As a fashion blogger, you’ve got a mixture of both advantages and challenges.
The internet loves fashion blogs – this puts you in a really fantastic position. However, as such a popular topic, it’s incredibly competitive.
I understand it can be tough to continue adding to your blog if you’re not getting enough readers. The New York Times revealed that a shocking 95% of blogs fail. The main reason was due to a lack of readership.
Of course, I want to see fashion blogs succeed. A variety and array of diversity in the fashion blogging world are in high demand.
I’ve listed the best ways to promote your blog, this will help you gain traffic from all around the world.
Why do you need a blog?
Blogs are one of the most amazing ways to dive into content marketing. If you have an e-commerce store, a blog can bring in leads, and new audiences.
As a fashion blogger, you can also use affiliate links and paid sponsorships – something that many “influencers” have made the most out of.
All in all, a blog can prove to be one of the most amazing projects to start. When promoted correctly, it can prove to be one of the most advantageous and fulfilling jumps that you make.
- Get familiar with SEO
If you’ve been blogging for a while, you’ve probably come across SEO. It’s not just a buzzword, and it really needs to be taken seriously. Making sure your blog is optimized for search engines is absolutely crucial.
It may not surprise you that Google is the biggest website in the entire world? It’s the central place that people will find your blog.
The problem is, many bloggers ignore even basic SEO, and they will eventually begin to suffer because of this. More than 50% of successful bloggers get their traffic from search engines.
Below, I’ve listed the easiest ways to optimize your blog, ensuring that readers can find it on their search engine:
- Keyword research
- Use subtitles
- Make your URLs short and descriptive
- Link to relevant sources throughout your blog
- Optimize all your image with descriptive alt tags
- Engage with others
Blogging requires a lot of engagement with other bloggers. I recommend taking time out of your day to comment on other, authoritative blogs. Obviously, as a fashion blogger, you should make sure that you’re interacting with relevant blogs.
All it takes is one comment, and you could bring in a lot of traffic. Ultimately, engaging with others in the community increases the chance of you getting noticed.
WordPress and Blogger are great for showcasing blogs and offer an easy way for your blog to be discovered. Simple, informative, and effective comments work really well.
I will say, try to stay away from making comments which are clearly just pushing the readers to enter your blog. “Great” Check out my blog” will not suffice.
Make your comments genuine and authentic.
- Create a blogger outreach plan
In such a competitive niche and saturated industry, you can’t take a passive approach to blogging. Many bloggers will publish their articles and simply wait for traffic to drive in. Needless to say, this very rarely works.
A blogger outreach plan is basically a list of bloggers that you can email your posts to. Every time you publish an article, you send the link and ask them to share it.
Obviously, not every Blogger will share your post, but one of two might, and that’s a great place to start.
Of course, you have to also do cool things for them. Share their articles and support their endeavors. After all, this is a community, not a contest.
- Use social media to your advantage
As a fashion blogger, social media is definitely your best friend. So many users love fashion, and will likely find your blog through your social media.
I’d recommend getting set up on Instagram and Pinterest. The reason being, they are incredibly visual platforms and have great potential to bring in traffic to your site.
Make sure that you share your blogs on all your social media, and develop a social media strategy that works or you. By focusing only on relevant social media platforms, and interacting with people on said platforms – you’ll undoubtedly gain more views.
Don’t be afraid to recycle any old articles on your social media. Sharing your article once won’t quite cut it. Many bloggers share their pieces for years – especially if they become relevant again.
Make sure to use relevant hashtags, and as much as you can, stay away from generic fashion ones. These won’t bring in more views to your posts. Instead, they will create the illusion of interaction – and can lead to disappointment.
- Try guest posting
Guest posting is the act of publishing unique articles, on somebody else’s site. Often this can be paid, very often it is entirely voluntary and free.
It might seem like a waste of your time, but it’s a wonderful way to bring in traffic – as long as you ensure to link your blog, and other ways to contact you.
Look around for various websites that are similar to your blog. Ask if you can publish an article, and create an easy, seamless way to advertise your blog.
Of course, if your guest posting, the article has to be of high quality, and encourage the reader to enter your site – what can they find there that they can’t find anywhere else?
