reach a large audience. There’s no better way to do that than through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. All you have to do to get started is to set up dedicated pages on each platform with your blog’s name on it and you will be good to go.
Make sure to share any new blog post, discussion or article that you publish on your main blog through social media pages. This will allow you to be seen by people who might be patrons of fashion but have no idea your blog exists at all.
- Diversify your Content
Even though the first thing that pops into mind when “blogging” is concerned is text, that doesn’t have to be your only type of content. You can just as easily do video reviews of new clothing lines, interview fashion industry experts or retail salespeople among other things.
This will diversify your content drastically, ensuring that your followers have a lot of different things to experience on your website. It will also do wonders for your SEO (there’s that word again) if you have mixed content available for people to see. Don’t constrain yourself to write exclusively – branch out and see which ideas pop into your head that are worth blogging about.
- Communicate with your Followers
Lastly, you need to make time to talk to your audiences as much as possible. Anyone who comments on your content has taken time away from their day to read what you have to say and comment on it. Spark up a conversation at the end of each article you write by asking a question or a response from the reader.
This will allow you to casually start a chain discussion with potential readers who might share similar opinions to your own. It might also attract people who disagree with you and present their own points of view on the matter which is also a great turn of events. Don’t rely on one-sided blogging and call it a day – talk to people who show interest in what you do.
Give it Some Time (Conclusion)
While blogging isn’t backbreaking work by any stretch of the imagination, it still requires a lot of time and energy. Don’t give up on your fashion blog while it’s still in its infancy. Give it several weeks or even months and see how the routine of writing and optimizing content feels like. Instant success can rarely be found on the internet – build your way towards your own little audience and it will find you halfway.
