How to Start a Lifestyle Blog: Tips, Examples + How to Make Money With It

It’s a lifestyle blog.” That’s the response we give people when they ask us what we blog about on Fulltime Nomad.

But, as you can imagine, the next question would always be “What is a lifestyle blog?

Most people find it easy to understand what a food blog is or even what  mummy blogging is, but a lifestyle blog brings you all the vague looks. Fair enough.

A lifestyle blog is a lot more general than health or say, fashion. It’s not as specific as some other niches so naturally, it’s a lot harder to explain exactly what kind of blog it is and what you write about. In fact, you and I could both write lifestyle blogs and have completely different kinds of content and audience.

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So… before we jump into talking about how to start a lifestyle blog, let’s quickly discuss what is lifestyle blogging. Because, if you want to begin a lifestyle blog you want to know what’s involved right?

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What is a Lifestyle Blog?

Put simply, a lifestyle blog is exactly that… blogging about a lifestyle. Usually, this is a lifestyle the blogger is passionate and/or knowledgeable about. So they’re an authority in the lifestyle and have lots to say (and write) about it.

This means, as a lifestyle blogger you would write about your personal interests or hobbies. And, the best part is you get to turn your passions into a money-making business.

If you want to start a successful lifestyle blog, begin by thinking about what makes you, you. Cheesy, I know, but true. There are thousands of lifestyle blogs out there but the ones that are successful are unique and often have a unique point of view.

Think about you, your life, your passions and hobbies, your family, your social life – is there anything there that makes you unique? That “thing” could be your lifestyle blog.

For example, you could be someone who is very passionate about a zero waste lifestyle. So much so, that not just you, your whole family is into it. This could be the topic for your blog. You could be blogging about how you made the transition, tips for reducing waste, how your family gets involved, advice on composting, tips for using less plastic and so much more.

As you can see, when it’s something you’re passionate about, you’re unlikely to run out of writing ideas for the topic as well.

So if you’ve been wondering, “should I start a lifestyle blog?“, now you know exactly what’s involved. It’s easier than you think, right?

Start a Lifestyle Blog: Ideas for a Successful Blog

If you want to build a lifestyle blog, by now it should be clear to you that there are so many potential topics you could base your site around.

You really can choose any topic, as long as you have an interest in it and it’s something that you live and breathe in your day to day life.

FulltimeNomad.com is considered a lifestyle blog. We write about our nomadic lifestyle; and share with our audience the different ways you can create businesses that let you work from anywhere in the world.

As most of you know, we don’t have a fixed location that we call home. We like to live and run our business from different parts of the world. This is our life and a passion of ours and we decided to build our blog around this.

So if you’re wondering what you should write about, here are some ideas to get you thinking:

  • Vegan living
  • Life in a {geo specific area/city} e.g. London life
  • Solo travel
  • Rural life
  • Single mum life
  • DIY projects
  • Street Fashion
  • Home gardening
  • Environmental protection
  • Budgeting and saving money
  • Martial arts

Don’t just create a lifestyle blog on a topic because others are doing it and it seems like the popular subject. Think about what interests and passions you have and if it’s something that you would like to write about and share with the world.

How to Start a Successful Lifestyle Blog & Make Money from It

There are many great reasons to build a lifestyle blog but one of the most important ones is that you can make money from it.

Yep. We’re not here to talk about blogging for the sake of blogging. That’s great, but we’re here to make blogging our business, amirite?

So, there are various ways you can make money from lifestyle blogging. The most popular ways include affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, advertising revenue like Adsense, e-books and courses. and online coaching.

When you’re thinking about how to start a lifestyle blog, don’t forget to take into consideration how you plan to monetise it.

Here are some ideas and examples to show you how to make money from lifestyle blogging.

A Yoga Blog

Say you have a huge passion for yoga and practice daily. You decide to turn this passion into a business and start a yoga blog.

Here are some ways you could make money with a yoga blog:

– You do you weekly video classes. You also post these on YouTube, where you earn income from advertising revenue.

– You decide to create a paid membership area on your site where you have created a number classes and programs.

 – You also do product reviews on various yoga products and make money with affiliate commissions.

Erin Motz runs a successful yoga lifestyle blog – BadYogi.com

A Vegan Food Blog

After years of only eating vegan food, you start blogging about food that includes lots of delicious vegan food recipes.

How do you monetise it?

– You decide to compile your best recipes into a vegan recipe food e-book. You promote this to your audience and sell it online.

 – You also include affiliate links to all the different cooking equipment used when making the recipes, earning commissions from Amazon sales.

Venganyackattack.com – A vegan food site.

A Solo Travel Blog

You start a blog that follows your adventures as a solo traveler. Your write about your experiences of solo travel around the world.