Considering how important content is in the grand scheme of things today, you no longer need an actual in-house team of writers to produce niche articles. There are now many services like The Word Point, which you can outsource content creation to.
The good news – there are so many fashion blogs to contact and see if you can guest post for.
- Influencer marketing could be for you
Influencer marketing is perfect for fashion bloggers, purely because so many influencers are in the fashion industry.
Influencer marketing is becoming more and more popular. In fact, by 2020, influencer marketing is expected to become a $10 billion industry.
To identify the perfect influencers for you, conduct a case study. Find who reflects your niche and values perfectly, and ask them to share your articles.
As your blog gains more traffic, you could offer various influencers deals or benefits to feature on your blog. You could also entice them into writing a guest post for your blog.
- Post regularly
I can’t stress this enough. You may be promoting and marketing your blog entirely, but if you don’t post enough articles, your efforts are wasted.
To gain traffic, you need to post regularly. It’s absolutely crucial. This will not only help to retain readers but gain new audiences too.
Depending on your personal schedule, and what business you have – you should post at least once a week.
Of course, don’t post just for the sake of posting, either. Always make sure that you’ve got something useful to say.
Fashion is such a broad topic – which gives you fantastic opportunities to create excellent content. Make sure it’s unique, authentic, and worth reading.
- Create a mailing list
Bloggers often overlook the benefit of a mailing list. If you gain email subscribers, you have a direct way to share your future blogs.
The best way to gain email subscribers is by using pop-ups on your blogs. With a simple statement such as “Never miss a post.”
You could also use quizzes or other marketing techniques, which will help you build up your mailing list.
If you are lucky enough to get emails, don’t spam their inbox. Perhaps once a week, provide them with a little roundup – and something to read.
You’ll also be able to decide when the best time to email your audience is. For some, they’ll love receiving your posts on a Monday, on their commute to work. Others will prefer to read your articles on a Saturday night.
The best way to decide the best time is by merely using analytics.
- Interview people
As a fashion blogger, you must bring in new people to your site. One of the best ways to do this is by interviewing influential people in the community.
If you do a Q&A with a stylist or Instagram influencer, you’ll gain new audiences – through their fans.
Social media, again, is your best friend in this situation. There are tonnes of social media groups and influencers that would love to be interviewed by you.
If they do get interviewed, they will more than likely share your article too.
- Don’t forget to include social share buttons
A straightforward step that you need to do — add social share buttons.
Your blog needs the option to be shared, it’s absolutely crucial.
This is also really easy to do. Many platforms like WordPress and Wix will offer this option to you, with minimal effort on your part.
- Don’t forget about graphics
While writing is crucial for blogs, you should always break up paragraphs with graphics.
As a fashion blog, obviously, pictures of your outfits, accessories, or ideas is necessary.
In such a creative industry, it is valuable for you and your reader if you share high-quality pictures. It’s these graphics that will ultimately be “pinned” on Pinterest, and liked on Instagram.
- Use other forms of content
Podcasts and videos are becoming increasingly more and more popular. Many bloggers have started to dive into these platforms to complement their blog.
As such popular tools, these will bring in new audiences, which will then be directed to your blog through your social media and descriptions.
As a blogger, you don’t have to stick to one form of creative content. Podcasts and blogs can go hand in hand really well.
- Create an E-book
You can combine all your blogs and information into a PDF file, and create an E-book. If you’re wondering why; it’s all for the email subscribers.
E-books are absolutely great ways to gain new subscribers and gain new readers to your site.
Obviously, your e-book should be informative and useful. Why would people download this and read through it?
I highly recommend style guides of some kind. Don’t forget to include the visuals, and obviously include your social media handles throughout. Treat your e-books like a specific type of marketing.
- Collaboration is key
As a fashion blogger, you must collaborate with others. Whether it be through Instagram, YouTube, or interviews. Creating a community of people around you will only help you leverage your blog.
Conclusion
The fashion industry has an enviable amount of energy. Use this to help promote your blog. Never shy away from sharing your articles, or publishing new ideas.
Many fashion bloggers make the mistake of sitting back with their promotion efforts. However, in such a prolific industry, you need to market in innovative ways, to ensure that you are noticed in the bustling crowd of fashion blogs.