Start a Beauty Blog: Thorough Guide for Beginners

Have an interest in make-up, beauty, looks, and personal care? Starting your own beauty blog is a great way to not only express your passion but earn real money off of it. And this guide reveals everything: from choosing the right niche, type, helping you name it, what to do first, growing it, and earning money from it.

Read below the step-by-step guide. (Make sure you pay attention to step 8 because it’s the crucial point of discussion)

Let’s get started.

1. Choose Your Beauty Niche

The industry ‘beauty’ is large and extremely competitive. Hundreds of blogs and brands already dominate. Niching down is the only way to quickly get attention and build your solid presence.

Consider the niches as specific categories or branches. You’ll have a specific area of topics, a specific direction, and a specific target audience. Not for the rest of your blogging journey though. You can always merge new topics and slowly grow into a diverse beauty or lifestyle blog – but you’ll need to start from the specific topics where the competition is relatively lower, so you can gain attention faster.

Here are different types of beauty blogs you can consider starting:

a. Beauty for a specific audience

Any specific audience; it can be GenZ girls make-up tutorials, millennials’ make-up beauty hot-spot, above 40 make-up tutorials, or hair care for the elderly.

A specific audience can be any group. You can divide them on the basis of region, the same values (i.e., haircare), age group, style choices, or anything in common.

You’ll create content over the topics that only matter to that audience and nobody else. Why? Because your goal will be not to appeal to everybody, but instead, appeal to your audience only.

Here’s an example: The Female Millennials covers beauty, fashion, and personal care topics for Gen Y. (Notice: It’s age-specific, as well as a gender-specific blog.)

b. Make-up

Revolve your beauty blog around make-up tutorials and everything related to make-up. Products, guides, styles, looks, celeb look-alike make-ups, and so much more.

Here are some categories/types/sub-niches, you name them, to prompt the thoughts:

• Eyes make-up, lips, or eyebrows. You can take one category and cover everything related to it: products, guides, tutorials, styles, and all.
• Focus on one of the main categories of make-up. Water-based make-up, silicon-based make-up, airbrushed make-up, mineral-based make-up, or powder-based make-up. There are a ton of topics in each category that you can write about.
• Age-specific/Audience-specific makeup blog. It’s important you keep your audience in mind. The topics, slang, and interests of the 40-something audience will be different from the 20-something. When you specify your blog for a specific audience, it can be easier for you to do research and write. Keep your age in mind, and share posts that others can relate to.
• Mingle your beauty blog with your daily life. You don’t necessarily need to limit yourself to beauty and make-up only. Cover topics related to make-up in general, and share your personal experiences, stories, and advice. Make it a beauty+wellness, beauty+fitness, beauty+therapy, etc.

Discover your interest in it. What are the things that you most like about make-up? Any relatable stories you can share? The funniest make-up fails? What things and products have been annoying you the most?

What’s the aspect of make-up you’re extremely good at, and you’re dying to talk about it? Your 5-minute make-up routine when you’re late for work, college, or party? Don’t be afraid to expose some of the fake beauty gurus; do you dare to call out someone who’s faking it?

Give readers what they love to read, and they’ll be hooked on your blog! Just be creative and let the ideas flow from your consciousness.

Some examples of niche ideas would be make-up for Asian girls, make-up for different face types, make-up for school/work/wedding/party, and cultural-specific make-up.

Examples: Crazy Nailzz covers nail arts and everything around it. Fifty Shades of Snails revolves around Asian cosmetics only.

c. Hairdo/Hairstyles/Hair Care

A lot of people need help with styling their hair, curing the hair fall, tips, and tricks to manage.

Here are some categories you can make your blog specific for:

• Hair Care for dying hair. In this niche, you’ll help the people who want a cure for their falling hair. Topics can be product reviews, tips, how-tos, medical treatment associated, and even psychological motivation.
• Hairstyle guides. In this niche, most of your target topics would be how to style hair differently and better. You can talk about famous styles, celeb look-alike styles, how to discover our own hairstyle, products to get help from, and how to preserve hair from falling. Start writing from these topics, and keep adding new categories as your blog emerges.
• Celebrity look-alike hairstyle guides. In this niche, only talk about how famous celebrities care for their hair, how they style them, how they preserve them, or what products they use. In short, help the target audience style their hair exactly like their favorite celebrities. For example, the current trending BTS band’s unique hairstyle appeals to many younger audiences. And a lot of their fans want to style their hair like them, and they want to know how? Guess who could help them?

Talk about how you style your hair? What tips and advice would you happily share with others? What products do you use? What are your most-favorite natural hair growth tips? What celebs or icons do you follow? That one-time iconic funny story at the salon or barber? Relatable hair problems we all can share?

