If you’re thinking about starting a lifestyle blog, there are a few things that you should know first.
Most people don’t actually know what a lifestyle blog is – they’re simply drawn to it because they don’t know what else they might want to start a blog about.
So this leaves even bigger questions about whether or not and how you can make money from a lifestyle blog.
In this article, we’re going to show you 10 different examples of popular lifestyle blogs that are all successful so that you can get some ideas on whether or not you might want to start one of your own.
In each of these blogs, make sure that you pay attention to the following:
- Blog design
- Blog categories
- How the blog makes money
- What differentiates each one
- Why the creator started the blog
We’ve outlined many of these aspects in each blog for you and we’ve also tried to round up a few different kinds of lifestyle blogs to give you a variety.
You’ll notice that some of them have grown greatly over time and now have a team behind them. But every single one that we have chosen to feature here has had small beginning with 1-2 creators.
We hope you enjoy these popular lifestyle blogs and they give you some inspiration to get started!
Before we get into the actual blogs, we’ll explain what a lifestyle blog is and how they generally make money.
What is a lifestyle blog?
A lifestyle blog is exactly as it sounds – a blog that covers topics related to your lifestyle.
Some popular lifestyle blog topics include:
- Health
- Travel
- Fashion
- Beauty
- Recipes and Food
- DIY and Home
- Parenting
But what makes a lifestyle blog different from a niche blog is that it usually covers multiple of the above topics (or niches).
If you only cover health and food topics, you’re a health blogger. If you only cover topics like home and parenting, you’re more in the niche of home and parenting.
Many lifestyle blogs start out covering more topics and then they begin to niche down over time as some topics become more popular than others with their audience.
Difference Between a Lifestyle Blog and a Personal Blog
While lifestyle blogs and personal blogs can seem very similar, there is one defining thing that makes them very different.
That thing… is money.
Personal blogs are more like hobby blogs. They can cover similar topics, but their purpose is usually to provide a creative outlet for the blogger to share their thoughts and feelings on certain topics.
You can think of them more like a “diary” of the writer. A showcase of their personal life but written for them and not really anyone else.
The blogger runs and operates the blog as a business and the content is written primarily for others. The readers. Not the writer.
How do lifestyle blogs make money?
You can monetize a lifestyle blog just the same way as you can monetize any other blog, really.
In fact, because of the wide variety of topics that you cover with a lifestyle blog, you have a lot more options to choose from when it comes to making money.
The only caveat we will add here is that it may be more difficult to monetize in some ways because of the variety of topics that your lifestyle blog covers.
People want to know that they are buying products or services from someone who is very knowledgeable about a particular topic. If you’re blogging about too many topics, you may lose some of that credibility in individual areas.
For example, some people may feel better about buying a weight loss program from a blog entirely about weight loss — rather than from an individual that blogs about weight loss but also travel, parenting, fashion, style, etc.
But this really depends on what you are selling and how you are selling it. Just an FYI and something to consider if you do believe that you have a product or service to offer in one specific area.
Some of the most common ways to make money with a blog:
Ads
This is by far the easiest and most passive way of earning income with a blog, but it will also give you the least bang for your buck.
You can see an example in this post from this popular lifestyle blog, Chasing Foxes:
They look tacky and are often hidden with ad blockers anyway, but they still work to help bloggers monetize their free content.
For every few hundred visitors to your website, you might earn a few cents to a few dollars, depending on who you partner with. So you need some serious volume to make any real money.
Our advice is to wait until you have enough readers to partner with a premium ad network like AdThrive or MediaVine, who will manage your ads for you.
They look tacky and are often hidden with ad blockers anyway, but they still work to help bloggers monetize their free content.
For every few hundred visitors to your website, you might earn a few cents to a few dollars, depending on who you partner with. So you need some serious volume to make any real money.
Our advice is to wait until you have enough readers to partner with a premium ad network like AdThrive or MediaVine, who will manage your ads for you.
Sponsored Posts
This is one of the most popular ways to earn income with a lifestyle blog because you can write sponsored posts on a wider variety of topics.
A sponsored post is blog post that is usually written about a specific topic and/or product, and the company that owns the product will pay you to write the post and publish it on your blog.
You usually need to have an established source of traffic and audience first before you begin accepting sponsored posts because the company wants to know that the sponsored post will actually get seen and shared by others.
The more visitors that you have and the bigger your audience is, the more money you will make with sponsored posts. Anywhere from a few hundred per post to a few thousand per post.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is probably one of the quickest and best ways to monetize a lifestyle blog.
Affiliate marketing is when you promote other people’s products and services on your website and earn a commission when someone signs up through your links (called affiliate links).
