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How to Start a Fashion Blog

Ready to find out where your fashion blog could take you?


Fashion blogging is one of the most creative, glamorous and fun ways to communicate your sartorial passion. If styling, trends and all things fashion get your pulse racing, then maybe it’s time to start your own fashion blog!


Transforming your hobby into a bustling fashion blog (supported by some sleek social media) can provide endless entertainment and satisfaction.

At the very least, you’ll learn new skills or make new friends. Catch a lucky break and you could even bag yourself some swag, create an income stream and maybe even become Instagram famous!


Ready to find out where your fashion blog could take you? Button up and let's go.

How to Start a Fashion Blog: Help Your Blog Stand Out

This is the most important thing you need to know about starting a fashion blog, so we’ll say it first.


Your fashion blog must stand out.


Fashion blogging is saturated. By all means, start a blog, but if you want to make an impact, you need to understand that standing out is the key to success. Content needs to be original and fresh. Your fashion blogging voice needs to be unique--and where applicable a bit outside-the-box, and of course your visuals have to be stunning. This is fashion we’re talking about after all. You have to put your personal stamp on that blog and still make it meaningful to the potential hordes of readers out there.

So, how exactly does a fashion blog stand out?


First up, your blog needs to be 100% solid, actionable content - no fluff and no filler. Every single post you put out there should be strong, informative, and on-brand.


Branding is everything, and your blog brand needs to be strong. It’s crucial that your readers have a distinct, recognizable brand to relate to.

Once you start blogging, post regularly. It keeps you front and centre of your audience’s mind and means you always have material for social media. It’s also a major boost for SEO - Google loves fresh content. Finally, be sneaky when you’re looking for keywords. If you manage to unearth some hidden SEO gold, your blog could be sky-rocketed to the big time.


So, without further ado, let’s dive into the best way to make a stylish, memorable, and above all, unique fashion blog.

Begin Blogging by Picking a fashion Blog Area

There are lots of ways you can divide the fashion pie when you’re looking for a niche, but starting with fashion areas is a good place to begin. Chances are, your first idea will be for a womenswear blog - sure, it makes sense, but it’s a very crowded market.


Instead, if it fits with your goals, how about opting for menswear, kidswear, or you could even focus on specific fashion items, like knitwear, shoes, or jewellery?

Narrow Your Fashion Blog Niche Down by Picking an Angle

For example, a blog about knitted streetwear would be almost impossible (but hilarious!), while women’s streetwear might actually provide some viable opportunities. Some other angles that you might consider are a fashion-related news blog, a blog following a single designer or brand, a body confidence take on fashion, or even a fashion blog with a sense of humour.

Now Refine by Style

Another way you might be able to filter and assess ideas is by thinking along the lines of style. Once you’ve picked a general fashion type, you can narrow down by style or occasion - for example, high-end brands, high-street brands, formalwear, activewear, or even boho fashion.

Your Fashion Blog’s Brand Identity - What’s in a Name?

Once you’ve decided what kind of fashion you’ll focus on, you have another big decision ahead of you - your branding. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that formal branding processes are just for big companies. Your brand image is what will set you apart from other blogs, help you stand out online, and simply allow people to choose your blog rather than the next one time and time again. And in many ways it all begins with your blog name. When you start a fashion blog, you want to spend some real time coming up with a clever name for that blog. Once you know what area you want to blog in, what type of fashion you want to focus on and what style you intend to highlight, then you have a better feel for what your personal fashion blog’s name could potentially be.


How do you come up with the perfect name for your fashion blog? This may not be as easy as it seems. First off, think about your audience. Who are you writing for? What type of name might draw in more readers and thereby increase that audience size? Think about your specific niche and research what competing fashion bloggers are using for blog names. You could also choose a name that centers on a certain fashion theme. There are websites out there that help those looking to start a fashion blog generate potential names as well. You don’t have to go crazy and spend days trying to title your website and/or blog, but keep in mind, it is an important piece of the overall branding puzzle.


Branding has many aspects to it beyond just the fashion blog name; at this early stage you need to also examine more visual things like:


Typography

  • The typography, or the font, you use on your fashion blog is one of the easier things to decide. It needs to fulfil a few basic requirements (is it legible, even when very small or very big?; is it in line with the ‘feel’ of your blog?; does it look good on all the platforms you’re planning on using?) but beyond this, you can simply pick what you like.
  • Brands usually have 1-2 fonts that they use in different situations. Any more will dilute the brand message. If you’re using only 1 font, make sure that it is flexible enough to work well in a variety of different scenarios.


Colours

  • Picking colours for your blog is a fun process. There is a field of investigation called colour theory which places a lot of significance on various colours, but at this early stage, a basic understanding will be fine. As someone interested in fashion, you should have a good eye for colour and therefore you will probably find this part easy.


