how to start a profitable fashion blog & vlog

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If you love fashion and you love to talk about fashion, give fashion advice, etc. then becoming a fashion blogger would be a great choice for you.  Not only will you be doing what you love and what you’re passionate about, but you’ll be able to make money doing what you love, which is sort of the dream.  And you can do it all on your own time, making it the perfect side hustle, job for a stay-at-home mom, great for a college student, etc.

But if you’ve never done it before, you may be wondering how to get started.  Here we’ll give you steps on how to do it:

  1. Pick a Name: Your blog, just like any business, will need a name.  You can make it unique to you (such as using your name or a nickname) or you can try to use some good words you think people will search for (such as fashion or any kind of specific fashion you want to talk about) – or the best might be to make it a combination of this.  If you click here you can see if the domain name is available and if it is not, they will give you suggestions for other domain names you can use that is similar to the name you want (like if you wanted “FashionGirl.com” that’s taken but it shows you that “FashionGirlie.com” is not).
  2. Decide Which Platform to Use: Since you are a beginner blogger, you’re going to want to choose a platform to use that’s not too complex or overwhelming for beginners.  This is why I think WordPress would be perfect for you.  WordPress is really ideal for bloggers and I’m a big fan of WordPress, because you can use without any kind of coding or computer science background. We’ve got a non-technical guide to WordPress here.
  3. Decide on a Web Host:  If you want a lot of assistance from your Web Host, and you don’t mind spending more money, then I recommend Kinsta, Flywheel or WP Engine.  Those web hosts will also give you great speed and are great to have when your blog grows and you have a lot of traffic.  But if you want to start off cheap to keep your expenses down at the beginning, then here is a list of cheap web hosts.  You can always start there and then if your traffic grows a lot, you can always switch to another web host later or switch to a larger plan.
  4. Choose a Theme: On WordPress, you pick a “theme” which is basically how your blog is displayed.  It is an awesome way to get an incredibly professional looking website that you control without you having to know anything about coding (for more information about themes & what they are, see our non-technical guide to getting started with WordPress).  Here are some great affordable themes you can buy that will make your fashion blog look really professional, stand out and be memorable:
  5. Start Writing Blog Entries: Of course once you start your blog, you’ll need to start writing content.  Write about what’s important to you, what interests you, etc.  Stay true to yourself and remember that you have a great perspective on fashion so people will be interested in what you have to say.
  6. Start Making Videos: Videos are an important part of a fashion blog business, too, so in addition to writing blog entries, making videos is a great way to get you more of an audience.  Here are some good affordable options for cameras for beginner vloggers.  You can edit your videos using this video editing software.  You can then start a YouTube Channel which is a really important way to grow your following.  You can also use this camera for vlogging, videos for Instagram, Facebook, etc.  One of the first website businesses I ever did really took off after I started adding professional looking videos with a new camera I bought and video editing software.
  7. Start a Pinterest Account: In addition to the social media accounts that are more well known (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) make sure you also have a Pinterest account.  I have personally had a lot more success getting traffic to my blogs and making sales with Pinterest than I have had with Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.  We go into more detail about how to use Pinterest to market your blog here.
  8. Advertise Through Bing Ads: When you’ll starting out you’ll want to advertise to help your blog gain more readers.  A great way to advertise your blog is through Bing Ads.  I’ve had better success with Bing Ads than Google Ads and they have a great deal going where you can get $100 of Bing advertisements for free.  Here are our tips, too, on how to best use Bing Ads to grow your business.
  9. Get An Email List: Once you get people to go on your website and they like what they read, you’re going to want them to keep coming back, and a great way to achieve this is through e-mail advertising.  You can get people to sign up for your email list and then you can send e-mails out letting your readers know about your latest blog entries.  A great way to do this is with Constant Contact.
  10. Get Affiliates & Find Other Ways to Monetize Your Blog: Since you want your blog to make money, this is perhaps the most important step.  It’s also a step that needs to come last, as you’ll need to get your going blog going and have multiple blog entries before you start approaching affiliates and companies you want to work with, but once your blog is established (I would say a minimum of 10 blog entries or videos) then you can start monetizing your blog.  We go over ways you can make money for your blog here and we have a guide for affiliate marketing for beginners here.

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A 10 step plan for starting a fashion blog & making money. Great for anyone wanting to start a business or side hustle that earns extra income. No experience with blogs or running a website necessary!