I’m writing this one for my girls over at Copywriting for Clever Girls, who asked me absolutely AGES ago how I come up with ideas for writing blog posts – and how they all come together in the end.
Writing blog posts for Wingz
I write blog posts for Wingz every week, and you know, sometimes it can be a bit hard to come up with ideas. Wingz are a fashion accessory, basically a removable sleeve you can add to a sleeveless dress or top. Genius! So the blog is mostly fashion related and a bit of body image.
Some weeks it’s easy; I’m inspired by something fashion-related that’s happened like the launch of a new plus size celeb fashion collection or newspaper coverage of award ceremonies. Bingo – there’s my idea.
In cases like that, I just write. For the Beth Ditto piece I researched the collection, wrote about it, found some quotes online from Beth herself and talked about the dress I bought from her last collection. To get the images right I used one of my own, found one or two on Getty Embeds and added some Wingz images too. I used images from the Beth Ditto collection website and linked to the items. I always have to be careful of copyright but ‘fair use’ is OK in editorial pieces and if you’re directing people to products they might actually buy, there won’t be any complaints.
Award Ceremony Blog Post
For the blog post about award ceremonies, I took inspiration from reading headlines about ‘fashion fails’ and all that rubbish. It really gets on my nerves when the media do that to people so I thought I’d change it around and find images (again on Getty free embeds) of the stars that had been slated for their outfit choices at the Brits, and say something nice about them, while issuing a challenge for other women to do the same online and in social media.
But what if I can’t think of inspiration? I have a couple of cheats.
Keyword tool – this one is great if I have a vague idea but I don’t really know what to do with it. It gives me ideas about questions people are typing into Google on various subjects and can inspire me to write around a few of the questions. Type a general word like ‘fashion’ in and the first question is “Are fashion and feminism compatible?” – there’s a blog idea right there!
If I wanted to blog for a spa company, but was stumped for ideas, I could type in ‘spa treatments’ and the first two questions are “are spa treatments safe in pregnancy?” and “Are spa treatments worth it?”
It’s a great tool if you want to know the things people are asking, which can inspire you to think of a blog title to base around that subject.
My other cheat, although not always as reliable is the blog topic generator.
If I type ‘fashion’ into that, I get five possibilities:
- Why We Love Fashion (And You Should, Too!)
- How To Solve The Biggest Problems With Fashion
- 7 Things About Fashion Your Boss Wants To Know
- The Ultimate Cheat Sheet On Fashion
- Think You’re Cut Out For Doing Fashion? Take This Quiz
There’s certainly a few ideas I could work with on Wingz there. I’d just have to adapt them to the theme of accessories, fashion arm coverage and body confidence but you can see where the ideas might lead?
If I tried the ‘spa treatment’ option I would get:
- The Ultimate Cheat Sheet On Spa Treatments
- What Will Spa Treatments Be Like In 100 Years?
- How To Solve The Biggest Problems With Spa Treatments
- 10 Things Your Competitors Can Teach You About Spa Treatments
- 20 Myths About Spa Treatments
Again, with some tinkering I could probably work with all of those. Although I have absolutely NO idea what spa treatments will be like in 100 years…
Good images for writing blog posts
You always have to think about images when you’re writing blog posts, they look dull without them, but where can you get free/low cost ones from (without getting sued).
I always use Getty embeds for anything with a celebrity element or fashion week images. They are also great for lifestyle shots but the only downside is they can be fiddly to embed into a blog post as you have to use the code. They won’t generate a preview image either for when you post the blog link on social media BUT I think you can use the Getty images on social media too, if you embed them the right way. I’ve not tried it so don’t hold me to that.
Sometimes Getty images are glitchy. I just tried five times to add one of Johnny Depp to show you how they look but it’s not playing nice, but it let me embed perfectly on another post elsewhere today. It’s just the luck of the draw. I’ll try again later!
To be on the safe side I used to default to Dollar Photo Club but they are closing next month so I’ve transferred all of my credits to Adobe Stock. They are more expensive than Dollar Photo Club but you can buy one off images if you’re not a regular user, or subscribe and pay monthly – it works out at about £1.99 per image.
The website is VERY slow, though.
There are other free sites too…look out for a new stock images site that’s PERFECT for fashion & beauty businesses or any girly styled blogs, with a FREE sign up and packs of images emailed regularly. It’s not open yet but Feminine Stock looks like a brilliant idea.
There are some gorgeous images on Unsplash too.
I used to use Free Digital Photos a lot but I went off them because the images were a bit naff but if you hunt around you can find a few gems. They are better for non-people pics as the people pics look a bit sterile.
There are lots of options but always make sure you’re using the correct image credits and embedding any Getty pics properly. FDP requires a picture credit which was another thing that always put me off, Getty embeds shows a credit when you roll over the image which is fine, looks wise. Adobe doesn’t need a credit. If you aren’t sure, always check the terms and conditions – I wouldn’t want you getting any grief!