If you’re ready to share your passion with the world, a lifestyle blog might be the right avenue for you. This type of blog is more than just a place to write about your thoughts and opinions — it’s a way to build community, hone your skills, and even earn some cash on the side.
Wondering how to start a lifestyle blog of your own? Read on to learn more about lifestyle blogging, the steps to take to get started, and our tips and best practices for a successful new venture.
What is a lifestyle blog?
Lifestyle blogs focus on you — your hobbies, interests, and what you do every day. However, unlike a diary, lifestyle blogs don’t detail every little moment of your life. They often focus on a hobby, passion, or special interest through the lens of your life.
We’ll illustrate through these examples:
A mom who wants to chronicle their life can do so through multiple angles, including childcare, product reviews, recipes, and any other topic that intersects with their life in a natural way.
A fitness blog can cover a wide range of topics, including preferred workouts, equipment recommendations, healthy food recipes, and reviews of hikes or nature trails.
Travelers can showcase their latest journeys on a lifestyle blog, tying in travel-friendly product reviews, sharing their itineraries, and offering insight into budgeting, booking flights, and other important travel activities.
A fashion blog can be written through a lifestyle lens by focusing on where the outfits were worn, what they did while wearing that particular ensemble, and how the clothing played a role in a great day, night, or trip.
4 reasons to start a lifestyle blog
People from all walks of life benefit from lifestyle blogging in these ways:
1. Share your passion
Whether you love to review the latest gadgets or want to share your fabulous adventures, starting a lifestyle blog gives you an outlet to do so. With a lifestyle blog, you can write to your heart’s content about what motivates you. This dedicated space can also give you a place to connect with others who share similar interests.
2. Learn new skills
Improving your writing, practicing website building skills, diving deep into your chosen topic — you benefit from your lifestyle blog in more ways than one. The skills you pick up along the way can be quite valuable in other areas of your life, both professionally and personally.
3. Make it a side hustle
Earn some money from your passion project! The most successful lifestyle bloggers can earn a great living by monetizing the traffic (visitors) their website attracts. While most bloggers aren’t about to quit their full-time jobs, the right content and partnerships with the right sponsors can help bring in some extra money.
4. Build a community
Finally, your lifestyle blog can connect you to others who share the same passions as you. Connecting with these folks online can build meaningful relationships and community around your content. You can organize this community with a Facebook group, Discord chat, or other social media platform. This gives you a valuable way to form bonds with others in your niche.
Why are lifestyle blogs a popular choice for writers?
Lifestyle blogs are a personal reflection of your thoughts and insights, and that can be an endless source of content for your new site. Instead of writing about droll and dry topics that don’t interest you at all, you can virtually guarantee that you’ll care deeply about many of the blog posts you put together for your site.
Additionally, creating a lifestyle blog is a way to dive into the world of influencer marketing. Influencers are trusted for recommendations and reviews in a way that other media platforms are not. Savvy marketers turn to influencers to help spread the word about their products or services, which could turn into a lucrative side hustle for you. Do what you love, and get paid to do it? Sounds like a great plan!
12 steps to start a lifestyle blog
Just because it’s fun to write about your passion doesn’t mean you’ll be ready to go in a day. It takes a bit of foundational work to get your lifestyle blog up and running. These 12 easy steps will take you there.
1. Pick your niche
The best lifestyle blogs are fluent in their chosen subjects, bringing fresh perspectives into the conversation. Identifying your niche — what you’ll write about regularly on your site — is the first and most important step toward launching your site. It influences everything from the blog posts you plan to write to the name you come up with. Starting on this solid foundation is essential to future success.
2. Choose a memorable and descriptive name
Your blog name is among the first things your readers interact with when they learn about you. Put some thought into making a great first impression by choosing something memorable and short that sums up what you do. Once you have a name in mind, quickly look it up on search engines and on trademark registration websites to make sure it’s not already taken by someone else. With your name cleared, you can create a logo and set up social media profiles to promote your blog.
3. Register your domain
Buying your website address is one of the first actions to take once you’ve picked your lifestyle blog’s name. A domain name is how your readers will access your site. It’s also a quick and inexpensive way to secure your intellectual property, so nobody else can take the name. You can buy a domain in minutes for just a few dollars per month.
4. Select the right hosting package
Web hosting is a service that provides a place for your content to “live” online. It also plays a role in delivering content to your readers in a speedy and reliable fashion. Hosting plans vary in scope and capacity, so you can choose the plan that best suits your budget as you begin. A shared hosting plan, which is typically on the lower tier of pricing, may be suitable as you first start out. As your blog grows, you may want to change to dedicated hosting to accommodate the increased web traffic.
5. Create your website
With hosting and domain registration set up, it’s time to move on to design. This is where you spend time fine-tuning how your lifestyle blog looks. While some folks opt to work with a web designer, you can use a drag-and-drop builder like Site Maker to go live quickly and easily.
Keep in mind that visitors are coming to your site to read fresh content. As a result, you might want to choose a home page design that showcases your newest and most popular entries.
6. Add evergreen pages
Your site needs a bit more information about you and what you offer on top of the blog posts you’re planning to publish. Create some “evergreen” pages on your site that tell your story and more about you. Consider adding an About page that details the what and why of your lifestyle blog. You should also include a Contact page with a form where readers and potential collaborators can reach you.
7. Sign up for website performance tools
Performance tools help you analyze where web traffic is coming from. They also give you great insight into which pages perform best, your audience demographics, and much more. There are a number of free and paid tools available. For example, Google Analytics and Google Search Console are two free tools that are a must for any website.
8. Plan what you want to write
Fill your new website with content! Sit down and plan an editorial calendar well in advance to help you stay on track. An editorial calendar details the topics you’re going to tackle, as well as when you plan to write and publish the content. As you start to think of what you want to write about, use the editorial calendar to space out these topics. This way, you can present a variety of fresh content to your audience.
9. Optimize your content
Writing good content is just the first step to getting seen by a wider audience. Search engine optimization (SEO) goes a long way in ensuring your website can appear in results when potential readers look for a certain keyword.
One way to optimize your lifestyle blog for search engines is to create content around keywords that your target audience is searching for. For example, if you operate a U.S.-based travel lifestyle blog and you took a trip to England, you’ll want to find out which keywords folks in America look up about the U.K. and use that insight to create content.
- Some other best practices for optimizing your content include:
- Use reader-friendly formatting for your blog posts
- Link to other relevant, quality content on your website
- Include photos or videos that help keep people on the page longer
10. Set a publication schedule
Many website content management platforms let you schedule blogs in advance, so you can set up multiple pieces of content in one sitting. Commit to publishing content on a regular basis because it teaches your readers to expect new blog posts. It’s also great for SEO, as regular publishing can signal to search engines that you mean business.
11. Promote your blog
It’s time to get your content out into the world! Use new content on your lifestyle blog to connect with readers and reach new audiences who may be interested in the topic you wrote about. Utilize social media to reach new audiences and encourage engagement. Set up an email newsletter to send the newest blog entries to subscribers. You can also leverage online communities like Facebook groups, subreddits, and LinkedIn groups to share relevant content to interested audiences.