How can you turn this into a money-making venture?

 – You write a number of articles on the best way to find cheap flights including affiliate links to the different websites you use.

 – As you travel you write reviews and recommend different hotels where you stay, using affiliate links in your articles. When someone clicks on that link and books a hotel you make commissions. This can also work for travel products, guides or anything else travel related.

Solo travel – Dangerous-business.com

A Makeup Tutorial Blog

You’ve gone to beauty school but you don’t quite like the idea of being in a salon all day. So you decide to use to share your knowledge and passion through your makeup tutorial blog.

Now, how do you monetise this?

 – You create video tutorials of different makeup techniques. When you do the tutorials you list and recommend the products that are in use and make money from the affiliate links.

 – You also post these videos on YouTube and generate ad revenue from views.

BubzBeauty.com – A lifestyle blog about beauty, hair & fashion.

So as you can see, there are many different ways to make money when you start a lifestyle blog.

How to Start a Lifestyle Blog: Get Ready to Launch

So are you ready to start a lifestyle blog? Here’s the step-by-step process to launch your site and get started:

Step 1: Choose your topic

Before you get writing, you need to have a topic. So it’s time to really think and pick a topic for your blog.

  • What are you interested in?
  • What hobbies do you have?
  • What are you passionate about?
  • What are you good at?

These are just some questions worth asking yourself as you try to narrow down on a topic for your blog. Think about everything and write everything down. As you write down a few broader ideas, it might trigger further ideas as well.

For example, you might be great at cooking. Write that down. Then you think about it a bit more and realise you especially like cooking quick, simple dishes that require a few ingredients as this is what works for your busy life. Boom! You have a topic.

You can create a blog about easy cooking for those with busy lives. You could share recipes but also tips on pantry essentials, how to make time for cooking etc.

Step 2: Choose your platform

Once you have a topic, you need to choose the platform you will use for your blog. We 100%, wholeheartedly recommend WordPress.

We use WordPress for Fulltime Nomad and for all our other websites. We also always recommend WordPress to all our clients.

Why?

  • It’s great for beginners.
  • It’s easy to customise, even if you have no coding knowledge (like us!)
  • There are lots of fantastic, done-for-you themes (so you don’t have to try to design your website).
  • You will find hundreds of plugins that make life easier for bloggers (such as SEO tools, comment management plugins etc)

Despite there being a few other popular platforms out there, WordPress is still the most popular blogging platform and we highly recommend you go with it too. If you ever get stuck, there are so many online resources for WordPress, that you’re likely to find a solution to your problem sooner rather than later.

Over 30% of the web uses WordPress.

Why not a free platform?

There are lots of free blogging platforms out there and while they’re fine for newbies, they’re not really a good option if you’re planning to make money from your site.

Free platforms often don’t offer many customisation options. You won’t be able to get your blog to look exactly how you like it.

Also, you won’t be able to customise your URL and will be stuck with something like www.myblog.blogspot.com. Now, how many professional bloggers do you know have amateur-looking URLs like that?

You will also be limited with your money-making options as many platforms will not let you add advertising. That completely defeats the purpose of your blogging, doesn’t it?

But worst of all, you don’t own the blog when you host it on a free platform. Your blog is owned by the platform you use, not by you. Seriously.

Now, wouldn’t you rather own your own blog, be able to customise it and put ads on it, if you so wish?

I thought so.

Step 3: Choose your domain name

Right, so the next step is to get yourself a domain name. This will basically be your blog’s address on the web. For example. our domain is www.fulltimenomad.com.

Choose a domain name that is relevant – something that convey’s your blog’s message or says something about you.

Also, keep it short. A short domain name is much easier to type and to remember!

By the way, if you sign up for hosting with BlueHost with our link, you can get a FREE domain name. More on this in Step 4.

Step 4: Get hosting

Hosting is the little piece of internet space you need to buy to give your blog a home on the internet.

We recommend BlueHost as your hosting provider. This is exactly what we started with and it is fantastic for newbies.

  • You get a free domain.
  • It’s easy to manage as
  • It comes with a 1-click WordPress installation.
  • There’s a money-back guarantee.
  • You have access to tons of resources for help.

Use our exclusive link to get a special offer that reduces the price to just $2.95/month, including the FREE domain.

Step 5: Choose a theme

Now that you’ve got hosting, a domain name and WordPress installed, it’s time to get your site to look the part.

You can do this by installing a WordPress them on your site. A theme allows you to customise the look and feel of your blog as you like it.

Basically, a WordPress theme is a pre-designed “look” for your website that you can install, customise a little and get your blog looking sharp and ready to wow the world.

