Who wouldn’t want to make a living documenting the life they’re living anyway?

The truth is, while that would be fun and exciting and even seems glamorous at times, there is a lot more that goes into becoming a lifestyle blogger than you might think. Regardless, if you want to make a presence for yourself online, we’ll teach you how to do it.

Make a Choice: for Fun or for Income?

This is kind of a trick question because the only sustainable way you’ll make a living through lifestyle blogging is if it’s fun for you.

But this still begs the question, why are you doing it? Did you hear that you can make a lot of money from learning how to be a lifestyle blogger? Did you see ads of someone promising that you’ll make more than 6-figures from doing it?

Or do you have an interest in sharing your life, and you thought you’d take your journal and start publishing it online? The difference here is whether or not you’re going to be a lifestyle blogger for the right reasons. Doing it purely for the money won’t work.

It’s not a get-rich-quick method. It can take a long time of consistent work to start making an income from a lifestyle blog.

Which means your motive has to be deeper—better—than just making money. Is it? Or will you spend a lot of upfront time only to give up when you realize the work necessary to make that money?

Now, this doesn’t mean you can’t have a goal to make money blogging. It just means that if money is your only reason for doing it, you’ll run into problems with being consistent and making quality content.

How to be a Lifestyle Blogger from Start to Finish

It’s not a fast process. If you’re serious about learning how to be a lifestyle blogger, you may have to strap in for some education. As someone who’s been blogging and managing blogs for 10 years, I’ve narrowed this process to the main important points.

1. Choose your focus

Otherwise known as “niche,” the main area you’ll focus on is important for attracting the right audience. You might be thinking, “But Bella, I want to be a lifestyle blogger, isn’t that a niche?” Yes and no. Here’s why:

Your lifestyle is different than many other people’s. You may be an outdoorsy, nature-loving, holistic leaning person and that means your lifestyle content will be vastly different from the high fashion, modernized lifestyle of another blogger.

It helps to identify what your “thing” is. Just don’t feel like you need to remain in that box forever. But because you want to be a lifestyle blogger specifically, that box is a big larger than other, more specific niches.

Your focus will determine many other details when it comes to your process of learning how to be a lifestyle blogger, so spend time to figure out what it really is.

Here are some questions to ask yourself to discover your focus for lifestyle blogging:

• What do you get excited about most in life?
• What do you spend your free time doing?
• What are others always asking you about?
• What recommendations to products/services do you find yourself making often?
• What would people describe you as an expert in?

As you can see in the screenshot below, Jenna Kutcher has a few key areas that come up first, ranging from motherhood to business, her house decor, marketing topics, and more. So while she can be described as a lifestyle blogger, there are core areas she focuses on blogging about.

2. Come up with a name

There’s a ton of information out there to help you come up with a blog name. For me, there are two main options you can use:

1. Use your name
2. Create a brand name

For the first option, the reason is easy. If you want to create a personal brand around you, then using your own name or a variation of it will be enough to get your lifestyle blog off the ground.

But if you want to create a brand that could potentially grow beyond you one day, or even if you just want something fun and different, coming up with a unique lifestyle blog name can be really helpful. You’ll find quality, profitable blogs with both examples, so it’s up to you to decide.

And remember, you can always change this. But just remember that it can take a lot of time to rebrand, so give this a lot of thought.

Here are some tips for creating a lifestyle brand name:

• Remember to utilize your niche or focus
• Use alliteration for memorability
• Take how the words look into consideration
• Jot down a bunch of words that are related to your niche, then write a bunch of words you’d use to describe yourself or your take on your niche
• Narrow down the choices
• See if you can combined a couple words into a single brand name
• Utilize synonyms for words to help find alliteration opportunities
• Google names to see if they’re taken already

Here are some lifestyle blog brand names to inspire you:

• The Interior Instinct – home decor
• Home and Hearth – home decor
• The Design Diary – home decor
• Healthy Habits Hub – health and wellness
• Mindful Musing – health and wellness
• Passport Pages – travel
• Journey Junkies – travel

3. Get the domain

This coincides with step 2 in that you’ll want a name where you can have a clean URL. Meaning, you can get BrandName.com without any dashes or frills. The reason for this is because it’s much more memorable, and assuming you’re in the USA, the “.com” extension is the most widely used and therefore, people will seek that domain.

Godaddy is a reliable service you can use to purchase the domain, but there’s also NameCheap and Google Domains that come highly recommended.

