Although there is no clear definition what a lifestyle blog is, there are some things lifestyle blogs have in common. Bear in mind that blogging has been around for less than 20 years, although of course it has developed a lot since the early days.
So what is a lifestyle blog? A lifestyle blog is a type of website where someone journals their own experiences or thoughts and discussed their daily lives.
The issue with this description is it doesn’t really rule anything out! You could simply write whatever you wanted.
Lifestyle Blogs are not Personal Blogs
For this reason, it is perhaps better to look at what a lifestyle blog is not. There is a difference between a lifestyle blog and a personal one.
In the early days of blogging, you could write about your life in journal format, sharing what happened that day, presenting it in a way that readers will enjoy.
A personal blog is typically a hobby blog, written to amuse the writer and their followers. They do not typically make much, or any, profit, unless they are strongly focused on one niche.
You can still find personal blogs on line but they are different these days. Someone might have a personal blog about their own weight loss journey, an expedition to the different countries they made, or how they how they dealt with various diseases.
These might be beautifully written and have a lot of followers, but that doesn’t make them lifestyle blogs.
How to Start & Create Your Own Lifestyle Blog
You should follow 5 simple steps to start your own lifestyle blog. Those steps are following:
- Find good and reliable hosting
- Choose a memorable domain name
- Create & customize your lifestyle blog
- Write catchy content that’s well keyword optimized
- Promote it
Best Hosting for your Lifestyle Blog
Choosing a right hosting for your lifestyle blog is very important part. In this case I would recommend you to start with Bluehost.
Bluehost is one of the most trusted hosting providers for bloggers and it’s also very cheap. You can also get special discount -50% for our readers which is going to be just $3.95 a month.
Choosing the Right Hosting Plan
In this case I would suggest you to go with cheapest $3.95 plan. This plan is perfect for new blogs and you can also upgrade your plan anytime in the future.
Choosing a Domain Name
Remember, you should not rush choosing the right name for your lifestyle blog. Think about it for a while because you can’t change it once you buy it.
You want people to remember name of your lifestyle blog right? Then choose something memorable, weird… Just something people will remember.
You can choose domain name alongside with hosting on Bluehost. After choosing hosting plan, you will be taken to domain section. Here you can find a new domain and check if it’s available.
Creating & customizing your lifestyle blog
Once you have selected domain name, you will be asked to put in your details…
and payment details also with some “package extras”. You don’t need to select any extras, it’s not necessary.
It’s very easy, just follow all the steps mentioned above and your blog will be ready soon.
Installing WordPress and Choosing Theme
This step is pretty simple, all you need to do is install wordpress on your domain with just few simple clicks.
Bluehost will take care about wordpresss installation.
First you have to create a password for wordpress dashboard.
Than you need to choose theme for your lifestyle blog.
You can change this theme later for a different one if you want to.
Launch and Publish your website
That’s it! Your blog is now ready. To publish your lifestyle blog and make it public, you need press “Launch your site” button.
You can find that button here:
Than just name your lifestyle blog and click “Next Step”
Congratulations! You have just created your own lifestyle blog and you are ready to start blogging!
What to Write About in a Lifestyle Blog
This type of blog needs to be about your ideal life, or what you aspire to, rather than simply a description of your daily life (unless that is amazing and inspirational of course).
Are you always taking amazing photos wherever you go? Are you fascinated by beauty and always keen to try exciting new things, or a food lover and someone who creates amazing meals and photographs them?
Do you mind sharing your life (and maybe your family’s) with the world even in a low-key way? Are you prepared to put the necessary time and effort into maintaining a lifestyle blog?
If you identify with the above, then you might like to look at some other successful lifestyle blogs and get a feel for them. Think about what topics you want to write about.
Do you want a formal or friendly blog? Will you be selling budget items or elite ones? It’s easier to pick the tone that reflects your true self in order to sound convincing and real.
Think about how you want your blog to look 5 years down the line. It needs to be personalized to you rather than too similar to another lifestyle blog.
If you already have some ideas and you are excited about a lifestyle blog, it could be the perfect time to get started.
It is possible to be an influencer without a blog simply using YouTube, Instagram and so on, but a blog can be more effective if you are promoting products, and it creates an additional stream of income.
