Making a living online while sharing videos and pictures of your life is unheard of a few decades ago.
You can write all you want about yourself/your life and unless you are already well known, no one would read it.
If you were lucky, you’d become a travel show host and you may make millions of dollars traveling and eating food in front of a camera. People all over the country would watch you from their living room television.
The competition to get that hosting spot would be fierce and you’d most likely wouldn’t get it.
Today, things are different. You don’t need anybody to approve of your presence before hopping on screen.
There’s no prejudice. Doesn’t matter how good you look, how old you are, never mind your skin color, ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, personality, way of dressing yourself, way of living, way of talking, etc you will find people who are interested in what you have to say and show.
As long as you got a phone you have the potential to get yourself seen in front of millions of people.
Get yourself in front of your phone and start recording! Once you are done, hit upload.
There you go, you are now a lifestyle blogger/vlogger!
Okay, there are a few more things you should do to build your brand. It’s more than just recording and uploading. But there is a relatively low barrier to entry so anyone can start a lifestyle brand today.
This is an amazing time to be alive and you don’t want to miss the potential of making money online by building a brand around your life. So how do you do it? How do you make money as a lifestyle blogger/vlogger?
Here’s how.
Table of Contents
1. Make food a central part of your brand
Everybody loves food. Studies have shown that most lifestyle bloggers who are making lots of money are also food bloggers.
If you want to find out why you should start a lifestyle blog, click here.
It’s a lot easier to get people interested in food than to get them interested in you especially at the beginning when they don’t know who you are yet.
Even if you are extraordinarily good-looking, it’d be hard to get people interested in your content when there isn’t an incentive (ie. looking at delicious food) and when you’re just another pretty face.
Good-looking people are everywhere on the internet. If you aren’t providing some kind of value to people, they are likely to scroll past your lifestyle picture and not click on your blog post about what you did this weekend.
Once people get to know you better through watching your food-related content, they are more likely to want to know more about you as a person and that’s when you can create more content centered around you.
2. Write the right blog posts
Here are some of the few things that make up the “right” blog post to write:
- Enough search volume
- Low competition
- High buyer intent
- Affiliate marketing opportunities
To see the full 10 things that make up the right blog post, click here.
Writing the right posts means that you can increase your chance of monetizing your blog.
As a lifestyle blogger, you really can’t just write anything you want.
For instance, an article titled, “What I did in Paris this July 2023” would not gain as many page views as an article titled, “10 Things to do in Paris when you visit”.
Knowing what to write can either make or break your lifestyle brand.
3. Start a YouTube channel
Lots of lifestyle bloggers also have a YouTube channel. YouTube is the second biggest search engine behind Google.
When you search something up on Google, some YouTube videos do show up.
Videos on TikTok, Instagram, and any other social media platform get buried really fast. YouTube videos, on the other hand, can still bring you views years after you posted them.
If you can only focus on two things, focus on blogging and YouTubing.
You can also get yourself seen in front of more people faster with a YouTube channel than with a blog.
A typical blog post takes a few months to start gaining organic traction (searches on Google). Sure, you can share it on social media but the traffic to your blog post will die down very fast.
With YouTube, your videos get suggested to viewers pretty much within a few days of you uploading if not right away. And if viewers click on your video and you got a good watch time, your video will get pushed up the view list by the algorithm so more viewers will come.
James Jani was able to make $30,000+ per month from YouTube ads with his videos within a few months (5–8+ months?) of starting his YouTube channel.
If you want to find out how to make money on YouTube, click here.
This is not typical. You probably won’t achieve as much success as fast as he did. James’ niche is in finance so he gets a higher CPM and he also gets a high watch time.
But James’ story illustrated the power of YouTube and how much faster it gets you the result when you do the right things (high-quality content and engaging graphics paired with useful information).
Even if you do all the right things, you’re likely to not see much results a year into blogging since it takes time for Google to rank your content.
No, blogging isn’t dead but videos are way easier to consume and are the preferred method of learning for most people.
Don’t underestimate YouTube.
Granted, you probably can’t expect too much from YouTube ad revenue if you are posting vlogs. Finance and technology niches have a better ad payout but you can still incorporate a bit of personal finance into your videos if you want.
For instance, you can create a video on 10 Credit cards for frequent travelers. Companies would pay more to put their videos in front of such a video than a video where you are going about your day traveling.
4. Do review style videos/blogs
Review style videos/blogs are great opportunities for you to do affiliate marketing.
Since you are reviewing products, it makes sense to put a link to the items in your video/blog post.
Just make sure you actually acquire the products and review them honestly.