When coming up with your blog name, type them into the search bars available on these sites to see if it’s available or taken, like in the example below:

In many cases, if the name is unique enough, you’ll be able to purchase the domain name for very little. It’s about $15-20 a year to own the domain name, though hosting (having a website set up at that domain) tends to cost a bit more.

4. Choose a hosting provider

Depending on which platform you choose to create your site, the hosting may be set up alongside it. Hosting is essentially the place you’ll pay “rent” to have an online property. It costs money to have a website live on the internet, but it’s not crazy expensive.

You’ll pay anywhere from $15-$100+ a month, depending on how much traffic your site gets. The more traffic, the more you’ll pay to host your website online. If you want the domain you paid for to be used on your website, it will cost money.

Now, if you want to go the completely free route, you’ll create your website on a platform and won’t need to buy a domain. However, your URL will have the blog builder name along with your blog’s name, like this: yourblogname.wordpress.com if you build it on WordPress.

There are many hosting providers to choose from, with varying prices and visitor options.

We recommend you do your own research to make that decision, by simply Googling “hosting providers” and weighing the options for yourself and your own needs.

5. Design your website

The platform you choose to build your website will dictate the options you have to design it. By platform, we mean which site you’ll use to edit the site and upload content.

Popular website platforms you’ve probably heard of are:

• WordPress (what this site uses)
• Squarespace
• Wix
• Showit

Those are the big four. We recommend WordPress due to its massive popularity, customization plugins, and ample help tutorials online. I personally use Showit because of it’s high level of customization but only recommend it if you love and have an eye for design, and are also good at new technology because it does have a learning curve to use.

The last three steps will all go hand-in-hand with each other. When you choose hosting, you have to connect it to your platform, connect it to your domain, and then design it. Each platform will have instructions for how to do this, so you’ll have to research this step depending on which you choose.

You can also always hire these steps to be completed, especially if you’re more interested in learning how to be a lifestyle blogger for the next section and not all the technical aspects.

6. Create content (blog posts)

If you’re not a good writer, it’s going to be difficult to write many blog posts. This isn’t to say that you can’t learn how or improve. The very best way to become a better blog writer is to practice. Write, read, edit, repeat. Over time, you’ll get significantly better. Take it from someone who’s been writing blog posts for about 10 years now.

Apart from the writing quality itself is the content quality. While you don’t have to make every piece of content perfect, you do want it to be worthwhile. Meaning, do your ideas justice and respect the reader. No matter what you’re blogging about, there is someone on the other end seeking something from your posts. They’ve clicked on it and therefore, have dedicated their time to seeing what you have to say.

Don’t half ass it. There is a responsibility to good content that comes in the form of recognizing that every “hit” your post gets is a real person on the other side. So how do you do that? You write about what you know well, and research what you don’t.

I can give you dozens of tips to make your blog posts search engine optimized so they show up on Google and other searches, but the fact is that if your content is good, it will naturally meet most metrics that Google is looking at anyway. This includes time on page and engagement metrics like sharing, bookmarking, and how many other pages on your site they’ve visited.

Blog Post SEO Tips

If you want your blog posts to show up on search engines, you’ll want to optimize them for it.

Since my background is SEO (search engine optimization) and content creation, here are my best tips for both:

1. Use the keyword where it can fit naturally: You wouldn’t actually use a keyword as much as Google wants to see it. But you absolutely cannot go overboard and put it in every sentence. Instead, write in a way that makes the blog post topics, like ours in this post about how to be a lifestyle blogger, come up “naturally”. That very sentence is an example. I used the keyword, but could have used any other example. Find spaces to use it but edit the sentences so it fits and read authentically
2. Research what is already ranking on Google for your keyword: The SERP (search engine results page) is telling you exactly what searchers want for that keyword. But only look at this for the intent of the keyword. Basically, what information are the blog posts covering that are ranking at the top? This tells you the purpose of people searching the term in the first place. An example of this would be “children’s book characters”. A blogger teaching writing advice might see this keyword and think it’s about writing children’s book characters, but the SERP tells us that the searchers want a list of good characters already existing in books. Figure out what searches want to learn, and make sure to cover that in your blog posts
3. Write to the intent, but add new information: You want to make sure you’ve got the intent covered, but add new or different information than what’s already ranking. If your blog post is just a rehash of what’s already on Google, the algorithm won’t find it useful to give other searchers access to. If you have new information other blog posts aren’t covering, the algorithm will want to show searchers that, and will therefore boost your blog post’s ranking
4. Include data, facts, and stats you’ve compiled: This isn’t always relevant but helps significantly. The Google algorithm really values accurate, unique information. If you’re able to answer questions and give insight while citing data you’ve compiled yourself, it’ll be valuable. Just make sure to link to any studies and external sources because external links are important too!
5. Internally link to similar content: The Google Algorithm builds an identity for your website (sort of). It maps your site’s content to help it understand what you cover and how the posts are connected to one another. By linking from one blog post to another with anchor text (the text that’s linked) that’s the other blog post’s keyword, you’ll help Google understand your site, which will help new and old content rank. That means crafting some sentences to include keywords of related posts, like this one about how to write a good blog post, where appropriate
6. Be consistent with publishing: If you don’t post new blog posts, the Google algorithm won’t crawl your website. That means your blog posts are much less likely to rank because Google will determine your site to be outdated and inactive. Posting consistently, at least a few times a month, is necessary to get the algorithm to visit your site consistently
7. Update your old posts yearly: Google wants fresh content, and even old blog posts can be republished after you update them. You can even change the published date so it appears as fresh on the SERP. Just make sure you’re actually updating the post and not just changing the date. The algorithm will be onto you and will ignore your blog post and site
8. Use a software to check SEO: I fully believe you should be able to fully optimize a blog post by yourself, but there are apps that give you checklists, which are helpful if you’re just starting. Popular ones are Yoast and Rankmath. Add them as plugins to your site so you can see the status of each post as you write it

