If you’ve dreamed of becoming a lifestyle blogger, there’s good news: you don’t need to be rich to get started. You can start a profitable, engaging lifestyle blog with little to no money and scale it as time goes on and more money becomes available.
Steps To Take To Start a Lifestyle Blog With Little to No Money
Step 1: Determine the direction of your blog or its niche
Lifestyle content is already a profitable blogging niche.
In 2022, the team at RankIQ analyzed data from 803 blogs making $2,000 or more per month. Lifestyle content landed in the top four most profitable niches, with a median monthly income of $5,174.
But there are tons of lifestyle blogs out there already, which means you need to narrow your direction down even further. This will solidify your brand and help you connect with a specific audience. Think of this step as finding your sub-niche—your niche within the lifestyle blog niche.
Your sub-niche will also inform your content and blog design.
Here’s how to find it:
- Figure out what interests you. Do you like writing about meal planning? Parenting? Relationships? Fitness? Travel? You don’t have to pick just one. Many lifestyle bloggers cover a mix of these topics. We suggest picking 3-5 sub-topics to explore as part of your niche. Just make sure you like writing about them, because nothing’s worse than writing about something you can’t bring yourself to care about.
- Think about what makes you unique. Everyone sees the world a little bit differently. Now that you know the 3-5 sub-topics you’ll focus on, hone in on your unique viewpoint. Lean into what makes you you, and use it to inform your work.
- Do some research. Now that you’ve defined what you want to write about and the lens you’ll use to write with, look for other, similar lifestyle bloggers. If there isn’t anyone else out there writing from the same angle you are, that’s great! You’re the first, and it’s time to move on to Step 2. If there is another blogger (or three) out there with a similar niche, your job is to differentiate yourself even more. What unique insights and perspectives will you offer readers that your competitors don’t?
Here are a few examples of lifestyle blogs that offer a unique spin.
Blog #1: Oh So Fashionably Late
NYC blogger Bianca Reyes blogs about food, fashion, travel, fitness, and all sorts of other lifestyle-related topics—all from the lens of someone who’s chronically late. Reyes uses this part of herself as inspiration for all her posts.
Posts include “15 Minute Workouts to Break Up Your Work Day” and “3 Reservation Apps Every Foodie Should Have Installed.”
Blog #2: Cup of Jo
When Joanna Goddard started Cup of Jo in 2007, the internet world looked a lot different. MSN Messenger ran the (virtual) streets. Poking was a popular activity on Facebook. Tumblr and Twitter were newborn babies.
Over a decade—and hundreds of changes—later, Cup of Jo is still going strong. Joanna Goddard doesn’t write all the posts anymore. She’s got a team of writers, photographers, and other specialists to support Cup of Jo.
The site is popular for its deeply personal essays, like Goddard’s “Five Things That Surprised Me About My Divorce”—a piece that garnered over 700 comments. In fact, Cup of Jo’s slogan is “Come for the blog, stay for the comments.” The blog sometimes features pieces built around reader comments. The personal aspect of the blog, along with Cup of Jo’s focus on building conversations, sets the blog apart. It’s why the blog continues to stay relevant into the 2020s.
Blogger #3: Corporette
Corporette has been going strong since 2007, when founder Kat Griffin wanted to write about fashion for women in the workplace. The blog now has several authors, including Griffin—who now has kids and runs a sister site called CorporetteMoms.
Corporette shares posts about corporate fashion, job hunting, office decor, and parenting as a working mother. Recent posts include “Where to Find Interview Suits if You’re Pregnant” and “3 Great Online Personal Finance Classes.”
There’s a lot of unique stuff here. For one thing, Corporette focuses on professional attire for women of all sizes and stages of life, pregnancy and postpartum included. For another, Corporette doesn’t limit itself to fashion. You’ll find posts on basically any topic relating to maintaining a smashingly successful work life as a woman.
Any woman entering the professional world can find something of value on the Corporette blog. And the blog will continue to be relevant to her if she chooses to have kids.
Step 2: Choose a free blogging platform
So many people beg you to stay away from free blogging platforms because of things like ads. Or being unable to monetize the blog. Or lacking complete ownership. Or having an unprofessional domain.
We get it. To some extent, we agree—having your own website for your blog is a better long-term plan. But if choosing a free blogging site is the difference between starting now versus starting in six months, choose the free site. You can always upgrade later.
A free blogging platform can help you build a following, which will make it easier for you to justify paying for your own site later on.
Plenty of blogging platforms still offer free blog setup services. These include:
Weebly: Weebly offers a solid free plan stocked with basic features, including:
- 8 free blogging-specific website templates
- SSL security
- The ability to add third-party embed code
- SEO tools
- Lead capture form for getting email addresses from visitors
- Access to the Weebly community forum
- Chat and email support
- Free Weebly-branded domain
Wix: Like Weebly, Wix comes with a free version of its website builder, but it’s less clear what you get with the free plan. This is what we gathered from making a free account and poking around on the site:
- 60+ free blogging-specific website templates
- 24/7 security monitoring plus HTTPS and SSL protection
- Ability to add code if desired
- SEO tools
- Email marketing tools
- Access to Wix community forum
- Live chat and callback support
- Free Wix-branded domain
Medium: If you want to keep things hyper-focused on blogging, create a free Medium account and start building your voice there. You can eventually pay for a $5/month Medium plan and sign up for the Medium Partner Program to monetize your posts. Or, you can eventually build a website and embed your Medium blog to it. Here’s what Medium offers as a standalone blogging platform.