A great example is this post from a popular lifestyle blog for men, A Gentleman Within.
In this post, the watches that are being reviewed are linked to Amazon, and the blog will receive a commission if purchases are made from clicks in this article.
This is one of the best places to start because there isn’t as much setup involved compared to the possible returns that you can get.
It can be as easy as adding a few affiliate links for related products in your articles. Or you can invest more time into created dedicated content and emails to specific higher-priced products that are harder to sell but earn you more money.
Selling Your Own Products
We’ve mentioned this one last because selling your own products – successfully – is the often the hardest way to make money with a blog.
BUT it will also generally earn you the most money… It’s your typical higher-risk, higher-reward scenario.
We don’t say this to discourage you. Quite the opposite – Selling our blogging courses is how we make most of our money.
We prefer selling digital products like eBooks, online courses, and other downloadable products because it’s usually a little less risker without having to worry about inventory of items.
But we also don’t have a lifestyle blog. We have a niche blog.
eCommerce shops with physical products are actually really popular with lifestyle blogs. Many lifestyle bloggers link Shopify or Etsy stores to their blogs and sell the items that they feature on their blogs.
This helps you earn income from different sources and diversify – essentially putting your eggs in more than one basket.
Between our two successful blogs, we use a combination of ads, sponsored posts, affiliate marketing, and selling our own products.
Should I start a lifestyle blog?
Now that you’ve learned more about what a lifestyle blog is and how they make money, you probably have a somewhat better feel for whether or not you might want to start one.
The other things you might want to consider before starting a lifestyle blog:
- What blog topics do you want to talk about?
If you are having a hard time deciding on a blog niche, it might be a good idea to start with a lifestyle blog and cover multiple topics until you can/want to narrow it down more.
- Do you want to be an influencer? Or a life coach?
Lifestyle blogs often have their creator at the very center – their life, their habits, and their recommendations. Some people even choose to use their own name as their blog name.
If you’re a bada$$ on Instagram or you want your brand to revolve around you – a lifestyle blog might be the way to go.
How to Start a Lifestyle Blog
Starting your first blog is super easy, and you can do so in just 10 minutes with our free guide below!
You can get your blog hosting, name, and get everything set up with our free step-by-step guide on how to start a blog.
The tutorial will walk you through choosing your blog name, getting a hosting plan to take your blog “online,” designing your blog, and more!
After you’ve gotten started, you can work on designing your blog and writing content. And to help you get some inspiration and ideas into what this might look like, we’ve rounded up a variety of different lifestyle blogs below:
10 Examples of Successful and Popular Lifestyle Blogs
The lifestyle blogs featured below are in no particular order. You’ll find that a lot of them have common themes and topics that we mentioned already above (health, travel, beauty, etc.).
Keep these topics in mind as you browse these blogs so that you can get ideas for some of the topics you might want to cover in your new lifestyle blog!
1. Spinach 4 Breakfast
Okay, I said these were in no particular order, but I must admit… I featured this lifestyle blog first because the owners are blogging students of ours and we’re proud of it!
Spinach4Breakfast was started by two sisters: Alyssa and Maria Tosoni. They live in Manhattan and use their blog as a platform to share their health and wellness journey with their readers.
Maria reached out to me a few months after we launched our Pinterest course because they wanted to get more traffic to their blog. But they’re featured here because they truly have an amazing blog!
Their main lifestyle blog topics:
- Recipes
- Beauty
- Baby
- Wellness
- Spirituality
What makes their lifestyle blog stand out to us:
It has a focus.
Because it’s focused on health and wellness, all of the various topics that they cover are still centrally themed around this main topic.
Because this blog has a focus and a purpose, it solves a problem (wanting to be healthier) and that makes it a little easier to recommend and sell products (aka make money).
Some great examples of this are their posts on solving gut issues and breaking emotional ties to food.
2. Collective Gen
Geneva Vanderzeil is the founder and editor of Collective Gen, a “community for women who make things – their style, their homes, and their lives.”
She is an author, stylist, and photographer and has turned her passions into a full-time career – with her blog.
She’s a native Australian but also lived in London for many years and is currently based in Hong Kong.
Geneva grew her first blog, A Pair & A Spare (now Collective Gen) to millions of readers and features in newspapers and magazines. She also authored her own book, Home is Where You Make It.
Her main lifestyle blog topics:
- Style
- Home
- Life
- Travel
- Planet
What makes her lifestyle blog stand out to us:
The #1 thing I notice about this blog is how on-point the branding is.
All of the photos on this blog have the same color tones of greens and brown/tan, and it makes the blog look very cohesive.