Coming Up With Blog Post Ideas

It always helps to have a backlog of ideas, no matter what niche you’ll be writing in. Sometimes you’ll be inspired randomly and other times you’ll have no idea what to write, but still need to publish a new post to be consistent.

Here are some blog post types to consider when drafting ideas:

• How-to style list articles: these perform really well on Google, especially if you give a numbered list. Cover topics in-depth and these can serve as your “pillar” content.
• Why / benefits articles: Dive into some benefits or reasons someone should pursue certain activities, habits, or products
• In-depth studies: If you’re the studious type, head to Google Scholar and compile data around an area of your niche to uncover some lesser known information your audience will find helpful
• Reviews & product features: These style articles are a great way to embed affiliate links to make an income as well as attract brand sponsors. Just write about your experience with a product or service.
• Life routines and habits: Do you have certain habits and routines that have been helpful? Share your insights with these style blog posts. These often pair well with the why/benefits style articles too.
• Mistake-style articles: Instead of taking the standard “how to ____” approach to content, you can also make “Mistakes you’re making with ___” and take that angle.

Whatever types of content you choose to make, remember to be varied in its type. You don’t want only how-to blog posts and you definitely don’t want product review posts only. Create a mix, and link them with one another!

Bonus Tip for a HUGE Content Backlog:

When creating a blog post, especially pillar posts, pull out a subheading and create an entire blog post JUST about that. An example for this blog post is the next point below about “promote your content” and this blog post about how to promote your blog posts that goes into even greater detail.

This will give you a long, comprehensive list that you can internally link and build your website

7. Promote your content

If you just want to publish what you like and not worry about attracting any viewers, you can skip this step. But if you actually want to get viewers to your website, you’ll have to promote your content and let the world know there is something on that site.

There are a ton of ways to do this, but here are the top methods for promoting blog posts:

• SEO: free promotion by Google if your post ranks high enough for search terms
• Pinterest: learn the methods of using Pinterest to upload pictures that link to your content
• Guest posting: ask to write a blog post on another person or company’s website where you can link to your blog
• Ads: this isn’t as highly recommended because it’s difficult to do well, but you can set up your blogs to run as ads on Facebook or Google
• Collaboration: connect with other bloggers in your niche and offer to collaborate in some way. This could look like creating a “series” of content but splitting the blog posts between a few people and linking to each other’s blog posts.
• Social media: if you have an online presence or want to grow one, you can mention or reference your blog posts in your social media posts like in the example by Kate Eskuri below.

Promoting your lifestyle blog can be challenging at first, but keep going! Figure out the methods that work best for you by analyzing your social media numbers as well as your traffic sources (with Google Analytics).

8. Grow your email list (optional)

It’s optional, but not if you want to monetize your blog or have a list you can use to sell sponsorship slots or sell your own product or service in the future.

There is a basic method with a lot of room for variability here: create free resources, discounts, or deals and require an email and first name in exchange for it.

You’ll often see these as pop-ups or offers inside the blog post itself, and you’ll need an email service provider to do this well.

We recommend these options for service providers:

• Mailerlite—free version available
• Flodesk—fair pricing and diverse capabilities
• Kit—high capabilities, but can be pricey if you get a lot of subscribers

Examples of Lifestyle Bloggers You Can Learn From

Note that you will learn from them, not copy. It’s hard to see what someone else is doing and love it, and not copy it. The truth is that doing this will rob you of integrity and it’ll also keep you further from your own, unique brand.