Some examples of hair blog niche ideas would be hair care for curly hair, for black/white hair, tropical hair, thick/oily hair, and styling for office/work/school/party/wedding/everyday.

Example: The Right HairStyle covers different types of hairstyles, haircuts, colors, and inspiration.

d. DIY beauty

DIY beauty essentially means self-care – and this industry is on the rise, Vogue says. More and more consumers are now becoming ingredient-conscious and want to do it all on their own by mixing their own products.

You can divide your blog into one of these categories:

• Start by talking about the brands that offer DIY beauty products. Publish product recommendations, reviews, and the latest trends.
• Start your blog based on personal experience-based DIY beauty guides, specific make-ups, and looks maintained only through DIY beauty products. This may require extensive knowledge of make-up and products though.

But the question is, do you love DIY beauty products and the concept of doing it all on your own? Can you introduce your own new DIY beauty hacks based on your personal experiences and stories? What’s the most useful beauty hack you learned from the Internet? What’s your very personal DIY skincare routine? Your go-to home-made scrub?

Some examples of DIY beauty niche ideas would be home-made skincare, balms & salves for healing/therapy/headaches, and body care with all-natural bath bombs, soaps, salts, frizzlies.

Example: Island Beauty shares natural home-made recipes for skincare.

e. Home-made beauty treatment

Ever tried cool home-made beauty treatment ideas? Like cleaning your heel scars with baking soda? Baking a home-made recipe for cleaning skin pores? Making body lotion at home? Soaking feet in vinegar? Or as simple as making your own teeth whitening paste at home?

Here are two routes you can take in this niche:

• Home-made beauty tips, tricks, guides, products, and hacks.
• Revolving your blog around one single pain point can create hyper-exclusiveness to target the exact audience – which is good for building a loyal fan base. Take acne as an example. Based on your research and interest, you can make your blog about any of the single most concerning issues of your target readers. Hair loss, dandruff, scars, cracked heels, dry/oily skin, etc., are examples of what you can cover.

Examples: The Makeup Dummy covers all-natural tips and ideas for beauty, make-up, and personal care. Dry Skin Love, an entire blog for people with dry skin to help them care.

f. Anti-aging lifestyle

Educate people on how to keep looking young even when aging. Anti-aging can be good in the sense that there is less number of specific anti-aging bloggers. You’ve some space to dominate the niche fairly easily.

Even if you’re a not-so pro in it, you can still follow some big publications and keep yourself updated with the latest research is going on.

Fight Aging organization has been in that space since 2002. You can get ideas, learning opportunities, and research articles from experts in the industry.

g. Scientific skepticism in make-up

I know this may sound a bit nerdy, but hear me out. There was a blogger a few years back who introduced scientific skepticism in her blog. She used to break down how make-up works in the light of science. She would bust myths and make her writing interesting with some light humor.

She went viral for her idea. Make-up enthusiasts who loved to read blogs at that time totally loved her and still absolutely do. And it’s not just about what she did as a blogger, but also about how lovable and honest a person she’s.

But the sad part is her blog (BrightestBulbintheBox) is no longer alive, which means all the archives are gone. Good news, I managed to discover her Facebook page and Reddit profile.

Why am I telling you this? If you’re a make-up lover and a curious soul who loves to learn how things work, and you’re also a daring personality open to call out BS claims – start your blog around her idea.

Competition is relatively lower in this space, which is good for growth. See another similar blog like her: FutureDerm, mingling science, and skincare since 2007 on his blog.

h. Beauty Brands

There are dozens of popular brands with hundreds of products. What you want to do is to write brand overviews, product reviews, and their latest updates. Starting from a single line of brands or products is a good idea to cut down the competition.

For example, start from foundations, brands related to it, and their products.

Example: GotBeauty reviews best-selling beauty products and gifts.

i. Skincare

Skincare is a concern of all genders – but methods and products may vary. There are a lot of skin diseases, Healthline outlined 25; their symptoms, causes, treatments, and products. That means tons of awareness can be spread through your blog.

Or in general, you can write about skincare routines of your own or celebrities, critical information and prevention from everyday stuff, affordable herbal products, and guides.

Some of the examples of skincare niche ideas would be radiation/sunburn care, wound healing, skin care for different skin types, and neonate/newborn skin care.

Ensure you position yourself as an expert – because people can be extremely sensitive about their skins and only would love to listen to who knows what they’re talking about.

