Today's post is all about DIY; specifically: doing a fashion blog yourself. I wouldn't say I have the creds to be called an expert on blogging, however, I have quite a bit of blogging and other, relevant, experience under my belt, and I'm sure you'll find what I've got to say useful.
First up: you've got to ask yourself: is this what I want to do, and why do I want to do it? The answer to that question is similar to some old advice about speaking in public: just pretend everybody in the audience is naked. The exception in this case, is that you'll probably have to imagine, yourself, naked - literally. Paradoxically, there's quite a bit of nudity in fashion, though it may not need be that way. More about that in just a wee bit.
Now, you've decided you want to do a fashion blog, what's it going to be about? Well, there are so many topics to choose from, and here at Naomi's Fashionable World, we, err rather I, don't focus on a singular type of fashion. Which, frankly, might be a case of over extension. Here are some of the things I've posted about:
Beauty
I did a post about various online virtual makeup programs.
Purses and Bags
Purses and bags, are, of course, some of the most popular subjects for fashion blog posts. Heck, some blogs are about just purses and bags!
Boots
I bought some new boots, got a pair for Chanukah, and did posts about them. Along with shoes, boots must be giving purses and bags a run for their money in terms of number of blog posts.
What I got for Chanukah and Christmas (sounds conflicting, it's a long story)
Basically, just wrote about, and added photos, of the fashion oriented gifts I received from friends and family, and activities surrounding said holidays.
Car Girls
A hardly recognized sub species of fashion, that, what a coincidence! I had a job doing:
One common thread running through my blog is my own personal taste and what I can afford. Long ago, well, a couple years, I learned that what I desired might not fit into my purse, so I had to make compromises. One thing I did not compromise on, is, that I write about what interests me, not about what's currently hot. It's not always the best plan for success, if success is measured in terms of followers, reblogs, comments, those sorts of things.
So. I bet by now you've got some ideas for what your blog is going to be about, and, since you've always wanted your own blog, you had some ideas from the get go. The next step is: how do I get my words out, hmm, that sounds funny, how do you get what you've got to say, to other people. That's the whole point of blogging, am I not correct? To share your thoughts with others? Maybe you've got a couple thousand followers on some social media platform and you figure, well, I'll just link up my new blog with that platform(s) and shebang! Instant success. Yes, that would be nice, and I'm sure your followers will want to hear what you've got to say. One thing: will you be adding something new? If things start getting repetitive (read: stale) things might turn around and you could actually lose followers. Maybe you figure, well, I'll bring my already established followers over, one follower leads to another, and the whole thing will just snowball. That could work. However, the real key to building a large audience is a continual stream of new visitors every day. The way to get that is, search engines. People are more likely to hit up the blogs on the top of a search engine list, than those at the bottom. Getting to the top of that list, much less even on it, doesn't completely involve key words, phrases or any of that jazz, it's because of advertising. Just open a search engine, any search engine, and search for something, anything. What you're going to find at the top of the list has, 9 out of 10 times, an advertisement for itself right next to it! For the other 1 out of 10 times, it's just sheer dumb luck: whoever is curating the list has decided that's the way it's going to be, not much you can do about that.