Instead, if you see something you really like about these lifestyle bloggers, ask yourself what about it you like. Uncover the commonalities you can be intentional about creating anew with your own brand.

1. Jenna Kutcher
2. The Foundation Blog by Kate Eskuri (Jenna Kutcher’s sister, actually)
3. Camille Styles
4. The Skinny Confidential
5. Quintessence
6. Wit & Delight
7. The Blonde Abroad
8. Positively Present
9. The Confused Millennial

Learning how to be a lifestyle blogger often involves a lot more than you might think. The best advice we can give you is to keep going! If you implement these steps and remain consistent, you’ll have a thriving blog in a matter of a couple years.

And worse, this issue seems to be overlooked by the large majority of writers — until it’s too late, that is.

The problem: The unrealistic and unhealthy portrayal of romantic relationships.

There. I said it. And now people can take notice because yes, there is a serious lack of realism when it comes to the romantic relationships in books.

Authors are writing relationships that are meant to be exciting and intense, but their execution of those couples can be flawed in sometimes very harmful, although unintentional ways.

There’s nothing wrong with writing romance. In fact, adding a romantic relationship to your book can help you write a good story. The dynamic of love can:

• Up the stakes
• Make readers more emotionally invested in the characters
• Create contrast in emotions, adding to the coveted “roller coaster” of emotions
• Give your readers another reason to root for your main character

Pitfalls to watch out for when writing romance

All of these powerful elements can make your book a lot better, but only if you can create a relationship that isn’t problematic for the readers.

Which means you’ll want to avoid these mistakes many writers might not even realize they’re making when it comes to the romantic relationships in their stories.

Here are a few traps to avoid when writing romance.

1. Glamorizing abuse

This might be the biggest, most overlooked issue in books. Way too many authors are writing abusive relationships and passing them off as romantic, particularly in the young adult genre, though this can be seen in all types of books.

If you’re not sure what this looks like, it’s when writers portray abuse as love.

They write about a person being overly jealous and verbally abusive to their partner and have the main character justify it by narrating that the other person “just can’t live with the thought of losing” them. So the main character is written as seeing this abuse as true love.

This romanticization of abuse is simply harmful to anyone reading it. Young people might turn to books when it comes to learning about romance. If they don’t have a healthy relationship to learn from in real life, they might think the relationships in books is how it’s supposed to be.

Therefore, they accept abuse and pass it off as the person just “caring about them too much” because that’s what they’ve seen in their favorite books.

In order to avoid these types of mistakes, make sure your relationships are written consensually. Think about how you’d feel and act given the situation you’re putting your characters in.

A general rule is, if you’d be appalled by someone being treated that way in real life, it’s not right.

2. Instant romances

Think about the romantic relationships you’ve been in or have seen around you. How often do you hear two people locking eyes across a restaurant and falling madly and immediately in love with one another?

Not often. Because it’s not realistic, and that’s not the way love works.

For those of you unfamiliar with this term, it’s just as it sounds. An instant romance is when two people meet and are in “love” and in a committed relationship instantly. Or within a very, very short amount of time, which is not remotely accurate.

However, there are many novelists who write romances this way with the intention of creating an intense moment, but it sends a very harmful message to young readers and  takes away from the realism in your book.

You can write intensity without making your characters be “in love” right off the bat.

Relationships take time. You have to get to know one another first, build the chemistry and allow that spark to ignite before you can begin that romantic journey.

Why should your book characters be any different?

If you want the relationship to be realistic and keep your readers fully immersed in it, you have to give it the appropriate amount of time to grow and evolve.

3. Making a single person passive in the relationship

Relationships aren’t about one person seizing control of the other and making all the choices.

Both people should be equally as active in the ongoings of the partnership. Because it’s just that — a partnership.

This makes it a little concerning when writers make a single person who just goes with the flow and doesn’t really care about much. This person doesn’t initiate anything, make any choices for the sake of the relationship and when going gets tough, they sit back and let the other person do everything.

This is both unrealistic and just plain boring. It doesn’t add anything interesting to the dynamic of the relationship and readers won’t root for them.

Make sure you’re writing a romantic relationship between two people, not between a person and a passive robot.

4. Writing relationships without commonalities

If two people are in a relationship, they should have things in common. They don’t need to both like the same food, movies, books and activities, but they should have similarities at their core.

