What is Lifestyle Blogging and How to Monetize It

Introduction

Are you the Rachel Green of your group? Do you relate yourself to Carrie Bradshaw or Tommy Shelby? Well, then you must think about launching a lifestyle blog of your own and earn some passive income. However, it’s not easy. There’s no sugar coating it. At times, walking in a pointy toe pump would feel easier than this.

But we cannot see you struggling and that’s why we have come up with a step-by-step guide to lifestyle blogging. From starting a blog to blog monetization, we shall hold your hand so that you don’t trip over and are well-prepared.

Are you ready to go through the ride of how to start a lifestyle blog and make money, let’s get into it.

What is Lifestyle Blogging?

A lifestyle is something that you’re building every day. Changing, adapting, learning, innovating, and adjusting to the culture, technological trends, environmental, and political shifts. Yes, a lifestyle, be it fashion, makeup, haircuts, home-cleaning, travelling, is heavily affected by the PESTEL factors. That is Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal.

If you’re on top of it all and can be someone who provides information regarding the new rules of the nation for travelling, legal requirements to adopt, how is technology changing the makeup trend, how increasing gender inclusion affects style, then you’re fit to start lifestyle blogging. This is a vast arena with a lot of topics coming under it. Lifestyle Blogging involves talking about different aspects of,

• Travel
• Parenting
• Self Development
• Luxury
• Sustainable Living
• Home Solutions and Guides
• Recipes and Nutrition
• Fashion and Beauty
• Dressing and Styling

Anything that comes under the sun of living an everyday life can be a part of lifestyle blogging. From changing a kitchen bulb to changing a car tyre!

Keeping all that in mind, however, you must consider certain things. Here we are ready with a blogging guide with the best tips for monetizing a lifestyle blog in 2024.

How to Start a Lifestyle Blog?

You might be interested in one or more of the topics that come under lifestyle and might even be actively doing some of it. To convert it to a blog is a whole different ball game which you need to get a hang of. Let’s get going with our blogging tips.

Narrow Down a Niche

Narrowing down to a specific niche is very important in lifestyle blogging. Lifestyle Blogs accounts for 25% of all the new blogs that are created. Thus, you must pinpoint your niche initially to stand out. Solve a very specific problem, or cater to a defined group of people.

For instance, you make region specific travel content, you address mums of toddlers, or moms of teenagers, you provide upskilling tips for programmers and designers.

These are very niche specific topics addressing a defined group. Thus, your competition is reduced to blogs in that area from the entire lifestyle blogging arena. Once you start with a niche, it’s not necessary that you are stuck with it. Based on audience interaction, reviews, you can expand yourself gradually.

Domain, Hosting, and Blogging Platform

Having a name that reflects your blog and your approach is very crucial. Further, finding the right hosting and blogging platform is equally important. These things would define your Website address.

For domain name suggestions, use ChatGPT, shopify domain name generator, domain wheel, go daddy, and similar such online name generators that would give you suggestions for free. You can get inspiration and mix and match based on your interest.

For hosting platforms, look out for options like GoDaddy, Hostinger, Hostgator, Bluehost and others.

A Blogging platform is where you will work your magic. Thus, it must be something that supports your long-term goals and provides you with scalability options and additional features as and when needed. Based on this, WordPress is your best bet as it is fully customizable and provides you with an opportunity to get any themes and plug-ins as per your choice, anytime. Other blogging platforms like Wix, Medium, Blogger, Squarespace, Weebly, Tumblr can also be explored for their features and offerings.

Themes, Design, and Branding

Just like you choose the best wallpaper and cover for your mobile devices, themes act as the outlook, design, and wallpaper for your blog. There are very niche specific themes available to support your webpage. The market is wide and you can select from ample options. However make sure that you have support whenever you face a difficulty and have enough customization opportunities in your selected theme.

Further, you can even define your brand colours and create a logo by using applications like Canva. This will help you lay down your brand image right from the beginning.

Various Pages for Lifestyle Blogs

Now, once you finalise everything from domain name to themes and brand identity, it is time for setting up different pages for your blogging website. Here is a list of pages that you should consider.

• Home Page: This page must be a reflection of your brand’s identity and what you offer as a lifestyle blogger. It must be clear from your home page regarding what you do.
• About Page: In the about page, you can tell your story. Who you are, why are you blogging, and what’s your goal. This page must be informative and connecting with the audience. They would know you and the brand from here.
• Contact Page: The contact page should be linked up with all your social channels, mail Id, contact number, and any other contact information through which you want to connect with your audience.
• Gallery: If you want to build a separate page for showcasing just photos and videos regarding what you do, you can have a media-only page.
• Privacy Policy and T&C: These are two of the mandatory pages that a website should have based on the guidelines. Many theme providers provide GDPR compliance and this page with it. You just need to change certain necessary information.

Best tips for Monetizing a Lifestyle Blog in 2024

When you invest a lot of time and money into creating a blog, it is natural for you to think about money. Here are some of the ways in which you can set up blog monetization.

Sponsored Posts

Once you get good traffic on your Website, you can look out for brands who provide you with sponsorships. Various brands pay bloggers to use and review their products, and might even provide you with some commissions on sales through your post. For brands to consider you, you need to have good traffic. Make a report ready of the benefits that you can give to the brand and what results you can help achieve. Such projections can impress the brands and put you on top as a trusted blogger.

