What To Do Instead of Shopping?

January flies by like a crazy and I am thinking about what I actually have done. Not much when I am really honest with you. Hopefully, you are not like me. I am sure you are more hands-on and full of ideas. If not I would like to give you some ideas, especialy if you feel lile you are not doing much since you created a capsule wardrobe, you getting your life to organize and having more time thanks to a minimalist approach. I am guessing you are on the way to become a minimalist when you started with the capsule wardrobe. But what to do instead of shopping?

What To Do Instead of Shopping?

You can be doing anything you like, you have more time and space. And it would be great if you documented it. I started this website as a collection of sustainable brands, and document my progress with the capsule wardrobe. And I learned so much. So if you made a New Year resolution to learn something new, change your career or simply start a blog/website I will walk you through the process here. And if you are not really technical I can help you set up your website free of charge. Just pick the best name and get in touch.

 

Where To Start

I wish someone told me all of this before I decided to start this website or an online store. I did a pretty good research, but mostly in a niche what I like to write about and just a little bit about How to build a website or a blog. There is more to it than just to find a web hosting, the name for a website and a platform where you settle your website. I’ll try to sum it up over here with all useful links to some experts websites which guided me to set it up correctly. It took me 4 months ( and still learning and practising)  to have it all done properly so I just hope it will help you to set it up faster.

Find a self-hosting platform

I searched a lot about this before I decided to go online. First, at all, I had no idea what is it all about and second I was working with a very little budget. After long hours spent on the internet ( good my job was so easy to do so I could do it at work ) I found the SiteGround and Bluehost.

Both these self-hosting platforms are really easy to set up the WordPress website. And most importantly budget-friendly.. You pay only £2.75 per month and you get everything, free email included. It’s less than a cup of coffee. And if you started your website anywhere else, not to worry, they will transfer it for free.

Choose the Website Hosting Plan, for the start go with the cheapest plan. You can perfectly start on a budget and then you can upgrade anytime.

Choose the name and get a domain

Website name

It is quite difficult to choose the right name for your website. I came up with my name by looking around and I wrote it down to see how it looks like. It is quite good if your name shows what is your website about. I included “Collection” because I knew I will be “collecting” the Small Businesses and information are for a Start-Ups working on a really tight budget.

Website domain

As I mentioned the best web hostings are the SiteGround  or Bluehost, you can buy the domain all in one with the hosting. One stop does it all.

When you have all this set up all that you have to do is to upload your blogging platform on the self-hosting platform. Don’t worry it is easy to do. I did it all myself.

Open the business email on your self-hosting platform

As I mentioned just above you can do everything on the SiteGround, or Bluehost with your hosting platform you will get a free email. Go for something like info@; contact@ or hello@ to start with and then obviously your website name. It looks professional and if you don’t want to, no one needs to know your name.

 

WordPress.org

Of course, there are many platforms on which you can place your website on, but the most popular is WordPress.org, I use it as well, so easy to set up. But don’t get confused with WordPress.com. Especially if you are thinking to make it your business don’t choose a free platform, it doesn’t give you the freedom to build it your way. You can choose your theme over there and start to customize. You don’t need any IT skills. Just to read properly and have a plenty of time to play around to customize it until you’ll love it. If you are wondering why it doesn’t look the same as on the template, just because you need to add all the plugins. ( Silly me I didn’t know it, but I found out within a month of thinking, wondering and browsing ) .

Google analytics, SEO at Yoast, Website security, Sitemaps …

I am not a tech expert, as I said so many times before, but I found the most helpful course at Her Paper Route – How to Start a Blog to help me with all of this. She wrote the really detailed course about everything and simply by following the step by step all settings, I have a much better idea of how my website is performing. If you have too much trouble to set it up or you want to learn more, she even offers the courses to take your website to a different level. She can teach you how to earn money without huge following ( only with over 1000 followers ) in The Micro-Influencer’s Handbook.

 

Plugins

Email Subscribers list, Social buttons, Image slider – for all of this great looking promotion images. Even if you are thinking to open a shop on your blog/website you can do it through – WooCommerce plugins. Everything that you can think of, you can find in Plugins.

Write the posts

Finally, we came to writing the post. There are some rules to write the post to look very good and readable, which of course I didn’t know them and still I am learning it.

• Follow links to your own posts – to get more traffic and show more of your work.
• Follow links to other websites or shops – it is a great option to make money from your website
• For a great experience to read your post add many Subheadings, it gives you that green button from SEO.
• Choose keywords to find your post at google search engine.

Canva images

Canva is the best tool to make all of this great looking collages and Pinterest pins. It is free to sign up and to use with hundreds of free templates to make Pinterest pins, Facebook ads, Banners or that beautiful fashion collages. You can upload any of your pictures and make it Pinterest ready. If you have your own shop you can make the pretty collage to show on the social media or make a little magazine/lookbook. Possibilities are endless. All of this can be done with a free plan. With the paid upgrade you can build your brand with all brand colours and resize your pictures.

PicMonkey images

Some bloggers prefere to design their collages on PicMonkey. Another great software to create amazing pinable and shareable images. With a PicMonkey, you can create images and use all kind of features to add that perfect final touch. By that, I mean colour, saturation, sharpness …. I think PicMonkey has nicer templates than a Canva. If you are looking for a modern, minimalist or feminine template the PicMonkey is right for you. You can try their 7 days free trail.

 

Promote your website

When your post is ready and published use all possible tools to promote it. I use the Blog2Social plugin – share the posts all over your social media platforms within a seconds. Much faster than to type it individually.

Pinterest

I found Pinterest the most useful platform for my website. In only 3 weeks I got 30 000 page views. I get the most traffic from there.  The great thing is, you can see all Analytics when you set up the business account it gives you a clear idea how are you performing. You can set it up in the Settings and it’s free. You can read the best advice about Pinterest over here.

 

Hopefully, I covered everything to get you started much faster than in 4 months. Let me know if I can help you with anything else. And to show me your brand new website leave the comment below.

By running this little online corner I progressed with my capsule wardrobe, I learned how to set up the website and online shop, a bit about photography and graphics. I learned how to create all that fashion collages without ever doing it before.

Hope I gave you some inspiration and confidence to start a new project of your own. Or just to keep a little online journal.

If you need help to set up your new hobby or business sent me an email and I am happy to help, all for free.