- Simple, super-friendly user interface—nothing fancy here, and for some of us, that’s just how we like it
- Basic formatting—headers, links, and text customization
- Revision history
- Ability to add images, videos, embed codes, keywords, and custom code
- Easy sharing to social media sites
- Customizable profile so readers can learn more about you
If you have $50 to $100 to spend on your lifestyle blog, go with WordPress.org. You can sign up for the platform for free, but you’ll have to pay for your domain name and hosting service, hence the $50 to $100. Choose one of these cheap web hosting options to get started with WordPress.
As for domain names, our 11 easy tips for finding the perfect one can help you with that important process.
Step 3: Choose a theme and design your blog
Once you get your blogging platform, hosting, and domain name situated, it’s time to choose a theme for your blog and design it.
Web builders like Wix, Weebly, and WordPress all come with different theme libraries. Choose a theme that fits the design, appearance, and functionality you’re going for for your blog. After that, customize the design where you can—things like colors, sections, and font.
This step can be fun for some and stressful for others, but it’s an essential part of building your brand as a blogger.
We’ve got two tips for choosing the right design and layout.
First, don’t worry too much about it. You don’t have to stick with the theme and design you initially pick. People redesign their websites and blogs all the time, and you can too.
Second, make a Pinterest board for your blog. Does this sound like a strange suggestion? Hear me out. On Pinterest, you can create a vision board for what you want your blog to be.
Signing up is quick, free, and easy. You can log in with Google or Facebook or create an account with an email-password combo. Click the Explore tab as soon as you get on there. Pinterest will ask you to pick 5 topics you’re interested in.
Take a look at the 3-5 topics you picked to write about for your lifestyle blog. Look for them here! If you don’t find them, select Pinterest topics that you think would help you find your aesthetic—plus ideas for what to write about.
Let’s say we decided to start a lifestyle blog called Life in Lavender, aimed at women. We plan to write about:
- Parenting
- Slowing down/finding relaxation in the busiest seasons of life
- Simplifying work/home life
- Traveling with kids/partners and solo
- Super-easy, stress-free recipes/ways to make mealtime happen
When Pinterest asks us to pick 5 topics, we choose:
- Quotes
- Life hacks
- Flowers
- Drinks
- Travel
- Healthy recipes
- Self-care
- Cleaning hacks
- Color schemes
- Herbs garden
Yeah, that’s more than 5. We got a little carried away.
Next, Pinterest takes us to our home feed, curated based on the topics we picked. Our feed looks like this.
We—aka the team at the imaginary Life in Lavender blog—are definitely starting to see some pins that catch our eye. We click one of our favorite pins to save it to our profile. Then we head over to our profile and click the plus sign to create a new board: Life in Lavender Blog Design Ideas.
From there, it’s easy to add our first saved pin to our first and only board.
Pinterest must understand our board name because the next thing it does is offer up pins that feature—you guessed it!—lavender. We choose several of these pins and then use the search bar to find more pins that relate to our topics.
After about 15 minutes of searching, browsing, and pinning, our board looks like this:
After studying our board, we decided to use muted, earthy tones for our blog design, with plenty of blank space to create a restful space for our readers. You can do the same thing! It’s fun, it’s inspiring, and it just takes a few minutes, although you’ll probably find yourself browsing Pinterest for longer. It’s easy to get lost in the process, and that’s OK.
Once you’ve got your board spread out before you, pick a blog template on your platform of choice that matches the colors and fonts you’re seeing. You’ll probably have all sorts of ideas for your first post by now, too.
(Honestly, doing this made us want to start Life in Lavender for real. Maybe someday!)
This brings us to possibly the most exciting step of all: writing your first post.
Step 4: Write your first post
You don’t have to have your blog content strategy all mapped out before you start posting. If you try to require this to start, you probably won’t start at all.
Start with something simple, like a post introducing your blog, what it’s about, who it’s for, and where people can find you. Having a second post uploaded and scheduled to publish is also a good idea because it gives you time to start outlining your content strategy.
This is where it’s important to protect yourself from blogging burnout. When you’re really excited to get started, it’s tempting to write and publish posts every single day.
Don’t do this. You will burn out. You might even burn out so hard that you find yourself posting less and less until your momentum completely runs out.
Instead, pace yourself. Use your Pinterest board and a keyword research tool like Ahrefs or AnswerThePublic to find out what people want to read about. Then map out a strategy that includes posting 1-2 times a week. If you find you have the energy to do more than that, great! Go ahead and add a couple more weekly posts.
If not, don’t sweat it. Do your 1-2 posts per week and you’ll be on the way to slow and steady gains.
And don’t forget to give yourself a big pat on the back once you publish your first post. It means you’ve officially started your lifestyle blog—a big accomplishment if you ask us.
Step 5: Maintain your lifestyle blog
Of course, starting your blog is just the beginning. You need to maintain it for it to grow.
Along with the posting schedule we talked about in Step 4, build a media repository with images, videos, infographics, and audio to support your blog posts. Create essential pages, like an about, contact, and shop page if you plan to sell merch.
You’ll also want to set up Google Analytics for free on your site to collect reader and performance data. (Psst: our beginner’s guide to Google Analytics has everything you need to know to get started.)
Make sure you market your blog on free channels like LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and Facebook. Do some guest posting for established blogs with similar audiences as yours to get some quality backlinks.
Once you’ve got a healthy following, consider upgrading to a custom domain. That’s when you can monetize your blog through affiliate marketing and ads. Affiliate marketing is a gold mine for lifestyle bloggers because there are so many potential products and services to promote.
From sleeping masks and kids’ toys to dog leashes and travel accessories, nothing’s out of the question.
And finally, keep this in mind: you don’t have to have everything completely put together to start. Change directions and add things to your blog as you learn and grow. You’ll find your footing—and your confidence—with each passing day.
