10 Powerful Tips to Grow & Monetize a Lifestyle Blog
How to get more bang for your buck!
How to get more bang for your buck!
So you’ve started a lifestyle blog.
Signed up to WordPress … Written about what you ate this morning … Uploaded a few nice pictures … DONE!
Hmm, perhaps 10 or 15 years ago, this would have been enough.
Nowadays, however, even though we’re pursuing our passions, we need to approach our lifestyle blog more like a business if we want to make money from it.
Here are my top 10 tips for growing a wildly successful and profitable lifestyle blog!
1. Be Authentic
If you look at examples of successful lifestyle blogs, you’ll quickly realise how authentic they are.
They offer their readers insight into their lives and are open and honest.
This is a crucial skill to stand out in the lifestyle blogging market, which is saturated with many bloggers seemingly out to make a quick buck, promoting products they don’t believe in.
Build trust by putting yourself and your life at the forefront, sharing your lessons and life experiences, both good and bad!
2. Focus on Your Readers
One of the most profitable ways to make money as a lifestyle blogger is by promoting products.
When telling your stories, be sure to focus on how products you’ve used or consumed benefit your target readers.
Even when you’re not talking about specific products, always maintain focus on how you’re benefiting your readers.
How do your stories & information add value to your readers lives?
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Read writing from Tom Kuegler on Medium. Travel blogger. 28 years old. Currently in Mexico. Get my free 5-day Medium…tomkuegler.medium.com
3. Ensure Your Brand Has Room to Grow
I’ve been banging on about picking one niche for years!
However, the lifestyle blogging niche lends itself to broader content.
Many lifestyle blogs cover a multitude of topics usually reader-driven.
Therefore, if you’ve started by calling yourself something like mariasgymexercises.com, but your audience prefers your diet advice and you want to expand into becoming more of a cooking blog, your name hasn’t left much room for creative expansion.
Instead, many lifestyle bloggers choose to brand the blog after themselves, like jennakutcher.com.
This gives you the ultimate in creative freedom.
However, even if you prefer a name that’s more representative of your worldview, like mine, ensure it has space to grow in the future.
4. Pick Only 1 or 2 Lifestyle Blogging Promotional Strategies to Start With
It’s easy to think you need to be everywhere online to gain traction and try all the different promotional strategies.
The truth is, if you’re a solopreneur, you can’t take on lots of different tasks & hope to do all of them well.
Your best bet is to focus on 1 or 2 main strategies & as you build systems and see results, slowly expand over time.
If your key strategy is SEO, focus on content & links.
If you’re going down the social media route, pick one platform to master.
If you like the sound of content syndication, become an expert at that.
Layer your promotional strategies as you generate income and are able to start outsourcing some tasks.
5. Up Your Photography Game
Depending on the niche you choose, you’ll likely need great quality visuals.
Whether these are pictures of you working out, playing with your kids, or redecorating a room in your home.
Quality images will take your content to a whole new level, no matter which platform you’re publishing on.
These days modern phones take amazing photos & videos, so you don’t need any specialist equipment.
Basic editing software like Adobe Lightroom or Snapseed are great for enhancing pictures and bringing them to life. However, if you are new to this, it may be worthwhile to take a course to help get yourself up to scratch.
I recommend Emil Pakarklis for incredible iPhone photography.
6. Collaborate With Other Blogs to Build Visibility
When you first start your lifestyle blog, it is natural to see other lifestyle blogs as competitors.
This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Instead, the sheer number of lifestyle bloggers out there indicates the demand for content and the opportunities around.
I encourage you to reframe your thinking and see other blogs as a way to help you succeed.
This means building win-win scenarios with other bloggers and helping to build your audiences alongside each other.
The best way to get started is to join groups & forums with other like-minded bloggers and join in some conversations.
Who knows what opportunities will pop up.
Here are some groups I found;
7. Build an Email List From the Start
No matter which promotional strategy you choose, there is only one traffic source that you have complete control over.
