My Note on Lifestyle Blogging for Money and Free Things

In addition to sharing my own work and ideas, I love looking at others' work, not because I want to copy them or steal their ideas, but for inspiration. Who are we as artists and creators if not an audience and inspiration for each other?

I realize not everyone at Wealthy Affiliate has a blogger style website, but I think it's a very fun and easy way to build a successful business and it's extremely relevant to affiliate marketing, if not just a branch of it.

So I was studying some great blogs recently that were absolutely amazing. A total fun read. They were started many, many years ago and have grown to be monumentous. Their creators have long-since stopped having to work other than being a full-time blogger, and so I felt there might be a lesson to learn there.

Lifestyle Blogging for Money and Free Things

To start with, these successful, money-making blogs, were all lifestyle blogs, which is basically people who share things that they do, products they try, places they go, and all sorts of reviews from where they live or places they travel to. These are very popular right now, especially for perhaps younger to middle-aged people who like to travel. They are not usually product or niche specific.

For example, if you were planning a trip to Las Vegas, you could look up the list of the top 25 lifestyle bloggers in that city and make a plan to visit some of the restaurants they've been, try some of the food they've tried, or use the same hotels, etc.

The blogs I have been looking at are the people who are invited by large companies and brands to promote their products. These people have in the 10s and 100's of thousands of followers on social media or website visitors.

These bloggers have put in an intense amount of work, time and skill to get where they are. But they started from the same place anyone who just started in Wealthy Affiliate did, so it's a great inspiration.

I've heard stories of new lifestyle bloggers who start out thinking it's all about easy money. They make blogging look bad by asking companies to give them free stuff if they write about them. That's not how it works.

Here at Wealthy Affiliate we know that patient and steady wins the race. Take the Certification Course. Learn the craft of marketing through a website, and before you know it you will have built something that's worth something. And you'll get paid.

A Genius Marketing Flow

In studying these blogs, the financially stable ones that make me #GOALS, I noted that there is a specific sort of menu structure that kind of makes sense and struck me as a bit marketing genius in the organization department. I'm going to try to describe it here as best I can, I did not want to take photos or copy anyone.

Left to right, the menus below the main logo or header and social media links, basically laid out like this:

• Home
  
• About (which included affiliate disclosure, privacy and cookies details)
  
• Menu Title 1
  
• Menu Title 2
  
• Shopping
  

Because these were lifestyle blogs, Menu Title 1 and Menu Title 2 were usually along the lines of Lifestyle and then whatever their forte or niche was, i.e. Cooking or Motherhood.

Under these titles, the drop down would then divide into the various categories of each. For example, under Lifestyle you might find: Fashion, Restaurants, Travel, then under Cooking it would be: Recipes, Kitchen, etc.

I thought this was interesting and cool because it allowed for an endless possibility of things to write about, while still focusing on a niche, or maybe 2 or 3 mini niches at a time. It was also an extremely simple and clean look, that packed A TON of content within.

A Genius Money-Making Idea

What really excited me about the menu was the Shopping link.

Including a link that goes to a page that summarizes every product you endorse is perfect. I no longer need to create endless articles with all of my suggestions, that I casually throw between informative posts to suggest my readers buy stuff through my website.

Instead, I can be blunt and say shop here.

Note: These shopping pages were absolutely gorgeous and laid out as pretty as a shopping mall, not just some gross display of links. I'm sure it requires an awesome plugin.

While this kind of organization may be obvious to the big guys at the top, or anyone familiar with lifestyle blogs, for me this is a new discovery. It helps take my focus off of "selling things" and trying to make money with my website.

Instead, I can focus on any topic that I find interesting, that is keyword rich but doesn't specifically have to sell something. There is no need for me to SELL, SELL, SELL in every single post I write.

And realizing all this, for me, takes so much pressure off of the whole thing.

So I'm doing a makeover on my blog.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Comments? :)