Are you looking to express yourself with your writing online? Consider if you should start a lifestyle blog!
Lifestyle sites cover a variety of topics, so you can be creative. However, it can also be hard to grow a loyal audience when you write about multiple things.
Before we get into the pros and cons of general lifestyle sites, this post contains affiliate links. Read my full disclosure policy to learn more.
Why Start a Lifestyle Blog
If you want to start a blog, a lifestyle blog can be a good choice. You can write about basically whatever you want, which can be nice if you’re not sure if you’ll enjoy blogging.
Consider the following advantages of creating a lifestyle blog rather than a nice blog.
Share Your Interests
One of the best parts of starting any kind of blog is that you get to share your interests with the internet. I’ve been blogging since 2013, and I love getting to write about things I love.
That makes it a lot easier to consistently publish content, especially in the beginning. These days, a lot of people start blogs with the goal of making money from them.
It’s possible, but it probably won’t happen for a while. If you force yourself to write about something you hate or something just for the money, you won’t want to keep up with it.
On the other hand, when you really care about your subject, you’ll be more likely to stick to a publishing schedule. That alone can help increase the chances of you making money from your blog.
Not Stuck in One Niche
I’ve started a few niche blogs, and I love it. However, I basically have to have multiple blogs to write about all of the things I want to write about.
When you start a lifestyle blog, that’s not a problem. You just have to set up one blog, and you can choose a few overarching topics that you’ll cover, such as personal finance, fitness, or fashion.
Being able to write about multiple topics can help keep things interesting as you grow your blog. You don’t have to feel stuck or worry about running out of topics like you would with a narrow niche.
More Potential Topics
As I mentioned, you can diversify the topics you write about on a lifestyle blog. Of course, this can help you switch things up if you ever get bored of writing about something.
However, it can also help you attract more readers. If you only write about one thing, your audience is going to be very small, which is nice, but it can limit you.
Meanwhile, if you write about a few different things, you can attract more people, especially through SEO. You may be able to attract a broader audience, and that could help you get more traffic to your blog.
Plus, it allows you to see what topics are the most popular on your blog. Depending on the name, you could always turn your lifestyle blog into a niche blog later.
Easy to Pivot
Running a lifestyle blog can also make it easier to pivot the focus of your blog as your interests change. If you no longer like writing about a topic, you can stop.
You’ll still have a backlog of posts that readers can find. If you’ve monetized those posts with ads or affiliate links, you’ll be able to bring in more money.
However, you can switch to writing more about topics that you currently enjoy. With a niche blog, you’d have to abandon it, sell it, or hire writers who do care about the subject to continue publishing new content.
Why Not Start a Lifestyle Blog
Starting a lifestyle blog can be a great decision for some people. However, it’s not for everyone, and there’s a reason niche blogs are getting more attention these days.
Before you rush to start your own blog, consider some of the drawbacks of a lifestyle website.
It’s Not About the Reader
One of the first issues with many lifestyle blogs is the fact that they’re often about the writer’s life. That can work for celebrities, and that’s why some lifestyle blogs, like Goop, are successful.
However, for the ordinary person, it can be difficult to convince people to read your blog. Niche blogs are almost always focused on the reader and on providing value. That’s why I’m writing this very post.
You can tailor your lifestyle blog to your readers, but it can be more difficult. Even if someone finds you through SEO, they may notice that a lot of your content doesn’t interest them, so it can be hard to keep readers around.
Too General
Being able to write about what you want is nice, but it helps to give your blog some sort of focus. Even if you start a lifestyle blog, you could make it about healthy living or frugal living.
Without any sort of focus or “niche,” it can be hard to grow your blog and make money from it. Sure, you may get more visitors, but they probably won’t read multiple articles.
It can also be harder to describe to potential readers what your blog is about or who it’s for. If people don’t know what your blog is about, they may leave, even if they could benefit from a lot of you content.
And, as counterintuitive as it may seem, it can be harder to come up with content ideas. Once I started a niche blog and converted my more general blog to a narrow niche, post ideas started flowing easily.
Hard to Grow
Growing a lifestyle blog can be a lot harder than growing a niche blog. You have to compete with tons of lifestyle websites that have built up authority in their various fields.