General branding

  • Even a small blog will need a few items of general branding, like a unique fashion logo, favicon, social media profile pictures, email signature, or business cards. It’s important to get this right (and accurate) every time. If you create terrible brand collateral and then change it up every time you use it, it will be impossible for people to get a sense of your brand identity. Make a decision (perhaps get professional help), make a note of the specifications you’ve made, and use them every single time your brand appears online.


Photos and videos

  • As a fashion blogger, you’re going to make huge use of photos and videos. We talk a little bit about the photos you’ll be taking for your blog below, but don’t forget about all of the other photos and videos you’ll use around your website.
  • Some of these you’ll make yourself, some will be press material provided by the brands you love, and others will be photos you download. Since you’re using media from so many sources, it will be important to take care to ensure that everything is in line with your brand colours and style and meets certain standards in terms of professionalism. If you’re no graphic designer, don’t worry.
  • These days there are hundreds of services that will help you create impressive visual content yourself.
  • Another photo tip - make sure no one photo or video is taking up a lot of room on your website. Huge media files are hard to edit, slow your blog down, and don’t do well in terms of SEO. Check file sizes by looking under file ‘information’ or ‘properties’ on your computer. Anything bigger than 100KB is too big unless it's a large image that is supposed to take up a great deal of the page. In that case, make sure it's no larger than 500KB. If your image ever migrates into MB or GB, it is much too big. If this happens, look for a tool or other ways to reduce the file size.


Publishing Your Best Blog Content: Set Up is Key

All bloggers need to think about how best to publish their content but you, as a fashion blogger, really have to put some serious effort into the question. The visual aspect of the posts you publish is crucial - possibly even more important than the writing that will accompany them. Where are you going to get these pictures? By and large, you have 4 options:


Model the clothes yourself

  • Modelling the clothes yourself (which really ranges from proper home photography studios to selfies on Instagram) is the first thing that comes to mind and it’s worked well for many bloggers. Your brand and the type of clothes you feature will have a big impact on how the finished blog post looks.


Take photos from retailers and link to them

  • You may not want or be able to model the clothes you feature. Many retailers have nice, clear product photos online and if you link back to where you can purchase them, they shouldn’t mind if you borrow them for your blog.


Flat-lays of outfits and clothes

  • A good flat-lay is an art, and don’t underestimate how hard it is to get right. It can be a catching visual addition to your blog though, so you should read up on it and get practising now.


Dress forms and Mannequins

  • Another thing you might do is to get a mannequin or dress form. Often used by resellers to help them take more dynamic photos of outfits they’re trying to sell, these kinds of props could really help those ensembles pop! When people visit your website, you want that audience to get as true to life an experience as they can of what you’re blogging about. So if you can’t afford a model or don’t want to model the clothes yourself, this could be the way to go.


Paid models

  • There are very few situations in which paying models to display the outfits you feature is going to be the best option, but there will be some moments where it makes perfect sense. These paid models can either be your friends or bona fide professionals, but bear in mind that the latter doesn’t come cheap. If your blog is a business venture, however, it might be worth the investment.
  • No matter which way you approach this question, bear in mind that a blog with only one style of photo (even if they’re selfies in various outfits and locations), can get a bit boring. The most memorable blogs tend to use a mixture of visual approaches, and you should consider doing the same.


Next Step, Think about Tone of Voice and Your Fashion Blog

Picking a tone of voice for your fashion website is going to be a balancing act. If your blog was for a business, picking a tone is something that your marketing team would invest a lot of time and energy in. There are extensive online guides for this, and it’s very closely linked with the overall branding process.


As a blogger, however, it might not be necessary to put in so much effort. Like almost everything else, it’s a balance between how much work is needed to get the results you want and how important those results are to your overall career, finances, or personal life.

If you’re planning on possibly leveraging the blog or monetising it at a later stage, you should put a medium amount of effort in. If you’re not, you should be ok picking a tone that comes naturally and making an effort to use it whenever you write or publish.


A medium amount of effort? Well, you need to spend some time thinking about and researching your ideal reader. Find out how other blogs and businesses talk to them and make some decisions about what works and what doesn’t.

Pick out some labels that apply to the tone you favour, and see if certain labels fit certain occasions better than others (the tone of blog posts vs. the tone of messages on your website, for example). When you’ve made a decision, make a note of it, and refer back to it when writing in future.

Monetizing Your Fashion Blog

Many bloggers are fascinated and attracted by the prospect of monetizing their blog, but are unsure about how to transform their fashion blog into a money-making machine. There are a few ways you can approach this, but all are based on an understanding that you have plenty of blog readers and visitors stopping by your website.


Until you have a loyal readership, irresistible posts, and a strong following on social media, any tips designed to monetize won’t be as effective as you might like.


Once you’ve managed to build a following and have a regular flow of readers, the main ways people make money from their blogs are the following:


Selling services

  • Pretty self-explanatory - if you can sell a service via your website, it will help bring in another income stream. Think writing, consulting, mentoring, or teaching.


