Last Updated 3 months by Emily Standley-Allard
Do you like beauty and cosmetics? Not just wearing them, but also trying new beauty products, cosmetics, makeup and reading about them and sharing them with your friends? Then a beauty blog might be right up your alley. Here’s 9 steps you need to create a successful beauty blog today.
Beauty and skincare go hand in hand and these blogs are popular and can be quite easy to monetize. But like all other work-at-home options, it takes planning, follow-through, and persistence to be successful. Before you begin pursuing your own beauty blog, it’s helpful to weigh the pros and cons.
Pros
- You get to turn your enjoyment of beauty and cosmetics into potentially huge income.
- Getting started can be simple, fast and very affordable.
- You don’t need a brick and mortar shop
- You can work from anywhere at anytime
- You can be your own boss!
- You can earn income through ads, affiliate programs, services, consultations, products, and brand sponsorships.
- There are opportunities for limitless expansion, such as beauty eBooks and YouTube videos.
- You could get a chance at fame (if you wanted)
- You could connect with top influencers in the industry
- You could get free beauty samples from companies
- You can promote cruelty free cosmetics to represent your cause
- You could have a thriving, inspiring career that you absolutely love!
Cons
- Like any business a beauty blog will need a lot of work – especially in the beginning – you’ll need to add new content often to be successful, which means a lot of videos, sampling of products, publishing reviews and coming up with new and unique ideas.
- You need to be able to take great photographs of your beauty products or before and after processes and results. (You can eventually hire a freelancer for this)
- It can take time for your beauty blog to build up a readership that leads to a good, consistent income. But this is true for all businesses. Rome wasn’t built in a day!
Getting Started on Your Own Beauty Blog
Before you review your first skincare product or start to photograph your favorite makeup, it’s worth taking some time to conceptualize a few ideas around which you can plan your beauty blog.
The following are nine key tips to getting starting and making money from a beauty blog:
1. Decide What Type of Beauty Blog You Want to Start:
Specialized niche topics tend to draw an audience more effectively than general topics, even when it comes to beauty and wellness.
Some niches to consider are cruelty free cosmetics, vegan beauty, or organic beauty products. Or you can specialize in a type of cosmetic, such as anti aging or acne prone skincare or even hair loss is a great one.
2. Create a Memorable Blog Name:
Choose a name that describes your beauty blog and is available as a domain name.
When coming up with your name, be descriptive, but not too unusual that people can’t remember it! Or too limiting that you can’t expand upon it in the future.
For example, an eyebrow beauty blog might be too narrow, so instead, you might want to have a name that could also encompass eyelash products, hair products, hair supplements, hair enhancement vitamins, and even supplements perhaps.
This leads you open to partnering with major brands and getting sponsorship deals!
That is where the really big money is made after all.
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The Technical Stuff
When it comes time to actually create your beauty blog online, you can do all of the steps yourself or hire some help easily.
Many online freelance work sites, such as Freelancer, Upwork or Fiverr.com, have freelancers that can set up many of the necessary components to create your blog’s online presence right away.
Don’t forget that blogging is a genuine business, so it’s a good idea to be familiar with some legal matters such as disclosures, privacy laws, terms and conditions etc.
Here is everything you will ever need that will have your beauty blog ready to go and be automatically compliant with all the necessary legalities and requirements. It will save you tons of time, money and effort and be one less thing to worry about!
3. Purchase Your Domain Name and Web Hosting:
If you want to DIY it you can create a blog on free sources such as WordPress.com, Blogger or Weebly, but in order to monetize your blog you must be self hosted. The most successful (and profitable) bloggers have their own hosting.
This means setting up a blog on WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com
Many web hosts will include the purchase of your domain name when signing up for service. You can also buy it separately.
Choose a web host like Bluehost that offers easy one click WordPress install.
There are many other content management platforms, but WordPress.org is the most-used and one of the easiest to learn.
You can check to see if your name is available with this handy tool right here:
4. Install WordPress on Your Web Hosting Account:
Check with your host provider (such as Bluehost or Siteground etc) on how you can do this from within your hosting account.
Once installed, choose a theme that works well with beauty.
I love the professional, gorgeous feminine themes, landing pages and social media templates from Bluchic.
Bluchic Feminine WordPress Themes
Or directly from within your WordPress.org dashboard, you can search “beauty” themes and click to install.