5. Do A vs. B style videos/blogs
Another type of video/blog that can make you more money is A vs. B style content where you are comparing products/services and helping your audience decide which products/services fit their needs better.
You can place affiliate links to such companies and it doesn’t matter which one your audience checks out, you can be sure that you will still get a cut of the profit.
6. Place affiliate links of your equipment in your blog/YouTube video
A lot of vloggers put links to their equipment in their videos or blog.
They could say something like the following:
“If you are wondering what camera or setup I used to create this video, check it out in the video description”.
You can sign up for Amazon affiliate links for free and put everything you used down in the comment or in your blog post.
This could include:
- Camera
- Tripod
- Microphone
- Video editor
- Stock footage website
You can also use the following sites to find affiliate marketing/sponsorship opportunities.
- Clickbank
- Rakuten
- ShareASale
7. Put high-paying ad networks on your blog
Google ads pay out less than ad networks such as Mediavine and Adthrive.
Try to get yourself accepted by higher-paying ad networks. You may need to get above 50,000–100,000 monthly pageviews to apply for some of those more premium ad networks.
8. Put ads on your YouTube channel
This is a duh, once you have 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours, you should put ads on your YouTube channel.
Every little bit counts. Even if you don’t have a lot of views yet, you may still want to monetize your channel.
9. Go live on YouTube or Stream on Twitch
YouTube allows you to go live where viewers can donate money to you. You want to utilize such a feature of YouTube when you are comfortable with it.
You do need to get into the YouTube Partnership program to access such a feature. This means, 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours.
Another place you can stream is Twitch. Check out this article on how you can make money on Twitch.
10. Build up your social media following
Here are some notable places to build up your social media following:
- Tiktok
- Facebook group
The bigger your following, the more you can charge for sponsorships. Companies may pay you money to talk about their brands.
Some celebrities with millions of followers can earn tens of thousands per post on Instagram.
Click here to learn how you can make money on Instagram.
11. Promote your content on Pinterest
You can promote your content on Pinterest to get more page views on your blog. This works best if you write about things women are interested in as Pinterest is mostly dominated by women.
Topics on more male-related niches don’t perform as well on Pinterest. This could be how to change the oil on your car for instance. This isn’t something many women would be interested in although you may still get a few clicks.
12. Get invited to podcasts
Get yourself invited on podcasts to spread awareness of your brand. You can use PodMatch.com to find a person looking to interview someone on a podcast.
Some exposure is good. It helps bring your brand in front of an audience especially when you are just starting out.
Even if you are already established, having someone talk about your brand and you would also help bring in a bigger audience.
13. Sponsorships and affiliate marketing
This is something we talked about briefly above but I want to make a separate section for it because this one is so vital to the success of most influencers and lifestyle bloggers/vloggers.
It’s not always about how many views you get and what niche you are in. If you can get sponsored by the right company or partner with the right company for affiliate marketing opportunities, you can still make a lot of money.
With a lifestyle brand, you can work with many different companies. You can pick something to focus on.
It could be the following:
- Cooking
- Gardening
- Travel
- Parenting
- College
- Pet
The list goes on. Picking a main theme (1–3 is fine as well) to stick to would allow companies to understand who your audience is better.
A company that offers travel credit cards is more likely to put its ads on a lifestyle channel/blog with travel as its main theme than a blog/channel that does just about anything and everything without a clear theme.
You can pick one to start and expand as you go.
14. Guest posts on your blog
Once you have enough page views, you may want to allow guest posts. Other bloggers want to write an article on your blog that links to their own blog so they can advertise their own brands as well as increase their domain authority.
The higher the domain authority, the more likely it is for your articles to be found higher up the search result.
The way you get higher DA is by getting other blogs to link to you which can occur in the form of a guest post.
You can also charge a few hundred for a guest post when you have enough leverage (high DA score, high page views per month, large following, etc).
15. Collaborate with other lifestyle bloggers/vloggers
Collaborating with other lifestyle bloggers/vloggers is a great way to expose your brand to more potential viewers.
People like a bit of a crossover. It gets them talking and it can send your views soaring.
16. Patreon
If each of your Patreon gives you $5 per month for access to earlier content and exclusive behind the scene content, you can make $5000/month from 1000 Patreons.
There’s also a feature on YouTube that allows viewers to support their favorite content creator much the same way Patreon does but Patreon is still the go-to for content creators.
17. Sell a book
If your lifestyle blog has a theme of food and cooking, you can sell a book on recipes and how-to cook something.
If your theme is on travel, you can sell a book on the best places to visit at ___.
