How to start a lifestyle blog

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.

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

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!

Photo by Diggity Marketing on Unsplash

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.

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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.

Photo by NisonCo PR and SEO on Unsplash

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. 

12. Monetize your blog

You may be able to earn money from your blog post ideas. Successful lifestyle bloggers set up partnerships with brands and companies so they earn commission in exchange for featuring products on their blog — otherwise known as affiliate marketing. You may also create content about a relevant product in exchange for sponsorship on your blog.

Some lifestyle bloggers will work with ad distribution networks to display ads on their site. They can earn a bit of revenue from this ad placement. 

4 things to consider when creating a lifestyle blog

As you lay the groundwork for your new lifestyle blog, keep these four website design tips in mind.

1. Make sure your design is user-friendly

The best websites, whether they’re B2B or talk directly to a consumer like a lifestyle blog, are easy to navigate. Readers need to be able to easily find what they’re looking for. That means that you should utilize an intuitive layout that places the most important parts of your site in prominent places. Some user-friendly best practices include:

• Choose a font that’s easy to read
• Add a search bar so readers can type in keywords
• Use colors that won’t strain the reader's eyes
• Place your menu at the top of the page
  

2. Check that your website is responsive

A responsive website is one that automatically shifts its size and shape to fit mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Not only is this quite important from an SEO perspective, but it also enhances the user experience by ensuring all elements are readable, clickable, and usable. Anything that’s difficult to use on a smartphone can cause a reader to leave, affecting your overall website traffic. That’s vitally important considering that the majority of web traffic today comes from smartphones.

Photo by Sven on Unsplash

3. Go for super-fast load times

“The faster, the better” is the mantra for the most successful websites, lifestyle blogging included. In fact, sites that take longer than three seconds to load will start to see dramatic dips in traffic. That’s because visitors won’t wait for a slow-to-load site, giving it only a few seconds to see the content they came to read or watch. Even by shaving a second off your load time, you can keep more visitors on your site. Every second counts — literally! 

Some ways to ensure faster load times include:

• Choose a dedicated server or a server with more space
• Use plugins that help decrease file size
• Consider a content delivery network (CDN)
• Avoid uploading large files like videos directly to your website
  

4. Make it easy to update 

The easier it is for you to upload new content, the more likely you are to stay engaged with your site. Opt for a content management platform like Namecheap Site Maker, which utilizes simple drag-and-drop building tools that can add fresh new content to your site in minutes. There’s no need to learn how to code, and no huge learning curve to navigate — just drop your content in and hit publish!

Start your lifestyle blog today

All it takes is a great idea to get your lifestyle blog started. With the right tools in hand — from a good domain name and reliable hosting to intuitive builders that help you create website designs, logos, and graphics — you can focus your time on creating great content that resonates with readers. Namecheap makes it easy — get started today with a domain name and hosting space of your own.