Your email list.
If you’re reliant on SEO and Google changes their algorithm, you could lose traffic.
If you’re reliant on social media and your account gets shut down, you could lose traffic.
If you’re relying on syndication and your main partner publication stops publishing your articles, you could lose traffic.
If, however, you start building your email list from day one, you can amass thousands of target readers to whom you can promote new content with just the click of a button.
Also, an email list allows you to build a much more loyal following, as they regularly read your content each week.
These people are the ideal audience to whom you can sell new products or promote affiliate links.
For more guidance on this, check out my guide on how to build an email list.
8. Understand the Intent Behind Your Posts
To grow a blog that makes money, you need to understand the different types of content you will be publishing.
These can be broken down into:
Entertaining — Getting to know you & your brand in an entertaining manner
Informational — People looking for advice on a topic
Transactional — People ready to make a purchase
Entertaining articles might include titles such as;
These articles are the ultimate in creative expression and help your audience get to know the person behind the brand. They’re rarely for SEO purposes and are much more suited for sharing on social media or with your email list.
Informational articles might include things like:
If people read these articles, they are not usually looking to buy. Instead, they are looking for helpful, valuable information.
However, informational content is a great way to generate affiliate income, as people read your article and then follow your recommendations.
Transactional content tends to look like:
Best Shopify Alternatives for Bloggers
Best Travel Accessories for Solopreneurs
When searching for and reading this content, the reader is more likely to make a purchase.
Understanding this difference is key, as it helps you plan out your content strategy.
I recommend writing a mix of these types of posts.
Not everything on your site should be a buying guide or product review, but, your audience will want your advice on what they should buy.
At the same time, your audience wants to get to know you better and is also looking for your knowledge and wisdom within your lifestyle niche.
Knowing the difference between the types of posts will help you choose where to place product links, affiliate offers or advertising.
9. Do NOT Join AdSense
There is a common misconception that the best way to make money with any blog is through ad revenue from Google AdSense.
It’s probably how most non-bloggers think you make money from your site.
Advertising should be one of the LAST ways you look to monetise your site.
Instead, it is far more profitable to seek other means to make money from your content.
If a blog post has no way to be monetised through affiliate marketing, or any other means, then and only then should there be ads on that page.
Also, it’s best to join premium ad networks like Mediavine, AdThrive, or Ezoic.
Unlike AdSense, these all have a minimum page view threshold to join.
However, the RPMs they offer (revenue per thousand page views) are as much as ten times higher than those you’d achieve with AdSense.
These premium ad providers usually look for 10,000 monthly sessions and above to join, which is a nice target to set yourself with your new blog.
10. Approach Blogging Like a CEO
I first heard this tip from successful affiliate blogger Adam Enfroy.
If you want to build a successful lifestyle blog, you can’t just be a blogger.
Being a blogging CEO means taking a top-level approach to your business as early as possible.
This could mean bringing in outside help to deal with things you simply don’t have the time or skills to do, such as:
Creating graphics
Fixing site bugs
Improving site speed
Writing content
Responding to emails
It’s doubtful that the most popular bloggers have built their successful blogs independently.
Instead, they’ve built a team around them who take care of the day-to-day tasks, freeing up their time to focus on the bigger jobs at hand, such as diversifying income streams, finding new brand collaborations, or speaking at events.
Blogging like a CEO also means investing both your time and your money.
While you don’t need to spend a fortune to get started there will be software platforms, apps and other costs to launch your blogging business.
It may also make sense to spend money educating yourself by purchasing online courses or attending events as you progress.
Take Action
Lifestyle blogs are on the increase as more people move to remote work and look to design their lifestyles.
Stand out from the crowd by following these tips consistently and in no time you’ll be making a nice monthly recurring income while helping & inspiring your readers!
This post is a modified extract from the full blog post — How to Start a Lifestyle Blog in 2022 and Make Money.