Thursday, October 14, 2010

Creative Fashion opens heart ... How I got hooked in fashion blogging

One day I stumbled upon blogger and the thought of putting up a fashion blog came up. I never knew about blogging before. All I had were profiles at Helium, Associated Content and Ezine where I published my articles, short stories and poetry. Blogger made things easy for a complete newbie. The name Creative Fashion quickly came into picture. I never had moments when I had to think and rethink about the name for my blog; it simply was given. I created an account, searched for some free layouts and published my first fashion blog ever. How fast time flies? It's already one year and a half ago, and here I am, still blogging.

birds 
photo credit: americanhoney

I was completely at loss when I was starting. Oftentimes I didn't know what to do. I visited other fashion blogs and when I saw their huge following and community of people commenting, I felt like engulfed by this overwhelming sea of fashion bloggers. I felt so tiny. I felt so insecure. "What am I doing here? Who am I to blog about fashion?" were the usual thoughts that haunted me.

Then I met a virtual friend who was blogging almost full-time by the time, but hers were personal blogs. When I met her, I already had abandoned Creative Fashion. I had stopped blogging for some time. She encouraged me to put up a personal blog where I can collectively publish my creative writings. I was convinced that a literary or personal blog would be more productive for me. Therefore I set up my personal blog A peek into my life and my thoughts ... and spent all my free time developing my blog and connecting with other non-fashion bloggers. I found that the other side of blogosphere was much more welcoming. I connected easily with a lot of bloggers and in a short time, my personal blog earned a pr 3.

After several months of religiously tending my personal blog, it reached a plateau. I was spending so much hours for it but it wasn't earning any revenue. It was then that I reconsidered my fashion blog. Immediately, Creative Fashion was revived. I challenged myself to learn every facets of fashion blogging. I made it a goal to increase my pagerank into 4. Then I read an article that says, you cannot succeed in blogging by being an island. You gotta go out and join the sea. Thus I started visiting and commenting on other blogs. I was slowly and painfully earning friends. But it was fulfilling. The hardest part that I faced was getting other bloggers exchange links with my blog. I felt that some bloggers who has got higher page ranks were snob when it comes to exchanging links. I felt upset at first but eventually learned to let it pass. Later, I realized that there are also plenty of wonderful bloggers out there that are willing to be friends and exchange links.  I wasn't posting a lot of My Outfit posts and my contents were not very striking. I then focused on improving my contents. I set goals after goals and before I knew it, I was hooked. I documented my learning as a list of tips on How to increase pagerank in the shortest possible time .

For how many times I was tempted to quit. But I'm thankful for the goals that I challenged myself to reach, they made me keep working on. This blog is bringing in some bucks but not that much to compensate the number of hours that I spend maintaining it. However, my blogs served as training grounds. I learned so many things about web publishing. I became exposed to so many opportunities. And because of this experience, new projects came to me that are just waiting for the perfect time to get launched. I'm extremely excited for 2011.

As I reflect upon these things tonight, I thought that perhaps it's about time to turn the limelight from myself unto my readers. This is the first time that I am doing this and I can't help but scold myself for waiting too long.

I ask you, my dear girls, to give me some feedback about my blog. Please take some moments to answer any of the questions below. I really would appreciate your thoughts. [You can stay anonymous if that feels more comfortable]

What are the things that you like about Creative Fashion?

What are the things that you feel are missing in this blog?

What are the topics that you suggest must be covered in this blog?

Is there any question that you wish to ask? [Either blogging ideas, fashion or personal but not too personal, I would be happy to answer them]

Have a wonderful day. Hugs. :)

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