If you have two characters who are moral opposites and don’t share the same values, your readers are going to question why they’re together in the first place.

And if you can’t really answer why they’re together other than the fact that they need to be for plot reasons, you’ll have to do some adjusting. Characters can’t just be involved for the sake of conflict in a story.

If those two people need to be in a relationship for your plot to work, then you need to put just as much effort into their dynamic as a couple as you do for the entire plot.

Otherwise, the story plot won’t matter because readers won’t care about the relationship.

5. Never allowing for vulnerability

For your characters to bond on a deep enough level for love to be in the air, some vulnerability needs to happen. They need to open up to each other and express more emotions than lust and longing.

How else will they be able to grow closer? Allowing for moments of vulnerability shows their weaknesses. Not only will this be important for crafting a stronger emotional connection between characters, it’ll also help your readers connect with them more.

Here are a few ways you can create some vulnerability:

• Have one character get injured
• Create conflict involving something one is particularly sensitive about
• Make a character break down from the stress of your plot
• Have them share secrets

Even strong, tough characters need moments of vulnerability and weakness. Not only does this make the relationship stronger, your readers will also like the character a lot more because they’ll be able to relate. Two birds, one stone.

6. Creating inappropriate and harmful age differences

Many writers get this wrong and it can be far more harmful than you realize. In middle school (or early high school, I can’t remember exactly), I read a series in which there was a 17-year-old student who wound up romantically (and sexually) involved with her 27-year-old superior, physical trainer, and guard. This may not seem like a big deal to a young teen reading the book—it may even seem exciting to them.

But it’s very harmful and can send the wrong messages to impressionable readers.

Not only does the age difference impact the dynamic, but it also effects the reader’s perception of a healthy or appropriate dynamic. We all know fiction is fiction, however, it’s important not to play a part in encouraging inappropriate dynamics within ages.

Self-published author Hannah Lee Kidder suggests these tips for maintaining commonalities in relationships while keeping them healthy and appropriate:

• Is the age difference legal (SUPER important – and no, an excuse about your world not having “legal ages” doesn’t cut it, sorry but not sorry)?
• When they go out or spend time together, can only 1 of them drink alcohol (legally)?
• Is one of their brains fully developed and the other isn’t (Example: both between 21 and 25 OR between 18 and 20 OR both over 25)?

These rules also ring true for real-life relationships, which is why we want to bridge this gap (so readers are not learning inappropriate and unhealthy dynamics, much like the “glamorizing of abuse” tip above). Ultimately, this is your choice, but remember that (especially if you’re writing young adult) your audience can be impressionable and take queues from what they read. There are always options to create the plot and character development / dynamics you want without perpetuating harmful perceptions.

Next Steps 

Adding romantic relationships to your novel can up the stakes, add a layer of interest and give your audience all the lovey-dovey feels, but in order to have those effects take hold, you’ll need to write them correctly.

And writing them correctly means avoiding these mistakes that can take your fictional relationship from realistically impactful to harmfully impactful.

What have you found works for you when writing romance in fiction?

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

Writing a book is beyond hard. Those of us in the thick of the book writing process know that.

Which means if there’s something that can make the entire process easier, we’d likely hop on it as fast as possible. Luckily, that very method exists and it goes by the intimidating name of outlining.

If you’re not sure what an outline is, you’re not alone.

When I first started out, I had no idea what this was and how it could help me but after failing miserably to get through even half of my first “book,” I knew I needed some help. After research I realized there are a lot of benefits to creating an outline for your book, and they’re really not difficult to understand, either.

What is a book outline?

Think of an outline as a document that lists the events of your novel by chapter. It’s instructions or blueprints for writing your book.

There are tons of different methods for making an outline that works, but as long as you end up with detailed instructions for the direction of your book from start to finish, it’ll be effective.

An outline will save you time, energy and a bunch of stress. Time is precious. Even non-writers can agree with that. However, time for writers is probably a little more important than it is for other people and that’s because writing takes a long time.

And yes, without an outline, you will have errors.

Why you should outline your book before writing it

With an outline, you’ll still run into some issues here and there but in order to avoid a majority of them, you should use one.

Here’s how making an outline and sticking to it will save your novel.

1. It’ll get rid of plot holes

If you’re a pantser, aka, someone who writes by the seat of their pants, you’ve probably struggled with some major plot holes in your previous works.

This is because throughout the process of writing, you might forget some minor, but important, details that can have huge impacts on the rest of your book.

You might write something in chapter three that creates an issue with something you wrote in chapter 20, which then causes problems in all the chapters between, and the reason is simply because it took you months to get there. It’s completely understandable, but also preventable.