For best results, choose a theme that is responsive – that simply means that it adjusts automatically for easy reading on tablets and smartphones, SEO optimized for search engines, and is easy for readers to navigate.
You can get themes for free, but you might want to consider purchasing a theme for even greater customization and features.
They’re not expensive and totally worth it in the long run. After all you want your site to stand out and be the most gorgeous it can be!
5. Install Plugins to Maximize Your Beauty Site:
The basic plugins you should install include Akismet for comment spam filtering, social media tools like Social Warfare so people can share your content, caching to make your site be super fast, an easy to reach you contact form (I use WP Forms) and MonsterInsights the best Google Analytics plugin which lets you know exactly where your traffic is coming from.
6. Important! Set up an Email List:
Do this from day one!
Email lists help you stay connected and be more personal with your customers. It’s proven to help you generate more income even over social media.
Read this post on tips to help you get started growing your list fast:
15 Ways to Grow Your Email Marketing List
You can email the people on your list to let them know about new products, samples, and remind them to return to your site so they can then click on your monetization options.
You can also email special offers and promotions. Use an email service (I’ve tried several and I love Convertkit) and paste a sign-up form on your blog.
It’s important to offfer a freebie, also known as an ‘opt-in’ such as a free tutorial or videos or ‘how to guide’ – to entice visitors to subscribe.
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7. Add Tutorials and Reviews
You should 5-10 tutorials or reviews right away so readers have several to read or view.
After that, create a blogging schedule and checklist to add several ‘How To’s’ or recommended products a week.
When you add your reviews, take appealing photos and write clear step-by-step instructions. Don’t be afraid to add personalized information such as humor and your genuine opinion as this will make you authentic to your readers.
How to Build Trust with Your Online Readers
Another great idea is to add ‘Create the Look’ guides and tutorials. People love to learn how to look like famous people or celebrities!
Shop the best cruelty free beauty products:
Promoting Your Beauty Blog
These last two strategies have to do with attracting readers to your beauty blog and growing your traffic so that you can start generating some real income.
Read this post to grow your audience rapidly through Social Media!
8. Promote Your Blog:
Don’t fall into the myth that many newbies believe that just by building a beauty blog, people will magically find and read it.
Because in all honesty, they won’t.
If people can’t find your blog they won’t read it.
While you want to optimize for search engines, you can’t rely on search engines alone to drive traffic to your blog.
You need to develop a serious marketing plan to include other strategies such as:
- Setting up social media accounts such as on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and possibly Twitter to share your new blog
- Making videos that you can post on your blog, but also publish on YouTube automatically
- Using landing pages to attract readers and boost email subscriptions
- Getting guest posts to reach your market on other blogs and websites
- Learning basic Copywriting Skills to draw your readers to your like a magnet!
It may sound like a lot but there are many free and simple ways to promote and market your blog directly to your target audience that can all be put on auto-pilot.
Don’t forget to read this post which gives you 47 great ideas!
9. Monetize Your Blog:
Making money requires having some traffic, which is we generally recommend marketing before you monetize.
However, with affiliate marketing it doesn’t always come down to page views. You can earn even with low page views if you decide to implement affiliate marketing in your blog.
If you’re interested in learning more about how affiliate marketing can generate thousands of dollars in passive profits to your blog read this post:
How I Earn $15,000 Monthly with Affiliate Marketing
But once you have visitors to your blog, you can start adding more money-making resources. A few options include:
- Contextual advertising programs such as Google AdSense (doesn’t have traffic requirements)
- Affiliate programs, such as promoting beauty tools and other related items through high paying affiliate programs
- Seek out brand sponsorships
- Write your own beauty eBooks & guides
- Offer online tutorials, consulting or services
For more ways to monetize your blog read this:
6 Proven Methods to Monetize a Blog
Conclusion
And there you have it! The basics of starting and promoting a new beauty blog! Once you get started and the foundation is in place you will find that so many things can be implemented easily. All you have to really focus on is creation and promotion. And even with that there is plenty of help out there in the form of VA’s and other freelancers.
A beauty blog can be a most creative and profitable outlet that has the potential to earn you a great income. You can literally run from anywhere, work on it anytime you want and turn into a full fledge business that you can call your own.
Sign up for more ways to drive traffic to your new business and earn more money from home!
thanks for teaching me !
You’re welcome! Thanks for commenting:)
This is probably the best, most concise step-by-step guide I’ve ever seen on how to build a successful blog.
Thank you for commenting!