Her post on how to set up a vertical garden is a great example of a good sponsored post!
3. Akanksha Redhu
Akanksha, originally from India, started her self-titled blog in 2010 as a channel to write about her “ideas, projects, inspirations, and daydreams.”
This is a great example of how you can turn a hobby or personal blog into a lifestyle blog and a business.
If you look back at her oldest blog posts, you can see that her blog has evolved over the years since it first started.
Here is another example of a sponsored post on her blog on repairing damaged hair.
Her main lifestyle blog topics:
- Fashion
- Travel
- Luxury
- Beauty
- Media and Events
What makes her lifestyle blog stand out to us:
It’s simple and it’s her.
All of the photos she uses in her blog are personal photos of Akanksha and her experiences.
I like that in her About page, she explains that she still writes all of her blog posts. Tons of bloggers outsource some or all of their writing as they become more successful.
We get it and we have done it in the past. Sometimes you have to in order to grow in other areas of your business.
But we do try to write as much of our content as possible because it makes it more personal and relatable, so we have mad respect for Akanksha for owning that!
4. The Bald Brothers
The Bald Brothers was started by two, well, bald brothers: Will and Richard.
They are a great example of how to successfully sell your own product with your blog with their eBook, The Bald Bible.
Fun fact: When I first discovered their sales page for their product, I thought to myself “This looks an awful lot like we teach in our blogging courses.”
And sure enough, after some digging, I learned that Richard and Will have taken our courses! That was pretty exciting stuff to discover when I was doing my research for this article!
Another way that they monetize their blog is through sponsored posts. If you’re looking for a good resource on how to advertise that you are accepting sponsored posts, check out their Advertise page.
Their main lifestyle blog topics:
- Health and Wellness
- Baldness and Hair Care
- Lifestyle (Personal, Inspirational, Etc.)
What makes their lifestyle blog stand out to us:
I love their story because it’s exactly what we encourage our readers and students to start their blogs with: your story and your experiences.
They’re real, they’re truthful, and they’re unique. No one can copy your story when it comes from your personal experience and perspective.
These guys are doing it right!
5. Among Other Things
Next up on our list of popular lifestyle blogs comes from Hallie at Among Other Things.
Before she became a blogger, Hallie was living in Chicago and had worked in various industries, including college mentorship, quantitative market research, and digital and social media advertising.
She says that all of her previous jobs prepared her for her career in blogging, which I can totally relate to.
I was a CPA doing taxes before I became a blogger and while that doesn’t exactly relate to blogging, my educational background and experience in the business world definitely helped me prepare to manage the operations of my business.
She says in her post on transitioning to full-time blogger: “To be completely honest, I didn’t love my job. But I didn’t hate it either. I was just okay with it.”
I can also totally relate to that as I was switching careers to blogging as I had a great job as an accountant, but I just felt like there was something “more” out there for me.
Originally named “Coral + Cognacs,” Hallie’s blog is about her life as a digital nomad, her experience in the fitness world, and other life topics.
Her main lifestyle blog topics:
- Life
- Style
- Travel
- Fitness
What makes her lifestyle blog stand out to us:
Hallie is serious about her blogging game. She explains in multiple places in her blog that this is her passion and she’s serious about it.
And she knows how to write.
And I don’t mean super professional blog writing – I mean real, honest writing.
You can tell that she’s authentically herself because it shows in her content.
6. A Beautiful Mess
We have a second sister duo on our list of popular lifestyle bloggers: Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman of A Beautiful Mess.
These two sisters live in Springfield, Missouri and Nashville, Tennessee and in addition to running their blog full time, they have also written 3 books and created a few top-selling photo editing apps.
They are a great example of how you can start a pretty simple blog and turn it into a thriving business with a full team to boot!
They have an entire team helping them run their blog, which is another example of being a successful blog owner makes you a successful business owner and entrepreneur.
Their main lifestyle blog topics:
- Crafts
- Decor
- Recipes
- Advice
- Style
What makes their lifestyle blog stand out to us:
Other than their awesome blog with TONS of content, they also monetize through a variety of different ways. The best approach that we explained at the beginning of this article.
They are monetizing through:
- Physical products (photography)
- Digital products (courses)
- Books (home and projects)
- Apps (design)
- Affiliate Marketing
- Sponsored Posts
They don’t publish their income reports, but it’s obvious that this is a mega-successful blog with a full team behind it!
7. Twenty First Century Gent
Ben started his lifestyle blog, Twenty First Century Gent, as he was nearing his thirties and wanting to share his creative side and his adventures with his wife, Katie, and Pomeranian, Pepita (aww).
