NU
Starting Your Own Lifestyle Blog? Fundamental Tips to Make It Profitable
One of the best things about blogging is you can profit off your passions. Any blog can become profitable as long as you have the intention to make money off your blog from the very beginning. That's key because treating your lifestyle blog as a business lets you make the most out of every moneymaking opportunity and avoid wasted time on strategies that do not work.
So how do you build a lifestyle blog that makes money? Here are some tips:
How to Build a Profitable Lifestyle Blog
It's one thing to write about something you're passionate about, like beauty, fashion, food, or travel, and another to turn a blog into a profitable business. Here are some tips to turn your lifestyle blog into a lucrative business:
Authenticity is a Must
Yes, a lifestyle blog should be treated as a business right from the start, but thi does not mean going for a business tone. Readers are quite perceptive, and they can see right through superficial content. They’ll be put off if a lifestyle blogger sounds shallow, monotonous, or superficial.
To start, you must have a genuine passion for lifestyle-related topics. Your sincere intention should match your content – open, honest, and full of passion! So many lifestyle bloggers dream of making money off their blogs, and the market is saturated. By being authentic, you can attract readers, build credibility, and eventually create a community you can monetise.
Build an Email List
Right from the very beginning, prioritise building your email list. Don't do this later when you've got a decent following, do it as soon as you've created your website. Blog visibility can strengthen or weaken depending on Google's latest algorithm updates. Social media sites' popularity can increase or decrease over time. Some publications could stop publishing blog posts, which could reduce website traffic.
With an email list, you have a dependable source of income. You can target readers and promote your products. Because these people trust your brand enough to give up their email addresses, you are more likely to succeed at selling to them. So don't wait until you've gained a hundred followers online before growing your email list. Build a list at the very start and make this your ultimate goal.
Focus on Your Core Audience
When telling your story as a lifestyle blogger, be mindful of the people reading your posts. Your content should provide value to your core audience. It's tempting to throw in a couple of products to push sales, but if you want to make an impact on your readers, your focus should always be the benefits you're providing readers.
Refrain from letting your posts sound like a money grab; it will put off readers. If the blog posts seem too sales pitch-y because you're pushing products too aggressively to build hype without much facts to back them up, you will come off as insincere.
When highlighting a product or service, always emphasise how it helped you and how it will help others. Every piece of information you write or story you tell should add value to your readers' lives.
A Space that Grows with Your Business
As a general rule, it's best to narrow down the topics you'll focus on when you're starting out, but once your lifestyle blog becomes bigger, you have to expand your subjects too.
You might've started your lifestyle blogs with fashion looks and makeup, but your preferences will vary as you gain more readers. Some readers could come to you for related topics like essential outfits for travelling or pet accessories.
Your interest will vary as you spend years building an audience. You might take up an interest in gardening or cooking. You might become a jewellery junkie or a designer bag collector at some point. That's why building a flexible space that grows with you and your audience is a must.
Don't limit yourself to a specific topic. Your audience will always want to hear new things about you and your passions, so choose a space that represents your worldview, one that has room to grow. This will save you a lot of time in the future – you won't have to rebrand at all when you've decided to expand your topics in the future.
SEO: Start with the Bare Essentials
While it's tempting to go all out on SEO to build a strong online presence, you'd get better results by choosing one or two primary strategies first, and then slowly expanding your marketing efforts over time.
For example, you can focus on publishing well-optimised, high-quality content and link-building first. Once you've gained traction with these strategies, you can gradually layer your promotional efforts.
If you'd rather promote on social media, choose one or two platforms your core audience frequents and promote your lifestyle blog there. Once you've got a decent following, you can move on to other platforms.
Focusing your energy on a couple of strategies enables you to build systems and see the results much more clearly. And as you gradually expand your marketing efforts and gain income as a lifestyle blogger, you can think about outsourcing or automating specific tasks.
High-Quality Photos are EVERYTHING
Beautiful photos attract more attention, which could translate to higher traffic.
Design-centric niches like lifestyle and travel demand fabulous visuals to attract and engage readers. You must be very selective of the images you use to stay on-brand and provide a consistent user experience. This goes no matter what activity an image depicts – working out, taking care of pets, redecorating a room, after-shower skincare ritual, you name it!
You don't need to hire a professional to shoot high-quality images. You can use your mobile phone to take pictures and videos. That said, you have to elevate the composition of every image to highlight beautiful moments. Photo editing tools like Canva will be handy in enhancing images, particularly the lighting and mood. You can also play with the filter to see which adds more depth to your pictures.
Collaborate with Other Lifestyle Bloggers
As your blog gains more traction online, you'll get to know plenty of lifestyle bloggers who are, just like you, eager to expand their reach and team up for a partnership. It's normal to see other lifestyle bloggers as a competitor. Still, a collab with like-minded individuals will help you reach audiences you cannot reach on your own, strengthen your online visibility, and find friends in the industry! That's a win-win.
You can seek out lifestyle bloggers in online groups and forums. Join these groups, look for relevant threads, and speak your mind. Strike a conversation with the lifestyle bloggers, do this consistently, and eventually, opportunities for a collab will crop up.
Use Paid Ads to the Fullest
Paid ads give you an effective boost in visibility, which improves your marketing efforts. If you're seeing a lot of people discovering your website, you'll be more motivated to come up with exciting stories to tell. Keep going, and soon, you'll start generating revenues and getting the best results from your marketing efforts.
Start with Google AdSense and see. You'll earn a commission with every click of the ad featured on your website. Set up is easy, but you must register for a Google AdSense account. Here's a quick tutorial to get you started.
Stay on Top of Your Blogging Biz
Blogging sounds like a dream job, and it is for us content creators. But there's real work behind a successful website. You must stay on top of your blogging and business processes to earn maximum revenues.
On top of writing engaging posts, taking beautiful images, building an email list, and connecting with like-minded individuals, you should:
- Fix website bugs
- Boost loading speeds
- Measure the metrics for better SEO
- Respond to emails
- Maintain your social media profiles with new updates
- Create an online community
- Create branded visuals
- Develop products to sell
Fixing site bugs and boosting loading speeds improve the user experience while monitoring the analytics keeps your digital promotions effective and weatherproof. Touching base with readers, maintaining your socials, and creating an online tribe get you more followers. Creating branded visuals and developing products to sell can be used for more moneymaking opportunities down the line!
Don't just create a lifestyle blog; build a profitable online business. With these tips, we hope to have inspired you to make your dream as a lifestyle influencer into a thriving career! It's possible to generate an income online while having as much creative freedom as you need by keeping the tips outlined above in mind.
PLEASE COMMENT BELOW