Looking for the best lifestyle blogs because you want to start one? It’s never been easier to share your life online and get paid for doing it. While I’ve never started a lifestyle blog, I’ve seen countless other bloggers start a blog, share their life, and ultimately turn their blog into a full-time income.
Before I get too ahead of myself here, I’ll first go over what lifestyle blogs are and how to monetize them. Then, I’ll share with you the 10 best lifestyle blogs to give you some inspiration for what you can create.
Lifestyle blogs FAQ
What are lifestyle blogs?
A lifestyle blog covers various niches about a bloggers’ life, interests, and hobbies.
For example, a lifestyle blogger can write about food, fashion, beauty, and home decor.
A different blogger can write about life as a stay-at-home mom or about their travel adventures.
The beauty of a lifestyle blog is that there are no rules on what type of content to create.
Do I need to narrow down my niche?
If you’re having trouble finding a blog niche, you might want to create a lifestyle blog. After all, if you are the focus of your blog, your audience wants to know about your life.
So, why just focus on fashion when this audience also might be interested in your makeup tips?
While narrowing your blog niche is generally considered a good thing, this rule doesn’t apply to lifestyle blogs.
Why start a lifestyle blog?
The popularity of lifestyle blogs is at an all-time high – and with good reason. Lifestyle blogs are the 3rd most profitable blogging niche, lagging behind only food and personal finance (source).
In fact, of all new blogs being started, lifestyle blogs make up 25% of them (source).
And, of course, let’s not forget about the money you can make with a lifestyle blog.
How do the best lifestyle blogs make money?
There are a few ways to monetize a lifestyle blog. Here are the best methods:
Ads
To make money in the lifestyle niche, bloggers use display ads, for the most part.
By allowing an ad network to monetize your audience, it allows you to focus entirely on creating awesome content.
The top display ad networks to sign up with are Google Adsense, Monumetric, Mediavine, and AdThrive. Each of these ad networks work with lifestyle blogs.
Sponsorships
Once you have an audience, you can create a media kit and reach out to brands you want to work with. Many bloggers, such as mommy blogs, monetize through partnerships with top-leading brands.
Products
While it can be difficult to sell products directly to your audience, some bloggers have found success selling directly to their readers.
Mom-bloggers, for example, have found success selling printables. If you can’t find a product to create, you can always promote someone else’s as an affiliate.
Lastly, there’s always Amazon’s affiliate program, which makes it easy to link to any products you mention in your blog posts.
How to start a lifestyle blog
Get your blog online
Start by choosing a blog name, domain name, and finding hosting for your blog. I recommend starting with HostGator.
Next, install a blog theme. I recommend Astra Pro. Once installed, you can choose from any of their starter templates.
Design your blog logo
You don’t have to hire someone to design your blog logo. You can create your own logo for free using Canva. Just choose a free template, make your changes, and you’re good to go.
Pick your main blog categories
Starting a lifestyle blog can feel intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. What part of your lifestyle do you want to publicize? You can start wide and narrow down later. Or, you can start narrow and widen your blog out later.
Create the content
Your content is what’s going to make or break your blog. If you can’t create content daily, aim to create at least one blog post per week. Regardless of how often you write, make sure your content is amazing.
Even a small blog can gain a following if your content merits attention, so take the time to write quality blog posts.
Most popular lifestyle blog topics
Lifestyle blogs fall into so many different niches and categories, it can be hard to know what to write about! Some of the most common types of lifestyle blog niches include:
- luxury lifestyle
- foodie or cooking
- home and garden
- fashion
- beauty
- travel
- photography
- health & fitness
- holistic living
- outdoor lifestyle
- mommy blogs
Don’t forget about sub-topics, too. For example, a home decor blog can take advantage of trends like minimalism while a health blog can write about meal prep.
Where to promote your lifestyle blog
The beauty of a lifestyle blog is that you can promote it just about anywhere. Here are the best places to promote your lifestyle blog:
The best place to promote your lifestyle blog is Pinterest. That’s because Pinterest is actually a search engine, just like Google.
People go on Pinterest to look for inspiration and to get ideas on things they want to try. This makes Pinterest the ideal place to promote your blog.
Lifestyle blogs are very visual, at least they can be. If you blog about design or fashion, you’re going to want to be on Instagram. In fact, you might find that you can grow your Instagram following faster than your blog.
YouTube
Did you know that the world’s second-largest search engine is actually YouTube (source)? If you’re in a visual niche and not on YouTube, you need to be.
YouTube allows your audience to see you and connect with you. If you want to build a closer bond between you and your audience, you can’t go wrong with starting a YouTube channel.
TikTok
Go where your audience is! If your audience is on TikTok or Snapchat, go there and grab a slice of the pie. Look at other influencers in your space. See where they promote their content and how big their audience is. If they’re having success on TikTok, you can too.
Lifestyle blog name ideas
Look for ideas on your blog name on social media. Look at some social media accounts you follow. While you shouldn’t just use their social media handle as your blog name, you can definitely get inspiration from it.