The cool thing is… His better half has her own lifestyle blog too! Katie Kalanchoe.
Ben and Katie both use their blogs to showcase their travels, best fashion tips, health advice, and more.
It appears that they make most of their money through affiliate marketing by recommending products in the articles that they write, like Ben’s “Shop My Feed” section on his blog.
His main lifestyle blog topics:
- Fashion
- Lifestyle
- Travel
What makes his lifestyle blog stand out to us:
Honestly, we just love how much this guy is rocking this space.
The lifestyle blogger space is predominantly female. Sure, there are tons of men’s lifestyle blogs out there. But there are SO many more started and run by females.
Ben has the “dapper” style on point while also remaining a super relatable and likeable guy (from what I can tell in his blog anyway).
Not to mention the fact that he’s shifting his diet more towards meat-free – another space that seems more dominated by females, in my opinion (as a former vegan myself).
8. Say Yes
Liz, the founder of Say Yes and mother of three, started this blog to “celebrate family life” though practical tips on home, travel, and personal style.
She says that when she is brainstorming new content with her team, they gather together and talk about everything under the sun from post-partum depression to Thanksgiving plans.
She says that she wants her site to feel like you’re just having another night out with one of your coolest girlfriends.
Her main lifestyle blog topics:
- Fashion
- Lifestyle
- Travel
What makes her lifestyle blog stand out to us:
My favorite thing about this blog is just its simplicity.
You would never know that it has been featured in tons of magazines and publications nationwide or that there is an entire team running the blog in the background.
9. P.S. I Made This
This craft and DIY-related lifestyle blog was founded by Erica Domesek and it was started from her passion for hand-making beautiful objects and accessories.
She started her blog in 2009 and since then has written a book and been featured on The Today Show, The Martha Stewart Show, E! News, and several other major media outlets.
Erica is a great example of how when it comes to starting a small blog… The sky really is the limit.
You see, it’s easy to look at majorly popular blogs and think “I’ll never reach that level.” or “I don’t have what it takes to make it that big.”
But that’s the crazy thing about blogging… They evolve and you evolve with it. We also never thought we’d earn as much as we do with our blog…
Her main lifestyle blog topics:
- Fashion
- Lifestyle
- Food
- Beauty
- Crafts
What makes her lifestyle blog stand out to us:
Similar to our first example in our list… Erica’s blog has a focus.
And that focus is crafts and DIY. She blogs about various topics but most of her content is written for a budget-friendly, do-it-yourself loving audience.
She has a targeted audience and this is super important to building relationships with your readers and earning a full-time income with your blog.
Erica monetizes through her books, sponsored posts, affiliate marketing, and other partnerships.
10. Wit & Delight
This blog lives up to the very definition of “lifestyle blog” – quite literally. On their About Us page, they say define lifestyle as:
- Life – Who you are
- Style – How you live
And on their interior and décor category page, they say:
“Our home is a haven—where life happens, where we find the energy to keep going, where memories and legacies are made.”
I like their website because there is SO much more behind the “lifestyle” that they are promoting. It’s personalized, created from individual and meaningful moments, and written specifically for you.
Their content is created to help their readers live a happier life – in their hearts and their homes and their travels.
Their main lifestyle blog topics:
- Interior Design
- Fashion & Style
- Health & Wellness
- Relationship
- Career
- Beautfy
- Parenthood
- Travel
What makes their lifestyle blog stand out to us:
Just expanding upon what I stated above… This statement says everything:
“What we lack in professional degrees or credentials, we make up for in life experience, and trial and error.”
I love this because they’re totally owning the fact that most successful blogs come more from experience than anything else.
We aren’t a “mommy blog”, but we have stories about motherhood. We aren’t a fashion site, but we want your outer personal style to reflect the inner you. We aren’t interior designers, but we understand the importance of creating an interior that gives a sense of solace from the outside world. We aren’t mental health professionals, but we live our life to the fullest with our diagnoses.
I love love LOVE this!
They’re just real people sharing their real experiences.
One of the fears that many new bloggers have is “I’m not qualified to do that.” Or “I’m not an ‘expert’ in any topic.”
Real talk: you don’t have to be.
Now, of course, there are exceptions. You really shouldn’t give medical advice if you aren’t a doctor. Same goes for legal advice.
Or any advice on any topic that you aren’t familiar with, for that matter.
But healthy food recipes… fashion and style… interior design… travel… motherhood…
Goodness, anyone can give their advice on these topics without being “professionals.” Your experience makes you a professional and you can decide to make blogging your career.
We have and we’ve never looked back.
[“source=createandgo”]