One hack, or I better say, tip, I can give you is to try to include science in your topics. It can boost your credibility. For example:

• Science says do this before you sleep to make your skin smoother
• Secret to glowing skin, according to science

This may take extra research hours – but the more value you deliver, the better the chances of your success.

Examples: Skin Care Top News only covers news and research related to the skincare industry. The Rich Skin Club focuses on helping women to achieve no-makeup confidence through information, motivation, and organic products.

j. Nails

Express your passion for nail art. Make colorful, vibrant arts and teach your readers how they can do the same.

Some examples of niche ideas would be nail styles for workspace/outgoing/family gathering/, nail arts for children only, nail arts for different types of nails, acrylic/gel-polish, or gel only nails.

General stuff: Tips, tricks, color swaps, trending cool products, product comparisons, and guides to discovering flattering nail designs for a specific audience. There’s a lot of content you can publish. You can also include celebrities’ nails, their style, look, and products in it.

Example: The Little Canvas covers everything about nail polish art only.

k. Affordable/Luxurious Beauty

Make the personality of your blog so that it targets the exact audience: luxurious or affordable.

You’re going to cover the same-taste topics. For example, if the focus is affordable beauty, topics can be: beauty while on frugal living, affordable beauty products, brands that are inexpensive, all-in-one beauty hauls, and more.

In the same way, if your blog’s focus is on luxurious beauty, you’re going to write topics that appeal to the audiences with money at their disposal. Luxury salons, high-end make-up products, classy matching outfits, etc. are some examples.

Some examples of niche ideas would be affordable skin care/body care routine, Asian affordable beauty and make-up, and college/school girls’ affordable make-up products and routines.

Examples: Glam Budget Beauty; affordable beauty and fashion advice. Lux Beauty covers brands and products that are high-end and are often loved by celebrities.

2. Decide on the Focus of Your Beauty Blog

Focus really means what type of content you’ll be publishing and how you’ll frame it. There are several content types, each good in its own style. You can either stick solely to one or mix & match.

But as you’re starting, I suggest going with one single type to make things easier and smoother. Keep on reading to discover content types and what they mean.

a. Beauty product reviews

This type of content is for reviewing beauty products that are closely related to your blog. Think about hundreds of brands and their products; you’ll never run out of ideas.

Posts like these come into this category:

• 8 foundations reviewed for teenage girls.
• 9 best hair care products for twenty-something men.

Researching and writing these types of posts is fairly easy since the material can be found easily on the Internet. Amazon reviews, Reddit reviews, and the product’s official websites are some common places.

But what’s really best about these types of posts is that these are transactional posts. There are sales involved, which is essential to make you money. You can partner up with brands for sponsorships or as an affiliate to review or recommend products and earn. (More on money-making later below).

Example: British Beauty Blogger shares unbiased product reviews.

b. Beauty recommendations

Beauty recommendations mean to help readers find their personal care, make-up, fashion, and style-related products.

If you think about it, this is a whole new niche in itself. Imagine the number of audiences based on age, gender, residences, style choices, professions, passions, interests, and more.

Since the only job of your blog will be to help readers discover their beauty products and style, you can create content for all of them separately. This will help you never run out of content ideas.

For example:

• 9 Skincare products for busy mums.
• 6 personal care products for sportsmen.
• GenZ girls make–up essentials.
• 40-something female’s ultimate facial guide.

These are just a few examples – if you think creatively and spend enough time merely thinking about it, with so many products and information gaps, you have a myriad of topics to write about.

And what’s even convincing is that most of your topics will revolve around purchasing products, which can end up surging your sales commission.

Example: Women Concept shares useful beauty and fashion advice.

c. Beauty product hauls

Talk about new and trending beauty product hauls related to hair care, skin care, or personal care in general. You can target your blog to one specific gender to create exclusiveness.

What’s interesting with this type of content is that there’s always something new to talk about. Brands launch their products every now and then. Videos of beauty hauls get viral on TikTok and other networks.

Celebrities appear differently and hotter with new make-up and looks. Beauty vloggers often do these kinds of videos every month. Even Forbes does the haul at the end of the month.

What here I am trying to say is that there’s always something new and trending, so you’ll always have something to talk about. But, you’ll need to keep up with the trends to make your blog stay relevant.

Example: Makeupholic World covers online shopping hauls and other things related to beauty and make-up.

d. Favorite products

This one feels easier – just talk about your favorite beauty products. There are audiences, especially new ones, who want to learn other people’s preferences so they can discover something for themselves. So, position yourself as an expert, and help them with your knowledge.

