If you know your culottes from your skorts, understand the term ‘color blocking,’ and can translate the acronym OOTD into an actual sentence, then you are probably pretty big into your fashion. You might spend your days checking out fashion inspiration sites to make sure you are up to date with all the latest trends. Perhaps you are always the first out of all your friends to wear the most fashion-forward outfits and move onto the next before everyone else has even had a chance to catch up.
If your closet is brimming with clothes, your drawers bursting with accessories and every inch of available space in your home is another place to put shoes, then it’s clear that fashion is truly your passion.
So Why Not Try To Make Some Money Out Of It?
Writing about fashion is a great way to share all your fantastic knowledge about the latest trends, and must-have looks with those who need a little style guidance. It’s super easy to set up a blog. By then turning it into a fashion hub, a place where people can come to learn, find inspiration, and swoon over your super fresh looks, you could make some serious money from it too.
For lots of people, however, this can feel daunting. You might spend all your time drooling over this season’s amazing accessories and to-die-for dresses. However, the idea of putting all that knowledge and dedication out there lets that little bit of self-doubt creep in and makes you wonder if you have got what it takes.
The thing is, if you are already interested in fashion, and you enjoy writing about it, then what have you got to lose? Fashion bloggers who get a good social media following can become social influencers. If that happens, you can make a seriously lucrative career from something you already have lots of knowledge about – what’s not to love about that?
So, if you are up for the challenge, you need to follow the tips below to get you started and turn your fashion blog into an exciting, well-paid career.
Do Your Research
The best place to start is to take stock of the current situation. Look at the social media accounts of the most prominent fashion bloggers and influencers out there. See if there are any common themes you can take from those who are already successful in the field to apply to your own blog. Also, ask yourself, are there any gaps in the market, and what could you bring to the table that would make your blog unique and worth attention?
Some of the top fashion blogs you can check out for inspiration include:
- NYC Bambi (Christie Tyler)
- We Wore What – (Danielle Bernstein)
- Wait, You Need This – (Janelle Lloyd)
- Fishnets and Rainbows (Rita Saraqi)
- Hello Fashion – (Christine Andrew)
These, of course, are examples of some of the best (and most highly paid) fashion bloggers in the world. There are a thousand more examples of women and men like these, and plenty who don’t earn quite as much but are still influential enough to make a decent living from their love of fashion.
One thing to pay attention to when researching your competitors is not just the fashion they use, but their style of writing. Keep an eye on what they write about, how they’ve set up their website, and the design of their site too. Make a note of how frequently they post, how they interact with others on social media, and how often they post ‘sponsored’ posts over ones they write off their own backs.
What is obvious that these successful bloggers have in common is a unique voice, a distinctive style and an engaging way of writing that demonstrates they know their audience and care about delivering content that will excite and engage them.
Find Your Niche
If you want to monetize your blog, you’ll need to get people reading it – lots of people. There are two ways to go about this. Either write better, more exciting, more valuable content than those established fashion bloggers out there. Alternatively, find a niche that will appeal to a specific group of people that you can then target. If, for example, you are mad about 60’s fashion, or you have an undying love for vintage jeans, or you know that you are the ultimate authority on how to clash colors – use this as your theme. Then go out and find people who are interested, and entice them over.
Optimize Your Site
To attract new readers to your blog, you need to understand how to get noticed. To do this, you need to learn about SEO. You can optimize your site by providing valuable content, by encouraging more people to visit your site, getting backlinks from other influential websites, and paying attention to your keywords. It is also essential that your website is error-free and loads quickly. You also need to track user engagement to understand what works well and what doesn’t.
Monetize Your Site
Once you are up and running and producing brilliant fashion content for your readers, you can then begin to monetize your site. There are several ways of doing this, including:
Display Ads Using Google AdSense
Google AdSense enables you to display relevant ads on your website and make money from your blog. This is a great place to begin when you are just starting out.
Affiliate Marketing
Recommend products from other brands that you love. Make videos featuring certain products or write posts about them. Doing this means you can get a referral commission if a reader then goes on to buy that product through the link you’ve provided.
Brand Promotion
When you are becoming more successful, brands may reach out to you to ask if you will feature their products in your posts. However, you don’t have to wait for them to do so. If you have a good following and feel you are becoming influential, get in touch with brands you think would work well in your blog and see if you can work with them.
So there you have it. If you eat, sleep and breathe everything fashion-related isn’t it time to turn your much-loved hobby into something more lucrative? Follow the tips above to get you started, and you could be well on your way to creating an inspirational fashion hub, and making lots of money while you’re at it.