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Updated in November 2020 What is a lifestyle blog? Before that: what is lifestyle ? Simply said, 'lifestyle' is how people live. Since living has individual, family and social dimensions, lifestyle naturally talks about all of these. Lifestyle connotes good living , not just living . When a blog talks about how to improve one's lifestyle  or discusses topics around lifestyle , it is a lifestyle blog. Lifestyle blog is a professional blog, with the aim to earn money from it.  A lifestyle blog mostly has beauty and fashion as main segments but just having them does not make a blog a lifestyle blog.  A lifestyle blog is one that deals with a combination of the following subjects, with prominence being given to 'style', i.e. fashion, personality and urbane matters.  Beauty and fashion Self-improvement, personality development Urban culture, socializing Relationships Home decor DIY, life hacks, crafts Health, food and nutrition Parenting Personal finance ...

We have dealt with comment spam in detail earlier.  In this post, we'd discuss why links appearing on comments are not good for the blog, and specifically how to disable them on Blogger blogs. Why links on your blog's comment box may be bad When commenters put a few links, it could be their eagerness and good intentions to bring to your notice some useful and relevant content. But when a comment has irrelevant content or content that has been made artificially look relevant to search engines, it sure is spam. The comment has been made to pull traffic to the commenter's site and to add 'link juice' (=value that a website gets when it is linked from a good website) to a sham website. These serve the spammer's purpose well while reducing the value of your website/ blog.  As if that were not enough, spammers sometimes add links in comments . An even worse case is when the spammer puts a number of links and links to bad sites. Definitely these links are ...

Organizing the stuff that is required for and generated during travels and blogging is very important but often ignored. When we don't organize ourselves properly, especially when we amass huge resources (e.g. thousands of travel photos or hundreds of blog ideas), it leads to clutter and we tend to lose precious time in searching for the required thing and sometimes don't find it at all! We give here some simple tips on organizing oneself as a travel blogger.  1. Of course, nothing helps you remain in full control of yourself like a pocket diary .  You can use it for jotting down quick information before you transfer it to your electronic device, taking notes and gathering ideas. Keep a few pencils and a sharpener in your handbag in addition to a ball-point pen. Pencils are the best and fountain/ gel pens the worst in rainy or very hot/ cold weather. 2. Organize your electronic resources thoughtfully. I'll show you one way of doing it but you can have your own s...

As promised, we bring you first-person insights from successful travel bloggers. This is the third post in the series on travel blogging. What successful travel bloggers have in common Let's give you the summary first. But be conscious of the fact that everybody's experiences are different from others'. Also remember that we are talking of a 'generation' of bloggers who did not have others to guide them or many pathfinders whom they could follow. Most of them would die rather than quit travel. Most are also avid photographers. May not be 'professional' photo journalist sort but they love clicking photos all the time. A good number started travel blogging in a jerk. Many of them have left their 'normal' jobs to turn full-time travelers and bloggers. A few earn awesome amounts, many earn rather good sums and most of them (just to remind, we're talking of successful ones only) have learnt to live a spartan life. Perhaps the last type e...

This is 2nd post in the series on travel blogging. You can visit the 1st one here: basics for new travel bloggers Well, professional travel blogging requires time, energy, some investment, passion. You also need to identify your weak areas and take outside help or learn the tricks of the trade yourself. You need proper gear. Well, you have taken care of all that. You have an appealing blog, which is updated regularly with good content. What next? Blogging alone does not make full-time profession, so don't ignore supplementary activities As for other types of blogging, blogging alone is often not enough when you take up travel blogging as your full-time profession.    The core blogging (writing blog posts and maintaining the blog) alone is like planting a single tree in the barren land. For creating a living forest, you need a variety of small and big plants which support each other, even the tallest tree. In the same way, a number of related works have to be undert...

राकेश की रचनाएँ http://rakeshkirachanay. blogspot.in/ भटकता हुआ राही हूँ. कविता/ कहानी/ यात्रा वृतांत लेखन मुझे आत्मिक शांति एवं आनंद दे ता है. सभी की भावनाओं एवं चाहत को मैं सिद्दत से आत्मसात कर अपने शब्दों के स्वपनिल संसार से कुछ शब्द लेकर मैं उन्हें पिरोने की एक मासूम कोशिश करता हूँ. जैसा देखता हूँ वैसा ही सोचता हूँ और जस का तस लिख कर आपके सामने प्रस्तुत करता हूँ.    I am a wandering soul. Writing poetry, stories and travelogues gives me peace and joy. I present the way I see and feel... - राकेश कुमार श्रीवास्तव

This is first in a series of posts on travel blogging. Starting with the very basics in the present post, the series will take us to essential blogging kit for travel bloggers, professional tips, reliable resources on the web, and do's & don'ts .  In preparing these posts, we have spoken to 9 travel bloggers (and the talk continues till the last post is written) to get their first-hand experience and tips/ cautions and have browsed a hundred good travel blogs to know their best practices. This first post is for you if you are a regular traveler and want to have a travel blog for sharing your experiences and making money too. More experienced and established bloggers may find some information and tips given here rather elementary. Before we go to actual work and tips, let's be realistic about what a normal travel blogger can achieve. Travel comes first. The foremost thing that we want to tell you is that your lack of skills in blogging can be compensate...