Example: Irene: Beauty and More covers make-up and fashion products based on knowledge gained through personal experiences.

e. Tips and How-Tos

This section needs no explanation: publish tips and tricks and ultimate guides on make-up, hair care, using certain products, discovering styles, doing fashion, or even posing for selfies and social media photos.

Example: Lexi Noel Beauty shares beauty tips and advice.

f. Complimentary of a YouTube channel

Integrating a dedicated YouTube channel for your blog can be amazing. A lot of people love to watch beauty and make-up videos. Even if you don’t create a YT channel, I strongly recommend producing video content for your audience as often as possible. They help in getting Google ranking faster.

Also, videos are the future – a report says, by 2022, 82% of content consumed by audiences will be videos.

But, hey, don’t fret. You’re not yet on that stage. Think about your initial content batch and traffic for now. You can always do YouTube or videos later.

Example: Kandee Johnson is a make-up artist who creates content on YouTube and has her own blog, named Kandeej, as complimentary of her channel.

g. General beauty blog

The general beauty blog covers everything related to beauty and fashion. Literally, every kind of topic that’s related to beauty, make-up, or fashion industry, can be published.

But getting recognition is tough when your focus is everything. Hundreds of blogs are already doing amazing with millions of visitors every month for years.

Even if you decide to go with a general beauty blog, I suggest starting with low-competition and non-obvious topics.

For example:

• Instead of talking about “10 best skincare products”, which is an obvious topic covered by almost every top website of the industry, talk about “10 best skincare products for dry skin, for single men in the US”.

This example still may not be perfect, but you get the idea of what I’m trying to convey.

Example: Beauty Conspirator covers all things about beauty.

h. Beauty products/guides/tips for beginners

A beginner-focused beauty blog can be good if you’re also a beginner or mid-level beauty expert. You’ll not need to write in-depth advanced information or product guides. You’ll teach beginners simple, easy, and basic stuff, which will also be seamless for you.

Example: Vanessa Bratschi, on her blog, shares tips, tutorials, DIY instructions on make-up – and sometimes, personal advice as a mother.

Note: Whatever you decide your blog’s focus to be, always remember to publish both informational and product-related topics. Informational posts usually bring qualified visitors, and product-related topics bring money through affiliate commission. You can start with either of these two though.

3. Choose Your Blogging Platform

For bloggers, self-hosted WordPress.org is a perfect choice. Nearly all bloggers go with it – and this may be the reason that out of 1.3 billion, 445 million websites are powered by WordPress.

It’s free to use, offers thousands of themes and plugins, and not to mention, the freedom to customize and publish however and whatever you want.

Can you start a beauty blog if you have no money? Well, yes, you can, using platforms like LinkedIn, Medium, and Blogger. But you won’t truly own your blog; limited plugins and themes, platform’s ads on your blog, almost zero money-making opportunities, and strict rules.

The only goal of telling you this is to help you choose something that’s exactly right for you. If you want the freedom and want to make money while blogging, go with a self-hosted WordPress.org blog.

Now, read the next important step.

4. Decide on Your Domain Name

A domain name is the name of your blog. It’s important you choose something memorable so that it can catch the attention of the people. Below, I’m sharing some tips to get started with brainstorming a perfect name and will also share how you can identify it as a perfect name – with the guessed-knowledge:

• Start by analyzing your exclusive competitors. The ones that are closely related to your blog’s nature. See what domain names are already working pretty well.
• Start looking for words. Plunge into dictionaries, thesaurus, glossaries, beauty books, fashion and beauty magazines, relevant movies, and everything. Give it some time.
• Keep it less than 15 characters. It’s a guideline, but if you can go over the board creatively, sure, go ahead.
• Mix and match words. Introduce your own initials or first name – to make it catchy, attractive, and iconic.
• Always keep in mind your blog’s nature. What type of content you’ll publish, what personality you’ll express, and what type of audience you’re talking to. For example, if it’s humorous, go with something cheesy, sarcastic, or a funny phrase. If the nature of your blog is serious and classy, go with some iconic, elegant words.
• Keyword-focused domain name. Great if you can come up with it. However, I want you to know that Google already denied it’s not a ranking factor, nor it will bring you a ton of traffic magically. It’s only a good practice in the sense that your target audience can identify your blog as relevant to their interest immediately. For example, if your blog is about hair care and hair loss treatment, “HairFallDoctor” can be a decent keyword-focused domain name. Don’t stuff your entire domain name with keywords; for example, “HairCareandHairLossTreatment.Com”, straight up looks scammy and weird.