You want your blog name to be catchy and ambiguous. That’s because your niche is going to evolve over time, so it’s not a good idea to make it niche-specific.
When choosing your lifestyle blog name, make sure the .com is available. The last thing you want to do is build a brand and have someone else benefit from it.
10 best lifestyle blogs to follow
Here are 10 examples of the best blogs in the lifestyle niche.
Goop
Goop is often considered the founder of the lifestyle blogging world. Created by popular actress Gwyneth Paltrow over ten years ago, Goop is a full-service lifestyle blog that discusses beauty, food & home, style, travel, and wellness topics all in one.
She has expanded more into wellness as of late, with a targeted store offering a wide variety of popular wellness products.
Still, Gwyneth continues to post and share information on a wide variety of topics based on what she feels passionately about in her personal life.
She also talks a great deal about parenting, sharing her own personal experiences as a mother and how she works to balance motherhood with her work responsibilities to create a career and a family she’s proud of.
The Pioneer Woman
This popular blog began as a simple website and transformed its writer into a Food Network sensation after the cooking and blogging took off together.
Run by Ree Drummond, this lifestyle blog covers the authentic, rancher, Western life that many Southerners know in love.
Many people have pioneer heritage, and so connecting to this type of lifestyle blog is especially rewarding for them. With recipes, beauty tips, fashion ideas, food and cooking, local news, and entertainment ideas, Ree Drummond continues to be a beloved salt of the earth, rustic ranch blogger that many people know and love.
iJustine
Justine Ezarik is a unique and historic voice in the tech lifestyle blogging industry. Her blog is almost twenty years old, started in 2002, and originally centering around Apple products (hence the recognizable I at the front of her name).
Today, Justine blogs about all kinds of tech and industry content. Despite being a woman in a traditionally male-dominated field, she continues to be a landmark voice and one of the most distinguished tech and business lifestyle voices in the blogging world.
Cup of Jo
This popular lifestyle blog has evolved over the years. It started back in 2007 as a fashion blog, where the author shared their personal style tips. Now, her website is her full-time career that has a team of writers working on it.
Launched by Joanna Goddard in 2007, the then fashion editor had worked with brands like Cosmopolitan and Glamour and was looking for a place to call her own. Her blog covers design, food, style, travel, entertainment, motherhood, culture, and relationships.
Wellness Mama
Founded by a mother of six and a former journalist, Wellness Mama combines many passions. This includes a desire for natural and alternative health and sharing parenting advice with anyone who needs it.
Katie Wells, the writer behind Wellness Mama, runs this blog. Alongside her is a team of medical consultants and researchers to help her back up the information she’s discovering.
She prioritizes parenting advice, household hacks, natural beauty tips, holistic and herbal remedies and recipes, and all-natural solutions to everyday problems.
Huda Beauty
Launched in 2010, Huda Kattan built this blog to share her beauty and makeup tips. On her blog, you’ll find hacks and DIY guides as she tests products and offers advice on professional makeup.
Showing that your blog has no limits, she parlayed her successful blog into her own cosmetic brand, Huda Beauty.
FitMenCook
If you’re looking for a simple, targeted food and wellness blog that focuses on men as the desired target niche, FitMenCook is the perfect solution.
Kevin Curry founded the blog in 2012 to help hold himself accountable on his diet, but instead, he created an online health community he continues to maintain to this day.
He creates easy and simple recipes that anyone can make and produce in their own kitchen and continues to develop a male-centered fitness lifestyle blog that’s inspiring and encouraging.
Refinery 29
Refinery 29 is one of the most popular and known online lifestyle blogs and collectives. This mega-blog hosts e-commerce links, fashion outlets, entertainment sites, arts news, and culture invitations in addition to personal finance and tech ideas.
You can find any article on any new trend in any topic anywhere on this website, and the content is tailored toward a broad audience, making it accessible and easy for many to read and benefit from.
Primer Magazine
If you’re a millennial man looking for advice on the deeper and more challenging issues of aging, Primer Magazine is the perfect blog for you.
This lifestyle blog provides affordable and reliable advice on how to upgrade your style and improving your health, career, and wellness.
Primer walks you through the issues of young adulthood in a simple and unassuming way, making sure every man has the resources to feel comfortable in their own skin.
Shut Up and Go
This popular travel blog helps you plan the perfect trip right so you can just shut up and go!
Founded by popular YouTubers from America and Brazil, this blog works to create a list of resources and guides for many vacation destinations. It helps connect you to places you’d never have dreamed of traveling to otherwise.
Wrapping it up
If you want to start a blog, but aren’t sure what to blog about, consider starting a lifestyle blog. Start by picking a fun blog name and get your blog launched!
From there, write about your daily life and see what type of content takes off. You might start off with a mom blog, then end up niching down to into the healthy eating for kids niche.
The important thing is that you start because there’s no better time than right now to get your lifestyle blog off the ground!
Until next time,
Edwin, DoSixFigures.com