So, we've got the traditional methods of building an audience down pat, now, here's a new wrinkle: a sub net. That's the audience building model I'm using. I bet you're wondering: what the heck is a sub net? Well, it's pretty much a miniature internet, or an internet, inside, the internet. I've already written about followers and linking them to a new blog, and most social media websites have means to link themselves to another website. A sub net is a wee bit like that. What makes a sub net a sub net is the linking itself: most social media platforms link only one way, and sort of branch out. So, what happens is some of your stuff gets isolated from the rest of the stuff. In a sub net, more links, not necessarily kosher to the website, and, at the same time not nefarious, are added to your contributions, plus, you can link up with as many other bloggers as you like, or, there needn't be any links at all! The no links model is what I, personally, am following. You may have noticed, the large number of Polyvore posts I have here. Well, there's no Polyvore visitor usable link from there to here. Instead, I'm hoping that what I've got on Polyvore will pique someone's interest and they'll try and look me up. The benefits from that are two fold: 1) I'm being searched for on a search engine, so I've become a search listing (sounds a little dystopian, but that's the way it is) 2) If they find where else I'm active, maybe they'll visit those too, Kaching! The key word to all of this is, well, my name: I gave out a hint on how to find me, and I've kept that identifier consistent throughout my blogs. Conversely, if they like my Polyvore stuff here, maybe some one will want to check me out on Polyvore. Besides here and Polyvore, I am on many other websites as well. "Which ones Naomi?" you ask? Well, psst, psst, kaching, you'll just have to look for them.
So. "How's this subnet business been working out for you?" That's your question, right? Pretty well, I've got to say, I think a darn sight better than the usual suspects. One prob, and it's a biggie, my Polyvore stuff is swamping my other Blogger stuff! So, I've got the ole duplicate problem going on here, except, as a fashionista, I'm not going to flex on it.
Speaking of content problems, now that we've solved, or at least gotten a grasp on, building an audience, what's your environment going to be like when they get to their destination? First off, if you want to keep people coming back, you don't want to try to alienate anyone. Turning folks off isn't a good way to make them feel comfortable enough to want to keep viewing your blog. On the diametrical side of the coin, you want what you've got, to be provocative enough to be of interest. It's not that foreign from going out on a date: stimulating yet safe. In writing this I noticed I may have made a faux pas or two that's probably not building my audience, we'll get to how to write your blog in just a wee bit.
Blog content can go hand in hand with blog popularity: what you pick your blog to be about, and what you have in your posts can have an impact on your audience share. You might be thinking, "Well, I guess that means, since I'd like a humungous, audience, I'll pick something super popular, like purses and bags, or shoes." Sure, popular yes, and so many blogs and posts about, say, the latest Hermes Birkin bag, except, wait a minute! What's going to make, your, blog or post, stick out from the mass population? That's a toughie. One way around it, is, do you have an interest in something that hasn't been covered, that you can add a new perspective on? One way round the whole conundrum is to seek out a niche category that you're interested in to write about, like the example I gave, where I wrote about car girls. Now, I bet you're about to say,
"Hey! Naomi! There are lots of posts, even blogs, about hot girls showing off cars or bikes." Well, yes, but not many talk about the fashion of being a car girl, or, the official, business title, promo girl. Usually most posts and blogs about car girls, are guys drooling over pictures of, so called, hot girls, not scrutinizing, in a practical sense at least, what they're wearing. So. With my car girls posts, I've tapped a popular search listing, and, found a niche in that listing.
The next big decision is deciding if you want to go for monetizing your blog. You can make that decision at any time, but, I think you're best off planning to do or not do it from the start. You're going to see why that is in just a sec. Alrighty. So. You've decided to make money off blogging, how can you do that? Well, there are three primary ways. The first, is that your blog is connected to an online store, in that case, sales from the store support the blog. The second way, is a pay to view site. Pay to view sites are primarily entertainment sites, visitors to the site pay a fee or a subscription to view the contents of the site. The third way, is advertising: companies advertise directly on your blog and you are paid by the companies, or by visitors linking to company website from your blog. Now, let's talk about the last two methods and the practicalities of doing them. For pay to view to work, you've got to have material on your blog that people are going to want to pay to look at, obviously. That can be tricky. Most of these types of sites try to lure visitors into their sites by giving a sample of what they've got - like a movie trailer - and hoping that'll be enough to get people to want to pay the ticket to ride. The key component of these sites, is, that they've got to have a way to regulate traffic navigating the site, so there won't be any freeloaders. Thus, these types of sites often require a 24/7/365 webmaster, top notch security, and more elaborate programming. I believe there are a few companies that offer these kind of services, and they are more pricey than for the typical blogging site. So, if this is the route you want to take, be prepared to make a significant financial investment in your project. Or. Just ask people for donations, ask for donations for requests, or some other economic exchange. If you're blogging here on Google blogger, there's a way to regulate visitor activity so that if they want to see your pay to view stuff, there's a way to get them to pay: use a circle. People who pay to see your pay for stuff, are admitted to a circle containing said stuff, after paying. Many such circles can be created. I'm not sure how Google feels about pay to join circles, however, and it's probably not the original intention of circles. Anyway, there's a couple of ideers for you.
