How to Start a Fashion Blog – Is fashion your passion that you would like to share with others? Are you wondering how you can become a fashion blogger without any technical know-how?
Then it’s time for this post. We’ll explain step-by-step how you can start your own fashion blog.
Table of Contents
How to start a fashion blog
Starting a fashion blog is not difficult at all. With the help of the right guide, you too can soon become a fashion blogger.
Step 1: Find a niche for your fashion blog
In order to generate traffic for your blog as quickly as possible, it makes sense to first focus your fashion blog on a niche topic with which you address a very specific target group. This could be, for example, sportswear, sustainable fashion or even expensive designer fashion.
A niche topic makes it easy for search engines to assign you to a category. This in turn means that your blog will appear higher in the search results for corresponding search queries. This makes it easier for potential readers to find you.
Now you’re probably wondering why you should limit yourself so much in your topic selection for Google & Co., right? After all, you could create a blog with many different styles.
Look at it this way: If someone is looking for a shower cubicle, you will probably recommend a Bauhaus or a plumbing store. But you would never think of recommending the local Asian supermarket, which also sells shower cubicles, to buy a shower cubicle.
This is exactly how search engines work: They show searchers the websites where they are most likely to find what they are looking for. So with a niche topic you will be able to attract visitors to your website much faster. Clear positioning is therefore very important here.
Once you have made a name for yourself as a fashion blogger and many people know you, you will be able to include other styles in your blog.
Identify niche
But which niche topic should you choose?
Only you can probably answer this question. So first ask yourself the following questions:
- Which style suits me best?
- What clothes do I feel comfortable in?
- What do I want to stand for?
Perhaps answering these questions will help you further narrow down your topic and ultimately identify your blog niche.
Step 2: Register a business
An annoying topic that unfortunately has to be mentioned when setting up a blog: you will have to register a business.
For every activity that aims to generate income, a business must be registered in Germany. Unfortunately it doesn’t work without that.
Registering a business must be done at the public order or trade office and can now be done online in many cities and municipalities. The cost of registration is between €25 and €40 processing fee.
When you register a business, you become liable for trade tax. However, this only applies if your turnover exceeds the exemption amount, which is currently €24,500 annually. As long as you don’t have any income of this amount, you don’t have to worry about trade tax. A business registration is therefore initially done for the sake of form.
Step 3: Come up with a name
You have now identified your niche and registered a business. It’s now time to think of a catchy name for your blog.
Even if you should initially concentrate on your niche when creating content, the name of your blog should still be a little broader.
If you are not successful with your niche or want to expand your niche further at a later date, the name of the blog cannot stand in your way. Therefore, choose wisely.
You shouldn’t necessarily call a niche blog about sustainable fashion simplySustainably Clothed. This would mean you would permanently exclude less sustainably produced clothing items. Therefore, look for a more neutral name or simply name your blog after yourself. Such an approach does not limit you in content creation.
But how do you find a name that is suitable for your blog? The following food for thought may help you choose the right name:
The name should
- be uncomplicated and memorable
- be easy to pronounce
- ideally no umlauts (not possible in the domain)
- not already assigned elsewhere
- be available as a domain
- be free on Instagram and Pinterest
Step 4: Decide on hosting
You’ve probably heard of website builders that allow you to create blogs for free. These construction kits are completely sufficient for private website operators or small businesses who only have minimal requirements for a website.
However, if you seriously want to start a fashion blog and earn money with it later, you should already decide on a self-hosted WordPress site at this point.
ATTENTION:There is WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Stay away from WordPress.com and install WordPress.org directly via the hosting provider.
But how do you host a blog yourself?
To host a blog, you first need to choose a host. This is not difficult as the range of hosts available on the market is very similar.
A hosting package with currently costs you just under €3 per month and meets all the requirements necessary for a food blog.
Step 5: Register your domain
After you have decided on a hosting package, you need to specify a domain name.
Most hosting plans offer one to five domain names free for the first year. Annual costs of between €1.99 and €24.99 will only be incurred from the second year after registering the domain.
Your domain name should of course correspond to the name of your blog. If the name with the ending.deis not available, you can also consider other domain endings. But don’t lose sight of the fact that your domain should sound serious and see what the hosting provider offers you.
Step 6: Install WordPress
Once you have set your domain, install WordPress via your hosting provider’s customer profile. This is actually not difficult. Follow the step-by-step instructions provided by your hosting provider. Then you will soon have access to the backend of your WordPress website.
Step 7: Install a suitable theme for your fashion blog
A theme is the user interface of your website. You can use the theme to control a lot of the external appearance of your blog.
In the backend of WordPress (under Design) you can select a number of themes for free, so you won’t incur any costs. The Astra or Kadence themes are highly recommended because they do not limit the loading speed of your website and therefore make your website even more attractive to search engines.
You should stay away from page builders like Divi or Thrive, as they only slow down your website unnecessarily and thus limit user-friendliness.
Step 8: Design a logo and decide on your color
Now it’s time to design your website. In order to brand your website, i.e. to give it recognition value, you should create a logo and decide on the basic color scheme for your website.