• Build a Strong Following: Brands are impressed by how strong is your audience and how much they trust you. Do cross promotions among various social platforms to build a good rapport with your audience.
• Be Professional: Create an attractive media kit with your blog stats and rates. A brand should understand your market position and offering with just that.
• Reach Out: You must reach out to brands that align with your niche. Networking is going to help you immensely to monetize blogs. Even if you do not get a sponsorship, they would keep your profile in mind whenever they are looking for bloggers and influencers.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is wherein you promote a brand’s products and embed their buying links on your blog. Like this, whenever a reader makes a purchase through that link, you will be paid a commission. Thus, you earn with every purchase made through your referral link.

• Choose Relevant Products: When you join an affiliate program, you must select products that align with your brand and niche. If the product is different from your niche, it would confuse your audience and might even make them lose interest.
• Be Transparent: You must be transparent and disclose the affiliate links to maintain trust. This would encourage your loyal followers to buy from that link if they are planning to actually make a purchase.
• Create Valuable Content: It is advisable to be transparent about your reviews of the products. Even if it is a sponsored ad and affiliate, you must be honest regarding the product experience. Keeping this type of strategy may land you less brands in the beginning but would not cost you your audience. In the end, it’s the loyal audience that makes you or breaks you.

Ad Revenue

Ad networks like Google AdSense and Mediavine allow you to earn money by displaying ads on your blog. The income will start small, but can increase based on your traffic.

• Sign Up for Ad Networks: Look out for Ad Networks that you can be eligible for and sign-up your website for the same by selecting a niche.
• Place Ads Strategically: Positioning ads without hindering reader experience is very crucial. They must not be intrusive and force fed on your blog.
• Optimise for Traffic: Learn the techniques for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Digital Marketing so that you can attract more traffic to your blog. More traffic would in turn help in generating more revenue. However, your content quality is also an important factor for the strategies to fully work.

Selling Products/Services

You can sell your own products and services via a Lifestyle Blog. Such products can include,

• E-books: If you have immense knowledge on some topic, create an e-book. It does not have to be a lengthy 200-400 pages book. It can be a short 50-100 page book that gives crisp information and exclusive content.
• Online Courses: With online education in a boom, creating an online course is a lucrative option. Can you teach how to do makeup, how to handle a toddler tantrum, or how to ace an interview in MNC, then create an online lecture or course for the same.
• Consulting: You can even opt for one-to-one consulting to provide a more personal touch. If you think you’re well-established and known for your niche, this monetization technique would rock!

Membership Sites

If you want to segregate your content in different levels, set-up a Disney+ like model of subscription. Create different levels of memberships and provide content based on that. A membership plugin like ARMember comes with multiple features like creating a social community, dripping content, providing online courses, managing plans, members, multiple paywall integration, and a lot more. Here is a brief guide for using the ARMember plugin to monetize your blog.

• Install ARMember: Get the ARMember Plugin by searching it in WordPress Plugins. You can even use the free version to see how varied membership levels can help you provide exclusive content to different plan members.
• Set up Pay Per Post Feature: If you want to sell individual posts, set-up the feature of pay-per-post. Herein, instead of committing to a full membership plan, the users would purchase only the content that they think is useful for them.
• Use the Drip Content Power: Drip content is a powerful feature that lets you schedule your content step-by-step, gradually instead of providing everything at once.
• Create an Online Course: Apart from various membership levels and pay-per-post earning strategy, you can create an online course and sell it on your membership based lifestyle blogging website.

Examples of Lifestyle Blogs

• Verve Magazine
• Julie Blanner
• The Skinny Confidential
• Simply Taralynn
• Ape to Gentlemen
• Hello Hayley
• Monica Beatrice
• Ask Men

Summing up the Blogging Guide

If you love networking and connecting with people, lifestyle blogging can be a rewarding experience. It’s a platform where you can be yourself and discuss your life, your tips, what you believe in, and a lot more. Stay updated with the latest trends and technologies and weave them into your content.

No matter the monetization techniques, if you are honest about your opinions and transparent enough for paid ads, your audience would appreciate it and even help you gain more revenue. The power of a loyal audience is much more than anything which you have to build by fostering a sense of community and creating a space for everyone.

FAQs

1) What is lifestyle blogging?

A lifestyle blog is something where you share insights, tips, experiences, stories regarding different aspects of life that engages, inspires, or provides knowledge to the audience. You must consider the PESTEL factors affecting any part of lifestyle and report on it.

2) How to identify a niche for my lifestyle blog?

Based on your passion, interest, and knowledge, a niche can be defined. It should be specific enough to target a set group of people but should also allow you flexibility to grow and expand your avenues.

3) Which blogging platform is best for lifestyle blogging?

WordPress is a highly recommended blogging platform due to its customization and scalability options. You can even consider other options like Wix, Medium, Blogger, Squarespace based on your budget and requirements.

4) What is affiliate marketing in the context of blogging?

In affiliate marketing, you tie up with a brand or product and promote it on your blog. You receive a referral link that you can embed in your communication. You earn a commission for every purchase made through your referral links.

5) What are the benefits of using the ARMember plugin for membership sites?

A membership site is a good monetization tool that lets you manage subscriptions, provide different membership levels, support drip content and pay-per-post features and the like. This will enhance your blog and only allow genuinely interested users to enter your community.