A lot can be affected by a seemingly minor error earlier on in your book.

You may end up needing to go back and fix the following throughout the rest of your book:

• Dialogue and events related to said incident (which can add up quickly!)
• Character personalities or motives
• Actual events that unfold later in the book
• Events that are to unfold in later books

All of that means some serious rewriting and some serious time. However, an outline completely prevents that because you’re basically writing the events of the book in its entirety in about a week or two.

That means you can see any plot holes from a mile away before you’ve even started writing. The time, effort and stress you can save are well worth the extra week or two to get that outline written.

2. You can better map out the flow of emotions

One of the major elements that makes a book fantastic is the ebb and flow of emotions you put your readers through. Giving them a warm, comforting moment before ripping away any hope they had left for a happy ending is what’ll hook readers and leave them with a powerful impression of your book.

The best way to do this, and do it right, is by planning it.

When you write your book without an outline, it’ll be really difficult to “chart” those emotions. You’ll have to go off what you remember and this is often what makes a book “drag” in the middle sections.

To prevent drag and captivate your readers even more, make an outline.

Depending on your method of outlining, you can literally chart these emotions and watch the rollercoaster your readers will go on. Not only will this make them more emotionally involved with the story, it’s also that special factor that makes them share your book with others.

3. You won’t have continuity errors

Unlike plot holes, continuity errors aren’t necessarily plot-related, but they do cause problems for readers. It takes them out of the moment because the realistic aspect of your story is gone when you have too many of these.

When, earlier in the book, you have your characters walking down their gravel driveway only to have them trudge up their asphalt driveway, it’s a problem.

Your book isn’t as realistic when you have these issues and the best way to get rid of them – aside from editing – is to make an outline.

You’ll be able to keep track of the environments and rules and laws within your story and this will make your book more believable and cleaner.

4. You’ll avoid writer’s block

Ah, yes. The biggest, most annoying struggle writers face. The moment when you can’t seem to continue writing because your brain is just coming up blank. While all writers will deal with crappy writing days from time to time, not having an outline is usually the biggest cause of it.

Why? Because without an outline, you have no idea where to take your story.

You might know what happens and have a vague direction for the book, but you don’t know specifically what will get your characters from point A to B. And that means you’ll sit at your computer screen with a frustrated expression trying to figure out what needs to happen next.

All of this can be avoided with an outline. Since you have directions for what to write next, all you need to do is start writing. Sure, it might not get rid of those pesky bad writing days but at least you know where to take the story next.

If you want to avoid writer’s block, take the time to put together a comprehensive outline, first.

5. It’ll make the process of writing the book faster

Writing a book tis a long process, especially if you’re someone who writes in their spare time. It can take months, a year  or even longer to complete a book from start to finish. And that’s just the writing part.

But since writing does take the longest amount of time, finding ways to make the process quicker means you’ll have a finished book in a lot shorter of a time frame.

Making an outline will definitely expedite the writing process.

When you don’t have to sit and think about what to write next or where your story is even going, you’ll just be able to write. You can open your laptop, sit down and pump out the words at a much faster rate when you have the directions right there in front of you.

6. The quality of writing will be much better

Let’s be real for a minute. What’s your main focus when writing a book if you don’t have an outline? Where the story goes. It’s not on the prose or the character development or the dialogue.

When you’re thinking about what to do next as you write, your main focus is on that, which means you’re not giving the actual writing all you’ve got. When you know exactly what’s going to happen, you can instead focus on the way you tell it.

This means you’ll have much stronger character development, more in-depth prose, and a higher quality book overall.

Forgoing an outline for writing a book is like trying to put a bookshelf together without the directions. Sure, you may be able to make something that you can use to hold books, but it won’t be nearly as stable and it won’t look half as good as it should.

When you take the time to follow the instructions, you’ll be able to focus on the quality of work you’re doing instead of just getting it put together.

Why do you use an outline when writing your book and what has it helped you overcome most as a writer?

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

Photo via baranq / Shutterstock 

There’s a craft to writing blog posts that are engaging and fun — and yet also optimized for search engines in a way that’ll bring you more traffic.

If you want to create a blog post that drives traffic and gets people sharing with others, there’s a kind of formula you have to follow.

An easy formula for how to write a blog post

But what makes a blog post better than others?

Which ingredients are necessary to not only keep people interested and sharing but also get your post to rank highest on search engines?

