4 Resources You Need To Start Your Fashion Blog

Blogging Resources

I see a lot of people asking questions about resources for blogging and how to go about starting one.  This blog is about fashion and lifestyle but I think it is also important to share any tips I know for anyone who might be curious about how this whole blogging thing works.

 I’ve had this blog going since 2016, but I have owned and killed several other blog sites and websites in previous years. I’ve actually had a website or been blogging in some form since I was 11 years old.  During this time I have learned a lot about what to do and what not to do and I am still learning.  The whole process is really trial and error and what works for some people may not work for others because of differences in content or other strategies. 

I want to share with you so far what I have learned and how I built clielniteshade.com, particularly what resources I am currently using for my blogging.   I shared a post a few weeks ago about how I re-launched this site and moved it over to self hosting and why that is important.

Hosting and Blogging Platform:

I use BlueHost as my web host, I chose them because they have a good monthly rate of only $3.95.  You get your money’s worth in my opinion.  They give total access to your entire site, so you have full control over your WordPress installation (although they take care patches), your databases, files etc… Also in my experience their customer service is great. Getting set up on BlueHost is super easy and they even help you acquire your domain name if you don’t already have one.  I highly recommend them! I won’t go into the whole explanation of web hosting and domain name registration in this post.  If you do want to know more about how to register a domain, leave me a comment and i’ll be happy to share! 

The blogging platform you choose is also very important.  I think the majority of bloggers go for WordPress, it is by far the most popular choice and has the largest amount of compatible tools that you can work with.  Wix and Blogger are also a very popular choices but I have no experience with either of these.  Personally I have only worked on Drupal and WordPress and prefer WordPress for blogging.

Plug-ins:

Once you have your website setup, you should see what plug-ins are essential to the functionality you want on your blog.  I primary post about fashion and lifestyle, so I use a lot of photos and I want to create galleries or carousels of the items I post.  The Shopr plug in from PipDig is perfect for this. It is super simple to use and does exactly what you expect it to.  The Plugin does cost $29.00 but I think it is worth it.

Monetizing:

Another thing to keep in mind is working with ads and affiliate links.  I could write an entire post just about affiliate networks, but in summary affiliate networks are one of the ways to monetize your blog.  Some of the ones I use are Shareasale, CJAffiliates, and Amazon Affiliates.  If you are interested in hearing more about affiliate networks and monetizing let me know and i’ll share what I have learned so far!

Content Planning and Promotion:

Blogging also involves a lot of engagement and promotion.  You need to get the word out in order to be seen.  I mostly use Instagram and Pinterest for this.  I am also working on being more active on Twitter !  For Instagram planning I use the Preview app just to see how my grid will look and for editing I use VSCO/Lightroom. Just recently I started using the Tailwind app. Tailwind is a great tool for finding relevant hashtags and optimizing your Pinterest game!  Also their tribes feature is a game changer, if you are in the fashion and lifestyle niche you can join my tribe here.

Conclusion:

So those are the main points to keep in mind and resources I use for blogging.  This is not an extensive list, there are other plugins that you can enable to help with analytics and security and such but I won’t get into it here.  These are just the main ones you see! I hope you found this post helpful, if you did or have any questions , please leave me a comment, i’ll try to answer you as best I can.  I’d also love to know what blogging resources and tools you use on your own site!  

*Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. Affiliate links may provide a commission to me if a purchase is made, they also help keep this site running.