Turn Your Fashion Blog Into a Source of Income - Part 1

This image is a creative, derivative work using original image by Vivian Viola.

It's no secret that many fashion bloggers toy with the idea of turning their passion into self sustaining work. I know I certainly do. Who doesn't want to set their own hours and talk about what they love every day?

If you're like me, you've done a little research and discovered that professional bloggers usually have a variety of methods to bring in income. I'm only going to focus on one of those methods today, and that method is affiliate marketing.

I believe affiliate marketing is the easiest route for beginner bloggers and a great way to get you thinking about your blog as not only a source of expression, but also a source of income.

So... What is Affiliate Marketing?

• It is a performance based marketing approach that rewards bloggers for every referral, lead or purchase of a product from an E-Commerce site. (Note: Most companies only reward for purchase).

How Does it work?

• You sign up to an advertising company that links you to brands.
• From there, you apply to work with brands. These brands then come check out your blog and decide whether or not it is an appropriate blog to advertise with.
• If you are accepted, each program offers you tools to promote their products via the advertising website. Tools include banners, images, text links, product links and custom links that you can place on your blog.

How Do I Get Started?

You sign up either through a link on the company's website (Personally, I discovered this through NastyGal's page here) or go directly through an Advertiser website:

1. commissionjunction.com (Probably the most popular site. Stores include: Nastygal, The Bay, StyleBop)
2. shareasale.com (Smaller, boutique style site. Stores like: Chicnova, Romwe)
3. linkshare.com (Another popular site. Stores include: Forever 21, ASOS, Macy's, Bloomingdales).

Unless you have a lot of traffic to your blog it can be difficult to promote products and generate income (most companies offer under 10% commission per item) so I want you to check out these fashion blogs. They are rumoured to be some of the top fashion blog affiliates. Here you can see how they operate and why they are so successful:

9 to 5 chic

A Cup of Jo

Saucy Glossie

Where Did U Get That

Hope you gained some helpful information from this post. Stay tuned for part 2 where I discuss fashion blogger influence!

Thank you!

-Tara