Below, I’ll share some examples of how successful beauty blogs’ domain names look like:

15 Examples of Successful Beauty Blog names

1. Allure
2. Into the Gloss
3. New Beauty Magazine
4. MakeupandBeautyblog
5. The Beauty Look Book
6. Glow Recipe
7. My Beauty Bunny
8. Be Beautilicious
9. Beauty Bulletins
10. Outspoken Beauty
11. The YesStylist
12. SkinStore
13. Faithful to Nature
14. Beauty Junkies Unite
15. Beauty that Walks

Let’s dissect the pattern on why these names are successful: If you look closely, these names are simple to revolve around beauty, make-up, and looks. One more important thing, almost all of these show some sort of personality that their target audience can relate to.

For example, “Beauty Junkies Unite” expresses that it’s for folks super-addicted to beauty and stuff. “Faithful to Nature” shows folks who are all nature lovers and love natural products. “Beauty that Walks” appeals to an audience that is more casual, outgoing, and expressive.

You get the point; showing personality and character in your blog’s name feels humanly, which is good for branding.

Anything, but don’t over-stress. Keep in mind these few guidelines, give it some time, and come up with something. It doesn’t necessarily have to be out-of-the-world creative – for now, all you need is to start. You can always change your domain name later if you ever wish to.

5. Buy Your Domain Name and Hosting

Since WordPress.org is self-hosted, you need a domain and hosting service provider to start with. Well, there are several options like Bluehost, Hostinger, Hostgator, and Dreamhost. You can choose anyone you vibe with, but I recommend using Bluehost since it’s beginner-friendly, affordable, and WordPress-recommended.

The step-by-step process may vary on each platform. Just to give you an overview, here’s how it looks with Bluehost.

Simply:

• Go to Bluehost. Get Started with Shared Hosting.
• Choose a basic 1-year plan, fill out the required details, provide your domain name, and proceed to checkout.
• At the payment option, unmark all the extras, except Domain Privacy+Protection – that’s to protect your personal info. Besides, it costs 99 cents/month only. (You can pay for other extras if you like, and especially if money is no concern – but you can later find free or paid options, better than Bluehost)
• Congrats! WordPress will be automatically integrated with your website. And from the Dashboard, you can choose and install themes, plugins, build pages, and publish posts.

In the step below, I’ll help choose and install a theme.

6. Choose and Install a Theme for Your Beauty Blog

Relevant, catchy, and super-responsive themes are essential. First impressions on the visitor matter a lot, especially in the case of a website’s aesthetics. There are some stats proving that – but I’m not going to scare you by mentioning those here.

Why? Because, to be honest, in the beginning, these things don’t matter much. What matters the most is valuable, reader-focused content published almost daily with consistency. Your utmost focus should be that – instead of catching yourself on themes, logos, graphics, marketing, and all.

Just choose a good enough relevant and responsive theme, and start. In the early days, you barely get visitors on your website, so no one is judging, really:

• From the dashboard, click on Appearance>Themes.
• Choose or search any theme, click on Install, and you’re all set.

Free or paid? Paid ones are definitely more exclusive and feature-enriched, but for beginner bloggers, free ones can do so easily.

Here are the 10 best WordPress themes for a Beauty blog

1. Girl Boss by Authentic Themes – *Recommended.
2. Presto Beauty
3. Blossom Beauty
4. Look
5. Make-up Lite
6. Delight Spa
7. Feminine Shop
8. Haircut Lite
9. Floral Fashion
10. Patricia Blog

7. Create Essential Pages & Logo

After choosing and installing a theme, you need to create these two important things. These are, you can say, must-haves on your website. First, let’s start with creating essential static pages.

a. Create essential pages for your beauty blog

Essential pages basically mean having static pages, so the site looks credible. Don’t fret too much upon these, these are not as critical as publishing regular blog posts. These pages should only take you an hour or so (You can always update later).

These are:

• About us page: Tell about you, your story, why you created your beauty blog, what promises you’re here online to fulfill, your future vision, and stuff. Including a photo or video of yourself here is a great way to connect with your audience.
• Disclaimer and Privacy Policy Pages: This is where you need to mention how you’ll use your visitors’ information, your privacy policy, any disclaimer you want to mention straight up, what things you don’t stand behind on your website, and stuff. These are usually the same for almost every website. Let me tell you a quick hack: Google Disclaimer/Privacy Policy statement templates. You’ll see some websites, visit any of them, copy and paste, and only add your website’s name where there’s need. That’s going to save you so much time and effort. (You can also still mention if there’s something different case scenario exclusive for your blog).
• Service/Product pages: If you’re planning to provide any relevant skill-based services or sell products, create these pages. But I’m assuming most beauty bloggers don’t do that in the beginning. You can ignore these pages for now. Create when you need.

b. Create a Logo for your blog

A logo is a must-have. If you can’t create an iconic one in the beginning, that’s okay because, in the early days, it won’t matter much. No massive group of audience is seeing or judging your blog. You just need to have one.

