How To Start A Lifestyle Blog
“Lifestyle” is a catch-all Internet buzzword that refers to basically anything having to do with living a good life, mostly from an aspirational perspective. If you want to serve as an inspiration for others to help them live their best lives and make the most out of what’s available to them, creating a lifestyle blog could be the right choice for you. Learn how to start a lifestyle blog along with some great techniques for setting yourself apart in a competitive blogging field with this step-by-step guide.
First Steps
The first step is to identify a theme or goal for the blog. Do you want to focus on exercise and health? Would you like to chronicle your experience moving from a tiny apartment in the city to a giant farm in the country? Are you on a mission to show that plus-size women can be as fabulous and fashionable as anyone else? These are all great themes and goals to guide your lifestyle blog. You should be thinking about this at the same stage that you come up with your blog name and domain name so you can make your branding and presentation cohesive from the very beginning.
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Like with fashion blogs, travel blogs, and other successful blogs, after you cover the basics of how to create a lifestyle blog, you’ll want to refine your writing style and really get good at the art of blogging. This may seem obvious, but many successful blogs and lifestyle bloggers prioritize style over substance. While this can work with some blog subjects, lifestyle isn’t really one of them. You’ve really got to find a way to connect with your audience bt finding a niche in the market and give them something they’ll want to link to and revisit over and over again. You may need to study the way other successful lifestyle bloggers write and take some style cues from their approach. Write some practice drafts of blog posts and share them with your most supportive and fashionable friends. If they have feedback that covers concerns you hadn’t thought about, it may be worth integrating their comments and changing your approach a bit before you launch.
First Steps
Next it's time to cover the basics: naming your blog and creating a domain name. Pick a name that's memorable and short. For example, my domain name is howtostartablogonline.net. It's ok, but I would have preferred to get the .com address.
There are basically two ways to name your blog.
A real name like this:
Or a brand name like this:
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/
Both are successful lifestyle blogs.
Still need some ideas? Read my post: How To Choose A Domain Name.
Finally you need some software to get the blog online. There are tons of blog platforms out there but WordPress is the most popular because it is free and easy.
Pick a website host that has 1 click WordPress installation like Hostgator. Or read some reviews comparing the different hosts.
Building Your Following and Your Search Ranking
After you finish setting up your blog with a host, you'll want to write your first blog post. Ideally, your lifestyle blog will focus on something that truly interests you, something that you’d be willing to think and write about even if you’re having a really hectic month and it will take time. If you can’t keep up the momentum, especially early in your run, you’re going to have major problems attracting an audience. The people who read lifestyle blogs on a regular basis tend to want consistent advice, insight or ideas from a blogger.
Building a following also means making your social media presence just as interesting and active. In fact, you may want to use social media as a way of staying in touch with your readers in between posts. These days, having a strong social media presence can almost be more important than having a lot of traffic to your blog because brands want to know that they’re going to get social exposure if they choose to partner with you. Like other forms of blogging, brand partnerships are the major financial foundation of the best lifestyle blogs. Make sure what you post on social media stays aspirational and focused on your message or goal. Don’t go “off brand” on your blog’s social media account either. If you're positioning yourself as some kind of lifestyle guru with all the answers, you might want to save complaints about traffic for your personal account.
SEO is also important for driving traffic to your blog. Working with good keywords and learning how to use linking strategies and other SEO techniques will really help your lifestyle blog get the exposure you want. You can put all your emphasis on social if you’d like, but doing both together is by far the best approach. That way, you’ll have some dedicated followers who will constantly visit your site, link to your blogs, interact with you on social media and check out the products you endorse. You’ll also get new visitors coming to your site because they searched a relevant keyword or phrase that you’ve targeted with your posts.
Providing Original, Unique Content
As mentioned above, the lifestyle blog isn’t exactly in short supply and you’re going to have some competition online when you enter this blogging field. To set yourself apart, you’re going to need to be really creative about how you approach the content. Writing well is important, but the subjects you focus on are important as well. Try to come up with a unique angle for the specific lifestyle topic you’re approaching. From all-natural veganism to gluten-free body building and raising a child in a treehouse, there’s probably at least one lifestyle blog out there that’s trying to discuss what interests you.
Looking at the blogs in your area of lifestyle blogging interest can feel discouraging. Why do it if someone else has already tried? But the thing is that there’s always room for a new spin on things and even if you approach the topic in a straightforward way, you can do certain things to set yourself apart. You can incorporate vlogging into your approach or really work on becoming a top-notch photographer to stand out from the crowd.
You can also focus on getting interviews with experts and providing genuinely useful information to your readers. Getting interviews may seem daunting if you’re just starting out, but networking can be helpful for encouraging people to talk to you and give you a shot. Expert interviews are a great way to give your lifestyle blog some clout and some early exposure, so consider doing this earlier than you think you might be able to. These interview posts can also be designed to be keyword dense so people looking for information on that particular topic reach your site through a search engine query.
Have Your Blog Up & Running In 20 Minutes or Less!
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