Here’s what you need to craft a perfect blog post:

• A catchy title and subheaders
• Interesting, relevant images
• Search engine optimization
• Helpful, factual information
• Lots of personality

Of course, you’ll want to start a blog first. But once you’ve got that nailed, you’re only five steps away from creating compelling, valuable content.

Here’s an easy guide for how to write a blog post.

1. Choose a unique idea and a killer title

You probably have tons of great ideas for blog posts. Except…lots of people have great ideas. Someone has probably come up with the same idea before.

People don’t want to read the same blog post over and over again when they’re looking for information. So how do you make your blog post different? 

You dive into specifics. You share details. You create a unique spin on a broader idea.

For example: if you want to write about how to moisturize your hair, you can’t just choose the topic, “how to moisturize your hair.” It’s way too broad of an idea and people will gloss right over it. Plus, there are tons of blog posts covering the exact same thing.

Instead, provide an idea that’s fresh.

To do this, you have to narrow the general idea into something more specific like, “how to moisturize your hair with five natural items from your kitchen.” With this idea, you’ve just created a unique title and a fresh angle on a much bigger idea.

And this way, you’ll also get the right readers to gravitate toward your blog by giving them the direct information they’re looking for while showing them your blog niche.

2. Use headings and white space

People want to be able to find what they’re looking for easily. When you present them with a huge block of text and nothing to separate any of your ideas, they’ll leave.

Many of us get intimidated by large amounts of text. Not because we can’t read it, but because we don’t want to take the time to read through it when we can easily find the information in a few seconds on a different site.

If you want someone to stay on your website long enough to actually benefit, they’ll need to be able to find the information they want quickly.

Breaking up your big blocks of text and labeling them with obvious — yet helpful — titles is a great way to capture attention. You can also add to this by throwing in bolded phrases and making the font bigger with the main ideas you want people to take away from your blog post.

3. Write with personality

People don’t want to read something that sounds like a computer generated it. It’s boring and makes them think there isn’t a real person behind the content they’re reading.

So if you really want people to relate to what you’re saying and actually enjoy reading your blog, you need to throw in some of your personality. You need to have a voice.

That may sound easy enough but if you’re not used to writing how you speak, it could be a struggle.

Here’s how to breathe life into your blog post:

• Read it out loud and fix choppy sentences
• Add in phrases you actually say a lot
• Throw in some jokes
• Tell a story related to the topic (this also adds credibility!)

All of these can help you ensure you’re putting the real you into the words instead of robotically typing them.

Another way to make your blog post more personable is changing the font style. You talk with certain inflections on different words. To show that and help people read the content the way it sounds in your head, use italics or make important sentences bold.

4. Add relevant images

People are visual creatures. We love connecting ideas with images. Which means you should add photos to your content if you want to have the perfect blog post.

Blog posts with photos get 94% more views than those without them.

Now, this doesn’t give you permission to litter your content with random photos. They need to make sense and add to the content you’re writing. They should be offering something extra that words alone can’t.

But you can’t just choose any photo you can get your hands on.

The actual photos you use also play a huge role in reader engagement and can result in a positive or negative outcome depending on the quality of the image.

Incorporating high-quality photos into your blog post adds to your credibility. It’s a key element when it comes to how to write a blog post.

How many times have you been on a website only to click the “back” button when you see they have super low-quality photos? If you’re like the rest of us, probably a lot.

Not having great photos shows people that the rest of your website may not be high quality, either. Thankfully, there are a ton of places you can find high quality photos in your niche for free.

You just have to know where to look.

5. Optimize your blog post for search engines

Still not getting the traffic you want?

Search engine optimization (or SEO) is crucial for getting your blog post to rank higher when people type in your keyword on Google.

The most important part of great SEO is the keyword. You need to find a word or phrase that readers are actively searching for on Google. Once you have that, you need to put it to use in all the right places.

Here are some places to consider using your keyword:

• In the title
• In the first paragraph of the content
• At least in one subheading
• Within the body content (but not too much)
• In the last paragraph of your content
• In the “alternate attributes” section of your in-text photos

Check out these other ways to optimize your blog post for search engines:

• Use internal links to other content on your blog
• Use subheadings so people can find what they need easier
• Structure it with a lot of white space and smaller paragraphs
• Guest post on high-traffic websites — get those backlinks!

If you’re like me and you don’t want to worry about making sure you have the right number of keywords throughout your content, using a free plugin like Yoast can help you manage all of your SEO information in one place.

There may be a lot of reasons you’d want to grow your blog. Whether it’s to increase your income or simply to have your voice be heard by a wider audience, the process is very much the same.