Here are a few guidelines:

• Keep it super simple.
• Use the right colors, relevant to your industry and relevant to your overall blog’s aesthetics. (See your competitors’)
• Keep in mind the sizes: it should look the same in the tiny display picture and the giant cover photo.

Here are a few methods you can use to design it:

• Design it from scratch; it’s a long process, so I have covered it separately here.
• Use websites like Canva to design it within minutes using pre-designed templates.
• Use websites like Fiverr, Upwork, or Freelancer to hire a logo designer. A usable good enough logo can cost you between $10 to $100.

8. The Real Deal: Begin Blogging

This is the single most important step. In the early days especially, you cannot compromise on the quality and consistency of your content. I highly recommend publishing at least 3 posts a week on a consistent schedule; however, the more, the better.

You’ll be publishing a batch of at least 50-70 articles like that and then worry about other things like graphics, aesthetics, branding, marketing, making money, and more. But that number of posts can even increase if you have a higher competition level.

Also, before starting publishing, I suggest having at least 5-10 posts at your disposal so you don’t break the pace by any chance.

While saying that, I don’t mean to scare you. But it’s what it is. Don’t get upset or quit if you don’t see visitors in the early days. Consider these days as the solid foundation of your beautiful beauty blog. (Guess what I did there?)

Below, I’m going to share some blog posts ideas that can get you started. But in case you run out of ideas, here’s how you can always discover new and relevant ideas:

• Join relevant social media groups and communities where your target audience hangs out: Reddit, Facebook, Quora, Pinterest, and Instagram. See what they regularly discuss, what problems they’re facing, what solutions or products they want, and what stuff they’re dying to read online. Manually it’s going to take some “researching”, but it’s worth it.
• Join bloggers-focused groups and communities where experts of every level share tips and ideas for learning based on their own personal experiments.
• Get help from tools. Answer the Public, a free tool that displays searched questions of your audience. Simply write the main topic in the search box there, and you’ll be surprised to see how many questions there are. Other paid tools for keyword research: MOZpro, Ahref, and KeywordChef.

30 ideas for Beauty blog posts

1. Ultimate make-up guide to making eyes look bigger
2. Guide to properly caring and grooming brows
3. Luxurious beauty look at affordable cost
4. How to match outfit and make-up
5. What’s suitable make-up for a 40-something female?
6. Hottest drugstore mascaras/lipsticks/foundations/X
7. Make-up alternatives to save money
8. Best make-up brands for all-natural products
9. How to combine different products and achieve a certain look
10. Make-up/Skincare products you never heard of
11. Make-up/Skincare products to stay away from
12. What things are ruining your skin without you realizing?
13. Ultimate guide to subscription boxes
14. Everything you wanted to know about X (Make it brand-specific)
15. Vegan/Neutral/Cruelty-free products/brands
16. Skin types and what’s best for them
17. Hottest new make-up trends for this winter/summer/fall
18. Recreate your favorite celebrity’s look
19. Latest launches from brands.
20. Why you should never try ‘X’
21. The best Xs of the month.
22. The ultimate first date look.
23. Guide to making your eyes stand out through make-up
24. Get chiseled jaw-line through make-up
25. Girls with glasses: Here’s your make-up guide
26. Perfect look for Prom/Class/Pool/Beach/School trip
27. Skincare routines for different skins
28. Holy grail make-up products
29. Yeah or Nah: Brands and their products
30. Get ready in 5 minutes; hacks and tips

9. Grow Your Beauty Blog

In this section, I’ll list some effective ways you can implement to grow your readership and unlock more money-making opportunities.

a. Grow your beauty blog with SEO

Don’t get overwhelmed by the word. SEO really means to increase your beauty blog’s traffic by publishing helpful content that the target audience is searching online.

In the beginning, worry less about all the ins and outs that go into it. What you really need to do here, for now, is to keep in mind the basics. Let me explain.

Before deciding on any post, Google the topic and analyze the top ten websites. If these websites are huge like Vogue, Alle, Allure, avoid writing it. It will be nearly impossible to outrank them.

Focus on the topics with relatively low competition, so you can get attention faster.

If you want to know more about the basics of keyword research, watch this few-minute video from Ahref. It explains well.