Lifestyle Blogs Must Be Reader-Focused
A lifestyle blog is about your interests, with personal opinions added. You will share little glimpses into your life in various posts about activities and information.
Your main focus will be the reader and what makes them want to follow your lifestyle blog, and you will write according to what you think readers will want to see.
There are, of course, exceptions, and you will find some bloggers who combine a list of the “top 10 things to do” with a deeply personal post about their mental health issues, all on the same blog.
You can even compare this to spying on someone via a social platform to both get information and also glimpse into their life.
They are Meant to Inspire the Reader
Lifestyle blogs have an inspirational feel, with reality seemingly air-brushed out of the picture. You want to appeal to readers to shoot for their dreams or buy whatever it is you are selling.
A lifestyle blog is like a modern replacement for printed magazines. Take Vogue magazine. If they had started today instead of the pre-internet days, they might set up as a top-end lifestyle blog focused on beauty and fashion.
A good lifestyle blog is easy to read and contains plenty of attention-grabbing pictures, which is not that different from Instagram. Your readers will see a beautiful picture of a mother and her daughter happily playing on the beach, and wish that was them.
Lifestyle blogs often start out as niche blogs before blending their content. Niche blogs stand out from more generalized ones.
You Can Introduce More Topics
Let’s say a blogger starts a blog about keeping pet rabbits. As it grows and she either runs out of material or wants to expand the niche, she might begin writing about tips for other types of pets, or posts about her own prize-winning rabbits.
These are also relevant to the topic, but having several topics gives the blogger much more material to work with, and might attract the visitor who wants to read about the prize-winning rabbits but doesn’t necessarily want to learn about keeping rabbits as pets.
If you do want to cover diverse topics, it is good practice to post several times a week, to keep your followers interested and attract new ones.
A good lifestyle blog has to be unique and reflective of your story. If you don’t have kids, it will be hard to write a blog about raising children.
If you are a 20-something, it will be hard to write about the struggles of going through the menopause. It is best to stick to topics with a broad appeal, such as travel, fashion, beauty, food, family or fitness.
Some Lifestyle Bloggers Choose to be Anonymous
It is rare but not impossible to pull of being an incognito blogger, although it is harder once you begin monetizing your blog, since affiliates and sponsors require your real name for legal reasons, as do advertisers like Google or Facebook Ads.
You also have to reveal your contact details and company name (if you have one) on the blog itself. Even if you hide your actual identity on your blog, you must still register your company details online and anyone can check those to discover your identity.
Given the nature of lifestyle blogs, it is a good idea to be transparent from the get-go about who you are.
This doesn’t mean you have to divulge your address, phone number or photos of your kids, but it does mean your followers will have a name to put to the face and this can built trust in you and in any product or service you want to sell them.
How to Promote & Earn an Income with a Lifestyle Blog
A successful lifestyle blogger can gain a lot of visitors to their blog by writing about interesting subjects.
They are often influencers and trendsetters, and typically promote their lifestyle blogs on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Instragram, and other social media channels.
Another great source of traffic for your blog can be Google, where you can gain visitors organically via search results or via paid ads (Google Adwords).
It’s quite simple formula. More traffic you gain – more attractive your blog is for sponsored content, sponsorship and advertising partners.
Advertising is the most obvious source of income if you have a lot of traffic. AdThrive, for example, is an advertising network which pays better than AdSense, but you can only apply if you have more than 100,000 visitors each month. Of course flooding your blog with sponsored content can be counteractive if it is detrimental to the look and feel of your blog.
Promoting affiliate products is another way to make money and a lifestyle blogger can talk about products they personally know and love.
You get a commission each time someone uses a link on your blog to purchase something, with commission levels varying from 4% with Amazon to up to 50% for some digital products.
If your lifestyle blog has a good following, you might want to set up your own store selling whatever is relevant to your blog topics. You might want to create a course, write a book or offer free downloadable items to attract more traffic to the blog itself.
Conclusion
I hope this article clarified question “what is a lifestyle blog” and as you can see it’s very easy to start your own one. Also if you have good writing skills and wondering “what kind of website should I make“, than lifestyle blog can become great source of income for you.
If you have any question or need help with starting your blog feel free to leave a comment below. Thank you for your time!