The third blog monetization method, advertising, is the most common. Most free bogger sites - like Blogger, Wordsmith, Tumblr, and...well, not many left - anyway, most free blogger sites have some way you can introduce advertising to your site, and, share in the revenues. Google's blogger seems to have the most straightforward method. As a matter of fact, some blogs on sites other than Blogger have Google originated advertisements. Not sure how that works, but for Blogger, getting a share of Google advertisements on Blogger depends on the number of followers you've got, visits per month, stuff like that.
Other forms of advertisements come from companies like Shein, Yesstyle, Romwe, and online clothing stores like them. Getting those ads can be tricky: first up: you'll need to have your own URL and paid for website; secondly: you get paid for ever time someone clicks an ad on your blog to link to the advertisers website; thirdly: they're going to try to control the content on your blog. You know, I've seen these companies advertising on Blogger blogs, so, I don't know if they were Google ads, or they're advertisers' badge-and-click ads that they made an exception for.
Finally, here's something about blog monetization to think about: many, many blogs with ads are actually ads themselves: they're owned by some company, and the person doing the blogging is a company employee! "Yeah, but aren't those ads sometimes for competing companies?" A good question, and my rejoinder: surely you've seen, say, Fox advertising on CBS, or NBC on ABC? Some companies feel more comfortable advertising on a competing companies website, than advertising on an individual's blog. Basically, blogs are like TV, they're a form of entertainment and communication and it's different from Burger King putting up an ad in a McDonald's.
So. You're off to great start here, and have got the basics down pat. I think I'll call this post a wrap, and invite you back for part two: the nitty gritty of putting that blog together. "Why break it up into two parts, Naomi?" Well, can't you see? I'll get you to view my blog twice, so there!
Catchy later.
Ciao.
First up: you've got to ask yourself: is this what I want to do, and why do I want to do it? The answer to that question is similar to some old advice about speaking in public: just pretend everybody in the audience is naked. The exception in this case, is that you'll probably have to imagine, yourself, naked - literally. Paradoxically, there's quite a bit of nudity in fashion, though it may not need be that way. More about that in just a wee bit.
Now, you've decided you want to do a fashion blog, what's it going to be about? Well, there are so many topics to choose from, and here at Naomi's Fashionable World, we, err rather I, don't focus on a singular type of fashion. Which, frankly, might be a case of over extension. Here are some of the things I've posted about:
Beauty
Purses and Bags
Boots
What I got for Chanukah and Christmas (sounds conflicting, it's a long story)
Car Girls
One common thread running through my blog is my own personal taste and what I can afford. Long ago, well, a couple years, I learned that what I desired might not fit into my purse, so I had to make compromises. One thing I did not compromise on, is, that I write about what interests me, not about what's currently hot. It's not always the best plan for success, if success is measured in terms of followers, reblogs, comments, those sorts of things.