This is especially great for new bloggers and those with minimum design skills. You can get your blog to look great, with very little effort.

There are thousands of free themes available for WordPress so just go ahead and pick one you like and install it on your site. You can do this right from within the WordPress dashboard.

What theme do we use on Fulltime Nomad?

We use the Divi theme on our site. This part of the Elegant Themes set.

This is a paid theme.

A free theme is fine as a newbie but upgrading to a premium theme will be super useful for you.

Premium themes will usually have more capabilities and generally give you a more professional looking site.

If you are looking for a premium themes these are some that we recommend.

  • Elegant Themes – When you purchase the Elegant themes you get over 80 of their themes. We use the Divi theme and honestly think it’s one of the best themes out there.
  • Genesis Studio Press – Genesis is one of the most popular WordPress themes. It looks nice, has great support and a big community behind it. We have used Genesis on some of our client’s sites.

Step 6: Publish your first blog post

And finally, you’re ready to put your first blog post out to the world.

Go into your WordPress dashboard. On the left-hand side, you will see a ‘Posts’ option. Hover over this and click on the ‘New Post’ option.

Now you’re all set to get writing and putting your content out for the world to see. You can save your post as a draft and come back to it at any time.

You can format your content in various ways and also upload images/ gifs and videos so feel free to play around until you feel comfortable.

When you’re ready, hit Publish and watch your first blog post baby go live!

And there you have it. Six essential steps to getting up and running with a lifestyle blog.

For even more detailed instructions (with screenshots) on how to set up your blog, check out our step-by-step tutorial here: How to Start a Blog

Start a Lifestyle Blog: 6 Tips for Success

Blogging is a fun job. But, it’s also hard work and there will be days where it feels tedious and thankless. Let no one tell you otherwise.

Not trying to be a killjoy here but it’s best you prepare yourself for reality and do it anyway. Always keep your eyes on the ultimate prize – the fact that you could make your blog your full time job.

Here are some tips to help you start and maintain a successful lifestyle blog:

1. Always aim for success

Go into your blogging journey aiming for success. This is a mindset thing. If you tell yourself your blog is too small, too niche, too boring (etc), you will stay small and not succeed. Instead, believe that your blog  can be successful and can make money. Then, everything you do will have more purpose to it.

2. Write what you know

If you create a lifestyle blog on a topic you know well and are passionate about, writing won’t feel like such a chore. Don’t try to write about topics you know very little about, just because you see everyone else doing it. In fact, when you’re passionate about a topic, it shows in your writing and your readers will probably appreciate this more as well.

3. Be consistent

Create a blog schedule for yourself and stick to it. Posting consistently is key. Success isn’t going to come overnight but if you’re not going to post regular content, it will take even longer. Whether it’s once a week or once a month, make sure you’re consistent with your blogging efforts.

4. Keep learning

You’re not going to know everything about blogging from day one. We’ve been blogging consistently since 2015 and every day we’re learning new ways to grow and monetise the blog. Learn, implement, repeat.

5. Work on your writing

Writing can be hard when you first start blogging. At first you may sound a bit stilted and not quite like yourself. It doesn’t matter. Keep practicing and let your tone and style evolve. Take the time to see what’s working for you and what’s not. Try new things and experiment with your writing and formatting. Learn from and emulate (don’t copy!) other bloggers you like reading.

6. Just get started

If you’ve been meaning to start a lifestyle blog for a while, just begin. You have all the information you need above so you really don’t need to wait any more. It doesn’t matter if you make mistakes or feel like you’re out of your comfort zone. You will learn much more, by doing rather than taking lots of lessons, and implementing nothing.

Haven't got a blog yet?

Use our special BlueHost link to get started for as little $2.95 a month. You will also get a free domain + our exclusive Bonus Pack worth $525.

Got any questions about how to start a lifestyle blog? Leave us a comment below so we can help.

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Written by


Radhika B.

After turning her back on office life in Australia, Radhika set out to create a life lived on her own terms (a constant work in progress). As co-founder of Fulltime Nomad, she is super passionate about helping others live life with more freedom and flexibility, and a bit of travel thrown in for good measure.

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4 Comments

  1. Joe

    That’s a great guide for starting and running a blog. I’m a little over a year into my travel blog and appreciate your theme recommendation. I’ve been thinking about going to a paid theme, so that gives some good direction. Thank you

    • Radhika

      Happy to hear that, Joe. Good luck with the blog 🙂

  2. Md Omar Faruk

    Hello Radhika,

    I love this post, Such a useful resource for people who are just starting out! I’m in the creating foundational content stage right now, I really hope I can get some profit like yours someday. I’d love to work for myself!

    • Radhika

      Great to hear that Md! Good luck with it.