The possibility is endless with what books you can create. How about a memoir? If your audience gets big enough, it wouldn’t hurt.
You can either write the books yourself or hire a ghost writer on Fiverr to do it for you.
You can even sell ebooks if you want.
18. Sell printables
Printables are PDF files that you can print out. Customers would purchase the file from you and then either print it themselves at home or at a printing service.
Click here to how you can make money selling printables on Etsy.
Here are some printables I’ve thought of that you may want to sell as a lifestyle blogger:
- Recipe printables
- Safe travel guide printables
- Common phrases in a foreign language when you visit a country
- Planner printables
- Calendar printables
- Parenting hack printables
- Wall art printables
When you have an audience, you need to figure out what your audience is willing to purchase. You can do a poll on Instagram or Twitter to figure that out.
Once you figure it out, deliver it.
There are a lot of influencers out there with millions of followers who aren’t able to sell a shirt.
If you don’t know what your audience wants, you are letting the potential for extra income go to waste.
The easiest way to figure out what will sell is to ask your audience directly.
19. Sell your own courses
Once you’ve established yourself as a lifestyle blogger/vlogger, you can sell a course.
Depending on the theme you’ve chosen, you can sell all kinds of courses:
- Cooking
- Organizing
- Running
- Home decorating
To make a million dollars per year selling your own course(s), you’d have to sell 3333 courses per year which are 9 courses per day.
And if you got multiple courses, you can aim to sell less than 9 courses per day per course.
Selling a course is one of the easiest ways to make money although you have to build up an audience first and you have to figure out what your audience wants to learn.
Another thing to note is how long your students would have access to your course. Your students will ask questions and you will have to answer them. If they have lifetime access, you may find yourself dealing with a student from a course you made 10 years ago and no longer selling.
20. Sell consulting services
Another thing you can sell is your time. You can use Calendly to allow your audience to schedule a 1-on-1 time with you.
You can offer a coaching service on a variety of things:
- Coach beginner lifestyle bloggers/vloggers
- Coach people on eating healthy
- Coach people on running
- Coach people on running a YouTube channel
- Coach people on coaching
You can’t really scale it up since your time is limited so don’t rely the bulk of your lifestyle brand income from coaching/consulting.
21. Dropship something
Dropshippers often spend a lot of money on ads to get their ads seen by a lot of people.
If you got a large audience, you don’t need to spend money on ads at all. Simply install a dropshipping plugin such as Alidropship (it’s not free), open a shop on your own website, and begin selling!
You keep all the profit after subtracting the expenses.
Of course, it helps if you show how the product can benefit your audience in your vlogs/blog.
22. Sell your own merch
There are lots of print-on-demand sites such as Redbubble that allow you to upload a design and when a customer orders a copy, the design gets printed and shipped to the customer without you handling any shipping, packaging, and returning.
Learn how you can make money selling on Redbubble here.
A lot of lifestyle bloggers/vloggers make the mistake of selling merch with their logos on there because very few people would buy a shirt with some random brand’s logo on top unless they are an absolute fan.
You may find 1 loyal fan out of 10,000 readers or 10,000 viewers who would buy anything you put out.
Instead of marketing to your loyal fans, you should market to your audience as a whole.
Your audience may be more likely to purchase a shirt with a cute animal drawing on top and an inspiring message (even if they aren’t a number one fan of you but still wish to support you) than a shirt with your brand’s logo on top.
Maybe your audience wouldn’t like cute animal drawings, maybe they prefer something that is more minimalistic and simple.
Every audience is different and what sells well on another lifestyle blogger’s brand may not ring true for your brand.
Figure out what style of clothing and design your audience prefers and hire someone on Fiverr to create the design for you.
You can also do it yourself with Illustrator or Procreate.
Learn how you can make money with procreate here.
Final thoughts
The most common blog is a lifestyle blog because well, it’s the most intuitive thing for most bloggers to write about — their own lives!
If you want to start a lifestyle blog, don’t wait, start now. Read this beginners’ blogging guide to get started.
There are so many ways to make money online. As long as you got an audience, even if you aren’t in a highly lucrative niche such as finance or technology or law, you can still make quite a bit of money.
It all depends on how well you can create/promote a product that suits your audience’s taste.
Your first step is to build your own audience.
Study what successful lifestyle bloggers/vloggers are doing, analyze what they write about, how they do their thumbnails, how they edit their videos, etc, and get started working!
Remember consistency is key. 1–3 blog posts and 1 video per week. Give it the consistent effort of 1 — 2 years before you give up.
Good luck!
