Advice about Starting & Promoting a Fashion Blog - See Post #1 for Thread Rules

[morenoj]

What I want to do is make a blog for those just getting into fashion, mostly the teen crowd. The more that I think about it, the more my thoughts begin to jumble - and the more I find that my posts are centered around me. There are certain topics I do want to cover, but I guess I'll have to write more in order to find where I am really headed towards. I guess I really haven't found my niche - I just want to start blogging!

Thanks for your advise. I do want to get paid for blogging, but first I want to make sure I like what I'm posting! When you started blogging, did you have any set ideas?

Good general topic. I agree, it is really hard to find a niche. But keep in mind, not all successful blogs have to have a niche - I personally think teen-targeted fashion is a good topic.

When I first started.. gosh.. I had no idea what the heck I was doing. I had no idea what a blog was! seriously. the idea was in my head that i wanted to write about handbags, just reviews. i had no long term goals for it, it was just something for my to do while in school. Luckily my bf was a self-taught genius when it comes to computers and he designed me a website and a management system. Since then I have converted to wordpress which is beyond easy to use.

just to know, how much time do you spend per day on your blog? An hour, a couple of minutes...?

it varies. since i havent hired any writers yet and it's just me, i religiously put something up every day. although if im sick or just not feeling 100% i will wait until the next day. How long? I noticed that most of my time is spent finding something to blog about, formating the image and layout with links. On average 30 minutes a post. Although if I'm playing around in the non-visual section of my site (seo, installing plugins, altering my sites look, etc) then it could take up to a few hours.

 

[diorable]

The only mean comments I get are "anonymous" corrections to my occasional punctuation mistakes or misspellings, which I suppose are good-hearted but still rather tongue-in-cheek at the same time .

 

[PrincessBride]

I know this may be a stupid question, but I am also new to blogging...what is a FeedBurner? Do I need this to get a lot of traffic?

 

[sassybella]

You don't need Feedburner, it's just a blog add on you can use to republish your RSS feed and allows you to keep count of how many people are subscribed to your site via RSS.

It's a handy tool, but most blog publishing tools allow you to customise and etc. I would get it, but it's a little too late now to change over.

Here's an article which might help you understand it a bit better...

http://marshallk.com/how-and-why-to-use-feedburner

 

[fashionkitten7]

When I had my blog, I got comments on most entries but I still noticed a difference in amount of text vs amount of comments..
Honestly, I think that a lot of times when there's a long, thoughtful!, text with good opinions.. People don't bother to comment because there's nothing to add. You can sit by your computer, reading blogs, hmm-ing in agreeing, but you can't really be bothered to put that feeling into words...
At least that's how I am!

That's what I was thinking. Truly meaningful posts may not get as many comments as it just feels that there's nothing else to add and you don't want to just say "Yeah, I agree" or something...

Generally speaking, the amount of visiters per day is a much better indicator of whether the blog is popular or not, than the amount of comments.

 

[fashionkitten7]

Pirelli Calendars is one instance ... they watch us like hawks and let us know whenever a bunch op images pop up here ... we take them all down.

Darn, that's strict.

Just reminds me that I will never understand the motives behind some people's actions.

 

[PrincessBride]

You don't need Feedburner, it's just a blog add on you can use to republish your RSS feed and allows you to keep count of how many people are subscribed to your site via RSS.

It's a handy tool, but most blog publishing tools allow you to customise and etc. I would get it, but it's a little too late now to change over.

Here's an article which might help you understand it a bit better...

http://marshallk.com/how-and-why-to-use-feedburner

Thanks!! I understand it better now!!!

 

[kimair]

sometimes i start working on a post (because i have a good idea for one), and i save it and do some research and come back to it later...
other times i just type it and post it...

 

[Santosuke]

What I want to do is make a blog for those just getting into fashion, mostly the teen crowd. The more that I think about it, the more my thoughts begin to jumble - and the more I find that my posts are centered around me. There are certain topics I do want to cover, but I guess I'll have to write more in order to find where I am really headed towards. I guess I really haven't found my niche - I just want to start blogging!

Thanks for your advise. I do want to get paid for blogging, but first I want to make sure I like what I'm posting! When you started blogging, did you have any set ideas?

My advice is start blogging in Blogger right away. It's free and you can change your blog as many times as you want so you can't go wrong with that. Once you begin blogging you'll see what kind of posts you enjoy doing the most and you'll finally get your own style. When I started I had an idea about what I wanted to do, then over the months it has shaped to be totally different for many reasons. It's kinda like being a musician, you keep getting influenced by different sounds you hear and like until you find your own place in the scene. When you know exactly what you wanna do you can think about getting a bit more serious.
Then is when you buy a .com domain, and I would suggest Typepad for the blogging. Some people have suggested Wordpress but this thread is for beginners and these don't know how to use such a pro software nor have the funds to pay for a webmaster (I assume). In Typepad you pay like $7 a month and it's much better than Blogger if you want your blog to look a bit more professional (when you want it totally pro is when you'll have to go to Wordpress, but you usually think about that when you have many 0s in your traffic report)
Anyway, most important thing to a successful blog: Personal style / unique stuff. It's obvious that every part of fashion is well covered by thousands of blogs, so you just pick the one you like the most and give a big boost of personality to it. If you talk about last Lagerfeld's runway, you better say something new about it cause a million other bloggers have talked about it before you. But it will sell more a picture of you wearing something than 1000 stolen Getty images.

Oh! And best tip I can give you: where we all bloggers learned everything : www.problogger.net

 

[verymoni]

I know in the USA many influent bloggers receive free items, have you ever received something? Some days I received some beauty products and it made me very happy!
It is great when you find out that people actually care about what you have to say

 

[verymoni]

PS: what do I need to do to get stumbled on stumbleupon?
I have an account but do I need to submit my blog or something?

 

[satin chic]

PS: what do I need to do to get stumbled on stumbleupon?
I have an account but do I need to submit my blog or something?

Nope, you don't have to submit your blog. You can, but everyone else who has the StumbleUpon toolbar installed can submit your blog as well.
Your blog has already been submitted, though. Click.

 

[verymoni]

oh thank you! the comments of those people who stumbled my blog brighted up my day )

 

[satin chic]

^ If you mean the comment by Ivoire - that's me, actually.

 

[verymoni]

lol, thanks again

 

[knightley]

This thread has been a big source of help, so I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for all of their contributions. :-* I think I figured out my voice and all of that by honestly reading through here, so I just wanted to say thank you. <3

 

[smashingv]

Santosuke, morenoj, and everyone else: thanks so much! I've learned a lot and I am getting started ASAP!

 

[Little Star]

I have been intending to start a blog for ages. I keep getting bursts of inspiration, but the whole process seemed too overwhelming.
A huge thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread...it got me motivated!
And voila...
http://voicimonsecret.wordpress.com/

Also, as a complete beginning, I found wordpress quite professional and simple to use.

 

[writergal28]

Blog Promotion Suggestions

Not sure if I should be starting a new thread for this or if this should be merged with the fashion blog thread. Anyway, I'm wondering if people here have good suggestions to promote fashion/lifestyle blogs. Other than putting things in one's signature and writing media releases (which I swear to god people the big media people ignore.)

Thanks

 

[Santosuke]

Oh! I had no idea Wordpress was a simple service as Typepad So I take back what I said about it being too professional. I guess when I started it was more pro but they've changed it to make it for beginners as well.
When I have time I'll investigate to see if it'd be good for me...