So. I bet by now you've got some ideas for what your blog is going to be about, and, since you've always wanted your own blog, you had some ideas from the get go. The next step is: how do I get my words out, hmm, that sounds funny, how do you get what you've got to say, to other people. That's the whole point of blogging, am I not correct? To share your thoughts with others? Maybe you've got a couple thousand followers on some social media platform and you figure, well, I'll just link up my new blog with that platform(s) and shebang! Instant success. Yes, that would be nice, and I'm sure your followers will want to hear what you've got to say. One thing: will you be adding something new? If things start getting repetitive (read: stale) things might turn around and you could actually lose followers. Maybe you figure, well, I'll bring my already established followers over, one follower leads to another, and the whole thing will just snowball. That could work. However, the real key to building a large audience is a continual stream of new visitors every day. The way to get that is, search engines. People are more likely to hit up the blogs on the top of a search engine list, than those at the bottom. Getting to the top of that list, much less even on it, doesn't completely involve key words, phrases or any of that jazz, it's because of advertising. Just open a search engine, any search engine, and search for something, anything. What you're going to find at the top of the list has, 9 out of 10 times, an advertisement for itself right next to it! For the other 1 out of 10 times, it's just sheer dumb luck: whoever is curating the list has decided that's the way it's going to be, not much you can do about that.
So, we've got the traditional methods of building an audience down pat, now, here's a new wrinkle: a sub net. That's the audience building model I'm using. I bet you're wondering: what the heck is a sub net? Well, it's pretty much a miniature internet, or an internet, inside, the internet. I've already written about followers and linking them to a new blog, and most social media websites have means to link themselves to another website. A sub net is a wee bit like that. What makes a sub net a sub net is the linking itself: most social media platforms link only one way, and sort of branch out. So, what happens is some of your stuff gets isolated from the rest of the stuff. In a sub net, more links, not necessarily kosher to the website, and, at the same time not nefarious, are added to your contributions, plus, you can link up with as many other bloggers as you like, or, there needn't be any links at all! The no links model is what I, personally, am following. You may have noticed, the large number of Polyvore posts I have here. Well, there's no Polyvore visitor usable link from there to here. Instead, I'm hoping that what I've got on Polyvore will pique someone's interest and they'll try and look me up. The benefits from that are two fold: 1) I'm being searched for on a search engine, so I've become a search listing (sounds a little dystopian, but that's the way it is) 2) If they find where else I'm active, maybe they'll visit those too, Kaching! The key word to all of this is, well, my name: I gave out a hint on how to find me, and I've kept that identifier consistent throughout my blogs. Conversely, if they like my Polyvore stuff here, maybe some one will want to check me out on Polyvore. Besides here and Polyvore, I am on many other websites as well. "Which ones Naomi?" you ask? Well, psst, psst, kaching, you'll just have to look for them.
So. "How's this subnet business been working out for you?" That's your question, right? Pretty well, I've got to say, I think a darn sight better than the usual suspects. One prob, and it's a biggie, my Polyvore stuff is swamping my other Blogger stuff! So, I've got the ole duplicate problem going on here, except, as a fashionista, I'm not going to flex on it.
Speaking of content problems, now that we've solved, or at least gotten a grasp on, building an audience, what's your environment going to be like when they get to their destination? First off, if you want to keep people coming back, you don't want to try to alienate anyone. Turning folks off isn't a good way to make them feel comfortable enough to want to keep viewing your blog. On the diametrical side of the coin, you want what you've got, to be provocative enough to be of interest. It's not that foreign from going out on a date: stimulating yet safe. In writing this I noticed I may have made a faux pas or two that's probably not building my audience, we'll get to how to write your blog in just a wee bit.
Blog content can go hand in hand with blog popularity: what you pick your blog to be about, and what you have in your posts can have an impact on your audience share. You might be thinking, "Well, I guess that means, since I'd like a humungous, audience, I'll pick something super popular, like purses and bags, or shoes." Sure, popular yes, and so many blogs and posts about, say, the latest Hermes Birkin bag, except, wait a minute! What's going to make, your, blog or post, stick out from the mass population? That's a toughie. One way around it, is, do you have an interest in something that hasn't been covered, that you can add a new perspective on? One way round the whole conundrum is to seek out a niche category that you're interested in to write about, like the example I gave, where I wrote about car girls. Now, I bet you're about to say,
"Hey! Naomi! There are lots of posts, even blogs, about hot girls showing off cars or bikes." Well, yes, but not many talk about the fashion of being a car girl, or, the official, business title, promo girl. Usually most posts and blogs about car girls, are guys drooling over pictures of, so called, hot girls, not scrutinizing, in a practical sense at least, what they're wearing. So. With my car girls posts, I've tapped a popular search listing, and, found a niche in that listing.