Selling products

  • Again, an obvious one. If you can make products related to your blog (clothes, crafts, plans, clothes accessories), you may be able to sell them to your readers.


Affiliate advertising

  • Affiliate advertising is hands-off and one of the easiest ways to make money from your blog. Every time you mention a product in a blog post, you use a special link that allows you to earn a tiny percentage of the sale price if a reader decides to click through and buy.
  • Obviously, profits will be low if you only have a handful of readers, but if you manage to bump up those visitor numbers (and they’re interested in buying what you’re talking about), you might be surprised at the income hosting these links can bring in.


Advertising

  • Advertising is another way that beginners like to make some extra cash. In this instance, you join an ad network and are paid a small amount of money to allow other brands to host their ads on your website.
  • It’s not something to take lightly - ads can really ruin the look of a blog - and you should pay attention that the ads that appear on your blog are in line with your brand values. If you do it right, however (and ensure you have lots of traffic), advertising can bring in a pretty penny.


Brand collaborations

  • Finally, a quick word about brand initiatives or collaborations. Many of your favorite fashion brands will seek out bloggers and social media accounts that have lots of faithful fans and strong reader numbers and involve them in their marketing campaigns.
  • It’s an area that has gotten lots of attention in recent years, and is often described as ‘influencer marketing’. You often have to be quite well known to make a significant amount of money from it, but even smaller bloggers can get in on some of the action with free clothes, trips, or events. Brands are slowly turning towards ‘micro-influencers’ (smaller influencers who have a more engaged audience) to get more bang for their buck.


Tap into the Community of Bloggers

As you probably noticed, many of our points about monetizing and promotion have a disclaimer attached - ‘if you have decent traffic stats…’. It’s true - many of the more commercial benefits of having a great fashion blog are linked to the number of people who actually read that blog, which may or may not be related to how good that blog actually is!


So, apart from ensuring your blog is as good as it can possibly be from a technical and creative point of view, what’s the secret sauce that will help make it as popular as humanly possible?

One key step is to really make sure you are a fully paid up member of your ‘tribe’. That’s the community of other bloggers, influencers, and people on social media that share your interests and are likely to read (and, crucially, promote) your blog.


This shouldn’t be hard - after all, your tribe are people who love the same things that you do, and who want to connect with people like….you! Even so, there are a few ways you can speed up the process.

Instagram

Instagram’s a great social network for bloggers. Being interested in fashion, you’re likely to already have an account and now is definitely the time to decide your strategy and start to use it (and interact with other users) in earnest.


Spy

To know what goes down well in the world of fashion blogs, spying on other bloggers’ work (also known as professional reconnaissance) will give you a huge insight. Find out who the top bloggers are, what they do, and how they do it. Don’t copy wholesale, but take inspiration and run with ideas where you find them.

Along the same lines, leave helpful, interesting, or question-based comments on the blogs you most want to make friends with and hopefully they’ll do the same at a later date.


Share their content

Begin to engender warm fuzzies by sharing great content when you see it. It’s the blogging equivalent of offering someone a cup of tea when you go to make your own and hopefully the favour will be repaid later down the line.

Start or Join Discussions

Anywhere you see a discussion starting among your peers or target, throw your hat into the ring and join in. Make insightful, kind, and helpful comments, share your knowledge, or just try to make friends. Tread carefully and you could end up really boosting visitor numbers.

Focus on Your Audience

As we’re nearing the end of our article, we want to give you some advice - or maybe it’s a warning. Either way, it’s worth giving it a thought.


Many blogs, especially in the area of fashion, pick a topic of “me, me, me”. Now, there are lots of very successful blogs that are pretty much based entirely on their author and her clothes, but there are also many, many more blogs that you’ve never heard of that tried the same approach, but failed. When it comes to how to start a fashion blog, the key is going to be to “put others first.” That is to say, what are some of your audience’s main interests? What kinds of solutions could you provide to problems they may be encountering?


Instead, try to come at blogging from the point of view of the audience, rather than you. You can do this by being helpful and trying to provide solutions to their most vexing problems, You can also sprinkle your blog with useful and informative evergreen content, and you can survey your competitors to see what they’re missing that you might be able to capitalize on.


Remember - really great content is content that your reader thinks is really great, and not what you think is really great! So again, we can’t stress this enough, when asking “how to start a fashion blog,” don't just think in terms of the immediate scope of your own interests and likes, think about what potential readers like, what they want, and what will keep them coming back to your website.

One Step Closer to Becoming a Fashion Blog Superstar...

If there’s a fashion blog inside you just waiting to be let out into the world, we hope this post has provided some inspiration and a starting point. Even though it can take time and effort to get a new fashion blog to stick, if you’ve got a unique take on fashion, an eye for design, and a great personality, there’s no reason your blog can’t be the next one to rise to the top. You do you, boo!


Got a fashion blog we should take a look at? Let us know at @getdesignwizard.