Why I am saying to avoid these tools at the start is because most of these good ones are paid and can be quite expensive for an individual blogger. Especially for a beginner one with yet no 100% guarantees of earning. Worry about these things only when you have published at least 50-70 non-obvious and relatively low-competition topics.

b. Integrate Pinterest with your beauty blog

Pinterest can be a gold-mine in terms of traffic and blog post ideas. Create your account there, pin posts, and start redirecting traffic to your website. There’s no mad hard work that needs to be done. All you need is a topic your audience is searching for, a relevant catchy image, and that’s it.

You’ll find a ton of beauty bloggers already there – well, that’s because Pinterest is helping them grow.

c. Grow your blog with guest-posting and link building

Guest posting is publishing posts on other well-read blogs in your niche, and linking from there to your blog. What does it do? Two things: first, you get free extra visitors. Second, it boosts your blog’s authority in Google’s algorithm, which means you may get ranking faster. (Depending on if you do all the other things right)

Just like social media sharing and networking, this is another strategy that requires time and energy.

While you can do this after a few posts are published, I won’t personally recommend doing it in the pure early stage. Only think about it once you’ve something impressive on your blog; 50-70 original valuable posts, well-managed site layout, aesthetics, and a few hundred visitors.

d. Focus more on visual content

Visual content appeals a lot better than simple text-based content. When it comes to the beauty industry and blogging, visual content matters even more. Because think about it, you’re talking about looks and visuals, and if you can’t get that right, then what’s the point?

If you’re showing your face on your blog, take well-lit photos, edit them beautifully, and make the whole content aesthetically pleasant. It will dramatically improve your audience engagement rate.

e. Collaborate with other make-up artists and bloggers

Expand your network. Join hands with other beauty bloggers, vloggers, and artists. Collaborate with them, overlap audiences, do fan meet-ups, make entertaining content, do podcasts, and give & take shout-outs. What it does is obvious: more reach, audience, and money-making opportunities.

If you put yourself out there, who knows you might even steal some brand sponsorships. It’s all about being out there with your message and being engaging with the community.

However, it goes without saying that it’s not beginner-level stuff. Once you see your audience is starting to recognize you, only then can you take this step to steal more attention.

f. Grow your blog with Email Marketing

Email marketing is super-effective: not only in growing your blog’s readership but also in building a loyal fanbase that can earn you big numbers. But when should you start focusing on it? Again, when you’re done publishing your first batch of 50-70 articles and start to see some regular visitors, it’s time. Here’s how you’re going to nail your email marketing:

First, you’re going to do some research: to discover the single most important and crucial pain point of your exact target reader. Once you discover the problem, create a meaningful solution for it.

For example, if your readers are facing problems in “talking to their first date”, create a detailed cheat sheet, conversation-starting tips, flirting hacks, body language psychology, and stuff. A full several pages PDFs. Just make it irresistible so they cannot afford to NOT read it.

Take it as an example; depending upon your audience, you may need to create a video course, an email series based on teaching them something, or maybe even need to write a book. Once you’ve created a solution, follow the next phase.

Now, you’re going to choose email marketing software to automate your email marketing campaigns. These are some good ones; Mailchimp, ConvertKit, and MailerLite.

The solution you created in the second phase offer it here on the opt-in forms and pop-ups for Free. As a free download, they’ll not hesitate to give you their email addresses.

Keep in mind: After sending their solution, don’t just stop right there. Or don’t just start sending affiliate links. Instead, welcome them, make them feel valuable, be friends with them, and start building a meaningful connection.

Even though email marketing is lucrative, one of the cons of it is that it’s time-consuming. It takes a lot of time to build enough trust before sending them direct purchase-related links. Take it as long-term success security.

g. Strategic social media growth

No, it’s not what you think it is. You’ll not share links of your posts in the groups and communities to get visits.

Instead, this time, it’s solely focused on branding and marketing. On your blog’s social handles, you’ll create a proper content strategy, use a relevant color scheme, your blog’s voice, and relevant attractive media. Consistently and creatively, you’ll need to start building a meaningful audience there, too. And this is something you’ll do on an advanced level of your journey.

Here are a few guidelines on how to do it effectively, and after that, I’ll give you an example of who’s doing it right:

• Choose the right platform, TikTok, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram and Facebook are the places where most of your audience hangs out.
• Use platform-specific marketing techniques, as general advice won’t work on all platforms. For example, read these best practices for TikTok advertising and exclusively use them on TikTok.
• Take a slow start; 1 or 2 platforms will take your enough time. I’d suggest starting from Instagram only.
• Engage with others like you; beauty brands, especially.
• Actively participate in contests, live webinars, beauty hashtags, and trends.
• Show yourself.