The next big decision is deciding if you want to go for monetizing your blog. You can make that decision at any time, but, I think you're best off planning to do or not do it from the start. You're going to see why that is in just a sec. Alrighty. So. You've decided to make money off blogging, how can you do that? Well, there are three primary ways. The first, is that your blog is connected to an online store, in that case, sales from the store support the blog. The second way, is a pay to view site. Pay to view sites are primarily entertainment sites, visitors to the site pay a fee or a subscription to view the contents of the site. The third way, is advertising: companies advertise directly on your blog and you are paid by the companies, or by visitors linking to company website from your blog. Now, let's talk about the last two methods and the practicalities of doing them. For pay to view to work, you've got to have material on your blog that people are going to want to pay to look at, obviously. That can be tricky. Most of these types of sites try to lure visitors into their sites by giving a sample of what they've got - like a movie trailer - and hoping that'll be enough to get people to want to pay the ticket to ride. The key component of these sites, is, that they've got to have a way to regulate traffic navigating the site, so there won't be any freeloaders. Thus, these types of sites often require a 24/7/365 webmaster, top notch security, and more elaborate programming. I believe there are a few companies that offer these kind of services, and they are more pricey than for the typical blogging site. So, if this is the route you want to take, be prepared to make a significant financial investment in your project. Or. Just ask people for donations, ask for donations for requests, or some other economic exchange. If you're blogging here on Google blogger, there's a way to regulate visitor activity so that if they want to see your pay to view stuff, there's a way to get them to pay: use a circle. People who pay to see your pay for stuff, are admitted to a circle containing said stuff, after paying. Many such circles can be created. I'm not sure how Google feels about pay to join circles, however, and it's probably not the original intention of circles. Anyway, there's a couple of ideers for you.
The third blog monetization method, advertising, is the most common. Most free bogger sites - like Blogger, Wordsmith, Tumblr, and...well, not many left - anyway, most free blogger sites have some way you can introduce advertising to your site, and, share in the revenues. Google's blogger seems to have the most straightforward method. As a matter of fact, some blogs on sites other than Blogger have Google originated advertisements. Not sure how that works, but for Blogger, getting a share of Google advertisements on Blogger depends on the number of followers you've got, visits per month, stuff like that.
Other forms of advertisements come from companies like Shein, Yesstyle, Romwe, and online clothing stores like them. Getting those ads can be tricky: first up: you'll need to have your own URL and paid for website; secondly: you get paid for ever time someone clicks an ad on your blog to link to the advertisers website; thirdly: they're going to try to control the content on your blog. You know, I've seen these companies advertising on Blogger blogs, so, I don't know if they were Google ads, or they're advertisers' badge-and-click ads that they made an exception for.
Finally, here's something about blog monetization to think about: many, many blogs with ads are actually ads themselves: they're owned by some company, and the person doing the blogging is a company employee! "Yeah, but aren't those ads sometimes for competing companies?" A good question, and my rejoinder: surely you've seen, say, Fox advertising on CBS, or NBC on ABC? Some companies feel more comfortable advertising on a competing companies website, than advertising on an individual's blog. Basically, blogs are like TV, they're a form of entertainment and communication and it's different from Burger King putting up an ad in a McDonald's.
So. You're off to great start here, and have got the basics down pat. I think I'll call this post a wrap, and invite you back for part two: the nitty gritty of putting that blog together. "Why break it up into two parts, Naomi?" Well, can't you see? I'll get you to view my blog twice, so there!
Catchy later.
Ciao.
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