For example, you may have to compete with websites such as Cosmopolitan or Refinery29. Those websites consistently rank near the top of search results, so your website could easily get buried.
On the other hand, you could choose a narrow niche with plenty of interest but not much competition. If you can become the authority in your field, you can start to rank at the top of search results.
Difficult to Make Money
If you want to start a lifestyle blog to make money, you may want to think again. For all of the other drawbacks, such as the fact that it’s hard to grow, you can’t expect to earn money anytime soon.
Even with one of my niche blogs, it took a few months to make $0.70. It took even longer for me to see my first $100 month from the blog (over a year, to be precise).
That came from proving that the website is an authority in its field. But with a lifestyle blog, becoming an authority figure is even harder, so you may have to wait longer before you see any money.
How to Start a Lifestyle Blog
If you want to start a lifestyle blog despite the downsides, go for it. Maybe you’re not looking to make money, or at least not to make money as soon as possible from blogging.
Either way, consider the following steps to set your lifestyle blog up for success.
Choose a Name
First, you’ll want to select a blog name that you like. For a lifestyle site, you may want to go with your own name, especially if you aren’t sure what types of topics you want to cover.
But maybe you know you want to sort of niche down within the lifestyle realm. You could use that general focus to come up with a name idea.
If you want to start a blog about life in the midwest, you could use that region for name inspiration. But before you do that, make sure you’re comfortable with it so that you don’t have to change it later.
Consider a Lifestyle Category
As I mentioned, it can help to narrow your site a little bit within the overall lifestyle sector. I’ve seen lifestyle blogs that focus on millennials, healthy living, and even tiny house living.
Think about the sort of life you live and what you do every day or week. Brainstorm some blog post topics that you want to write about, and write down a list.
If you notice a trend with those topics, you can form a lifestyle niche around it. Then, you can enjoy some of the benefits of a niche blog without giving up the advantages of a more general site.
Set Up Hosting
You can start a lifestyle blog on one of many blogging platforms. However, I recommend using WordPress with SiteGround as your website host.
I’ve used this setup since 2016, and it’s worked well for me and my various blogs. Now, I started my first couple of blogs on Blogger, but I transferred them to WordPress as soon as I knew I was serious.
If you’re serious about blogging, bypass that process. Then, you won’t have to export all of your content and import it to WordPress or wait for your site to migrate over.
Hosting and a domain are relatively cheap, especially for your first year. Plus, if you want to make money from your site, you need to invest a little so that you have full control over your new venture.
Customize the Design
Next, you’ll need to log into your WordPress dashboard and start customizing your blog. You can choose a theme and adjust the colors and fonts that you use on your website.
I use Astra on this blog, and I love how clean it looks and how the focus is on the content. Some themes have complex designs that are hard to edit and can be distracting.
If you want to start a blog, I’d highly suggest a minimal theme. That way, you can easily make changes to the layout and overall appearance of your blog as you grow.
Write Your First Few Posts
You’re finally ready to start writing your first few blog posts. You can do this before you set up your blog, and that’s not a bad idea if you’ve never written much.
However, if you’re confident you’ll enjoy blogging, you can wait until you have a site to work with. Either way, you can write the content and once you have WordPress up and running, you can add images and other elements.
I’d recommend writing a few posts and publishing them right away. You probably won’t get much traffic yet, but you want to have a few articles to read in case people do stumble upon your blog, and you can add more articles later.
Think About Social Media
After you start your lifestyle blog, you need to get visitors to check out your content. While you can use SEO to show up in search results, it can take a few months for that to happen.
In the meantime, consider starting some social media accounts. You can promote the link to your latest blog post, and you can start to build a community of people who will want to hear from you.
Pinterest is the best choice for getting more traffic more quickly. However, I prefer using Instagram to build a community even if it doesn’t generate a ton of website clicks.
If you want to learn how to use Instagram for your new blogging business, check out the Instagram Marketing and Sales Academy!
Final Thoughts
Whether you want to make money online or want to improve your writing, you may want to start a lifestyle blog. Then, you can write about a variety of topics.
However, making money from this type of site can take a while, so you need to be patient. Be sure to consider the pros and cons before you decide if a lifestyle site is for you!