Logos can be easily created withCanvaand added to your website using thecustomizer(found under Design).
Step 9: Install necessary plugins
Plugins are extensions that add more functionality to your website.
To start as a fashion blogger, you should first install a security plugin like theAll in One WP SecurityPlugin. Such a plugin protects your website from unwanted attacks from outside and thus offers your data security.
In order to optimize your posts for search engines right from the start, you should also install theYoast SEOplugin . Yoast SEO gives you a feeling for how often you should include your main keyword in your text and warns you if your text becomes too difficult to read.
Since websites have had to indicate the cookies used for a few years now as part of the GDPR, you should also install a cookie banner right from the start. TheBeautiful and responsive Cookie Consentplugin is very suitable for this.
It is impossible to predict at the beginning which additional plugins you will need in the course of your blogging career. Install any plugins you may need whenever you see a need for such an extension.
Step 10: Create legal notice and data protection
Every website needs an imprint and a data protection declaration. You should therefore definitely create these pages first and ideally display them using the widgets in the footer area (can be designed using the customizer).
You can have the texts for the legal notice and your data protection declaration generated via the website .
Step 11: Createan About Me page
In the next step, create an about me page. Introduce yourself to your readers on this page. Tell them a little about yourself. A nice photo of you makes you seem likeable and creates trust.
Also link your About Me page in the footer section of your website.
Step 12: Set your recent posts as your homepage
If you want to become a fashion blogger, you should first set the most recent posts as your homepage. This is possible in the backend of your WordPress site viaSettings.
Once you have produced more content and would like to assign your posts to different categories, you can think about an individual start or blog page later.
Step 13: Plan and create your first content
Now you’ve done it. You set up your blog purely technically. It’s now time to finally devote yourself to your core business: creating content on your blog.
Before you blindly start writing and posting, first look at the posts of well-known fashion bloggers and analyze their posts.
How do these bloggers structure their articles? What information is included? What is the relationship between images and texts? Don’t start writing until you have done an analysis of different blogs.
Step 14: Take attractive photos
Good pictures are the be-all and end-all of every fashion blog. In order to present your outfits perfectly to your readers, you should definitely take attractive pictures.
Step 15: Start with social media marketing
Instagram is ideal for driving traffic to your blog. Ultimately, social media platforms are becoming increasingly important for entrepreneurs and the self-employed. Instagram offers you many advantages: You can quickly gain reach, shape the perception of your blog and interact with your community. If you regularly post photos of attractive outfits, your followers will regularly visit your blog.
When building a community on Instagram, visibility is everything. You can gain the trust of your followers in the long term simply through your visibility and the correct approach to your target group. This means that you should post stories and reals here regularly. Through stories and reals like these, your community will get to know and love you and your style.
Therefore, be sure to speak into the camera and to your community. Try to keep the story as full as possible so that your community always sees your story first.
Do you need ideas on this? The following fashion bloggers are already successful. Get inspired by their accounts.
Pinterest is THE visual search engine and should therefore be taken into account by you as a fashion blogger when building traffic.
To use Pinterest professionally, create a business account. Then, useCanvato prepare photos you took while working on your blog as Pins. These pins then need to be pinned to suitable boards for your business profile on Pinterest. Link each pin to the corresponding blog post and write catchy titles and descriptions.
Remember that your goal with Pinterest is to build traffic and therefore only pin your pins to your boards. Pins from other accounts have no place on your business profile.
As with everything else, perseverance plays a big role on Pinterest. To build traffic in the long term, it makes more sense to consistently post three to four pins throughout the day than to only publish 20 pins a day occasionally.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you make money with a fashion blog?
You can definitely make money with a fashion blog. This is possible via so-called affiliate marketing and advertising networks.
Affiliate marketing is recommendation marketing. With affiliate marketing, you earn money through product recommendations that you include on your blog.
If you want to start affiliate marketing, find out which clothing labels and mail order companies offer affiliate programs and sign up for these programs. If your application as an affiliate partner is accepted, the companies usually give you access to their partner platform. These platforms often contain advertising material that can be integrated into your website, as well as so-called affiliate links with which you can include product recommendations in your posts.
Once you have generated enough traffic on your blog, you can also think about advertising networks. Ad networks likeEzoiccan serve ads on your blog. Ad networks usually pay per view (pay-per-view). The more visitors see your amounts and therefore the integrated advertisements, the more money you earn from them.
How to Become a Fashion Blogger on Instagram?
Would you like to forego building a self-hosted WordPress site? Then start your fashion blog directly on Instagram. After all, Instagram offers you many advantages: you can quickly gain reach, shape the perception of your brand and interact with your community.
When building a community on Instagram, visibility is the most important thing. You can gain the trust of your followers simply through your visibility and the correct approach to your target group. You should regularly post stories and real stories about the preparation of your dishes here. Through stories and reals like these, your community will get to know and love you and your recipes.
Therefore, be sure to speak into the camera and to your community. Try to keep the story as full as possible so that your community always sees your story first. This way you will always remain present in your community and will be able to land many collaborations in the long term.