Knowing how to write a blog post — and a good one — is essential for helping others to find your blog in the black hole that is the internet. Those ingredients are what you need to build a successful blog and the above steps will help get you there.

What are your tricks for creating the perfect blog post? Let us know in the comments section below!

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

Photo via GuadiLab / Shutterstock 

I had just moved to a new city and was searching for jobs when I stumbled across an article about freelance writing online. I had no idea what it really entailed but I dove right in because I had always loved writing, so I figured, why not?

But jumping right in without looking may have been a mistake.

Freelance writing is a much more difficult career to get your start in than many other professions. Essentially, you’re starting a business. Your service is your writing and, like any other business, you have to market, build a positive reputation and grow.

And also like any other business, it’s going to take a while before you start gaining traction.

At first, you may not be able to secure jobs. It might be a while before you even land your first  high paying client. The fact that you’re not making a full time income right away can be very discouraging.

It was for me. There were countless times I wanted to throw in the towel and just quit.

But I persevered, hunkered down behind my laptop and remembered a few key lessons that prevented me from giving up.

Now I’m a full time freelance writer and can honestly say that sticking to it was one of the best decisions I’ve made.

If you’re just starting out as a freelance writer or need some encouragement, here are a few reminders for when the weight of this career choice gets a little too heavy.

1. Building a client base takes time

Unless you have a lot of connections, you’re going to have to build your client list from scratch.

And as you can imagine, this takes time.

You’ll have to research publications in your niche, pitch different clients, send out  samples and provide high quality work that people will want more of. Doing this — and doing it right — can take a large chunk of time.

And not everyone you pitch will want to work with you. Sometimes they just don’t need the work and other times they might not be all that impressed with your experience so far. This might feel like a kick to the gut and believe me, you might want to quit after your first few — or dozen — rejections. I sure did.

Having been in this game for a few years now, I’ve noticed a few tactics that help increase the odds of success. This is what I do personally that might help up your chances of clients responding to your pitch or rehiring you for future work:

• Produce a very clean, grammatically correct pitch
• Make sure your pitch follows the publication’s guidelines
• Send high quality samples
• Respond to emails in a timely manner
• Put forth your full effort in each piece provided
• Turn out your articles in a reasonable timeframe
• Ask questions if you’re not clear on instructions for a piece

Doing the above can help clients see how serious you are about working with them and it’ll also increase the likelihood of them wanting to work with you on a continuous basis.

The goal for freelance writing is to have a decent list of clients you can work for long-term. This will provide you with the stability you need to feel secure.

2. If you put in the work, you’ll be rewarded

Many people love the idea of being a freelance writer because you can work from the comfort of your home on your big cozy couch in your PJs. However, because you can have so many luxuries at work, you have to have one hell of a work ethic.

You need to be able to force yourself to work and be productive even on days when you’re feeling super lazy or tired or just bored with the topic you’re writing. If you don’t work, your business as a freelance writer won’t grow.

Think about it like a salesman who works for commission. The person who’s going to make more will be the one who makes the most calls and gives the best pitch.

Freelance writing isn’t much different than being a salesman. You have to continuously put yourself out there and pitch to companies. The only difference is that you’re selling your writing instead of a product.

The amount of work you put into growing your freelance business will be directly related to how much you get out of it.

So before you decide to quit, ask yourself if you’re giving it your all. Are you expecting too much while not putting in the work to support those ambitions?

Just remember that if you work hard to meet your goals, you’ll reach them much faster than you would if you continue to sit about contemplating giving up.

3. Be patient — building a business takes time

Most businesses aren’t overnight successes. It can take a while to see growth. You’re starting new with next to nothing on your freelance writing resume.

That’s like new businesses trying to sell a product without having any reviews. How likely are you to purchase something when you have nothing to ensure you that you’ll like what you get? Probably not very likely.

That’s why businesses take a very long time to get off the ground.

The same is true for your freelance writing career. If you’re expecting to make a full time income in only a month and land every client you pitch to, you’ll be very discouraged and disappointed when that doesn’t happen. This mindset can actually be sabotaging your potential success.

I had really high expectations right off the bat and when I was rejected time and time again for failing to have experience, I wanted to stop. I even looked at other 9-5 jobs before I realized that this is just a part of the process.

Just remember that building your business might take longer than you initially anticipated. Have a little patience and keep working toward your goals.

Freelance writing is not an easy career choice but it is worth it if you’re willing to put in the work. You’ll have some ups and downs along the way but remembering these few things can help you stick with this career so you can live the life you truly want.

How many of you have ever felt like throwing in the towel when it comes to freelance writing? What made you stick with it through the tough times?
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