I know, this might sound like a LOT to you right now – like who’s going to do all of this – but when the right time comes, you’ll be much more confident and willing to do it. Just worry less about these things for now.

Take Memorable Days blog as an example. After starting her blog in 2012, Elisa also built a decent audience around her blog’s Instagram social handle. She talks and reviews beauty and skincare products.

Even if you do Instagram only, (without the website as a blog) you can still make your impactful presence. Have a look at Sadia Slay’s handle; started in 2013 on Instagram only – and now, with over 1.5m followers, she runs her own beauty brand, and earns through sponsorships as well.

What’s my suggestion? Do both. Start from your blog. Instagram only has 1.3 billion users, compared to Google’s 4 billion searchers. You need traffic from all and every source to grow and make money.

10. Start Making Money

Introducing the section which gets the spirits high: here are ways you can make money with your beauty blog.

a. Affiliate marketing programs for beauty bloggers

This is the most commonly used and most paying arguably, form of making money – not just for beauty bloggers, but all in general.

If you don’t know, affiliate marketing is basically commission after each sale through your link. Best about it is that this is something you can consider doing even in your early days.

There are dozens of affiliate programs for beauty bloggers, but each can differ in terms of its commission rates and criteria of approval.

I’m going to list a few options you can consider as a beginner:

• Amazon Associate: Most popular, easy to join, with respectful earning potential.
• Stores like Walmart and Target: A lot of people shop beauty-related products from there, which can end up making you more sales commission.
• Sephora: Earn sales commission on hundreds of retailers, stores, and websites.
• FlexOffers: An affiliate network, which can connect you with relevant brands and products. Different payment structures are helpful in making you more; pay per click, pay per sale, and pay per lead.
• LTK: A famous affiliate network purely focused on fashion, beauty, and home-related products; operating in more than 100 countries, with over 1million brands as partners. You’ll never run out of products to promote.

I could list dozens more – but right now, that’s not important to know. What’s prioritizing is content for your blog.

b. Offer beauty consulting services

Using your extensive knowledge and expertise in the beauty and make-up industry, you can sell your services as a beauty adviser or consultant. What you’re going to do is to help your clients find the right beauty products, teach them how certain products work, give them advice on beauty and make-up, and stuff.

Cool thing, you don’t need to leave your house or studio. You can do this all on Zoom or other methods of online meetings.

But being a beauty consultant requires extensive learning and a lot of credibilities so people can trust you with their money. I would say you can consider being a beauty adviser at an advanced level of your career, after a few years maybe.

c. Launch your own products

You can launch your own products to make money. Make-up kit, merch, anything. Or, you can also launch a digital product: a guide, an eBook, or a video course, teaching how to do certain make-ups, or how to achieve specific looks. Position and market it well on your blog to get more sales.

But launching your own brand or even a product can be daunting, especially if it’s all on your own. It requires the right skills, time, and, more importantly, enough investment.

I’d suggest thinking about launching something when you have enough money at your disposal, and you are free to take big leaps.

d. Get sponsors for your beauty blog

Partner up with brands to get paid for sponsored posts. The beauty industry is massive; hundreds of brands, thousands of products, for all and every price and age.

So it doesn’t matter what you mainly blog about – your blog just needs to be relevant to the beauty industry or at least the line of product. For instance, if your blog is about eye-liners, try contacting brands that sell eye-liners.

One more thing, sponsorships work in either per post or long-term contracts. Money-making opportunities also lie in the number of visitors, where they come from, and how much they engage with you.

So it makes sense to build a meaningful audience first who listens to you and then think about sponsorships.

e. Monetize your beauty blog through ads

Making money through ads is also a popular and easy way. There are dozens of reliable ad networks, and some of them even accept fresh new websites.

Let me list a few of them for you:

• Google AdSense: Popular, relatively easier to join, but with low-income potential. Most beginners choose it.
• Ezoic: Ideal for midsize blogs, easy joining criteria, and decent earning potential.
• Infolinks: Accepts brand-new fresh websites even with just a few posts published, respectful earning, and cool relevant ads.
• Nativo: Accepts new websites, easy joining, with good earning potential.

Conclusion: Ask Away Anything

So, this is everything you need to get started, grow, and earn from your beauty blog.

Leaving by, I wanted to add that it’s impossible to learn everything at once. So it’s alright if you’re feeling overwhelmed, thinking this is a lot to handle. All you need is to start. Along the way, you’ll experience so many learning opportunities.

Bookmark this page in case you need any help in the future. Detailed step-by-step processes are covered separately. Click-through links and read if you want.

In the end, still, if there’s anything, feel free to ask away here in the comments. Good luck!