Starting a Skincare Blog – The 7 Step How-To Guide

Thinking about starting a skincare blog but not sure where to start? Learn how to get your own money making blog up and running in 7 simple steps.

For many people, having healthy and blemish-free skin will change their life. So, if you know the routines, products and treatments that will help people achieve this then creating a skincare blog is a great idea.

The 7 steps below will ensure that getting your skincare blog up and running is simple and fun.

Start a Skincare Blog in 7 Steps

Find more details on how to do each step below.

Before we get to the first step, let me tell you who I am and why I know so much about starting skincare blogs.

Who I Am & Why I Know How To Start a Skincare Blog

Now, in all honestly I wouldn’t claim that I have the greatest skin in the world.

Actually, I wouldn’t even know where to start when it comes to skin care treatments, routines or products.

But I don’t need to know any of this to help you get your own skincare blog set up.

I have been creating, growing and selling websites for over a decade now.

So while I may not know all that much about skincare itself, I know all there is to know about setting up a blog.

Now I’ve told you that, we can move on to the actual steps that you will need to follow in order to create your successful skincare blog.

Planning Your Skincare Blog

Rather than sitting round wishing you had a skincare blog of your own, you should spend some time putting a plan together.

After all, it takes just as much energy to wish as is does to plan.

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.Eleanor Roosevelt

By planning the basic elements of our skincare blog in advance, we are going to ensure that our time, energy and resources are being spent efficiently and effectively.

Picking a niche is going to be the first thing we do.

Pick a Niche

At this point you might be screaming:

“Huh? I thought skincare was the niche!?“

Well, you are right.

You can definitely start a general skincare blog and talk about everything remotely related to skincare treatments, products, routines and services.

However, if this is your very first blog you are going to see much better results by focusing on a narrower niche (at least initially).

Skincare Blog Niche Ideas

I have listed some potential niches within the topic of skincare to get the ball rolling:

Skincare Product Reviews
Skincare Routines
Spa Treatments For The Skin
Specific Skin Conditions (e.g. Eczema, Psoriasis, Dermatitis, Rosacea, Rashes, Athletes Foot etc.)
Nutrition That Can Help The Skin
Science of The Skin
Acne (Problems, Treatments, Issues etc.)
Natural Skin Habits, Products & Treatments
Tanning/Sunbathing Advice & Solutions
Skin Cancer Symptoms, Information & Support

I am confident that as someone who knows a lot more about skincare than I do, you will be able to come up with countless other example niches that your blog could focus on.

Keep in mind that your blog can always grow to cover more topics as time goes on.

Still having trouble planning your niche?

We recently published a whole article about picking a niche for your blog.

Find Other Skincare Blogs & Bloggers (Your Competitors)

Finding other respected skincare bloggers and blogs to analyse is key for your success.

By looking at what others are already doing well, you will find inspiration and ideas for your own website.

You will also be able to learn from any mistakes they might be making.

To find skincare bloggers to follow and analyse, you will use Google and the marketing tool SEMrush.

Head over to Google (or your preferred search engine) and do a search for ‘skincare blogs’.

Remember, if you picked a narrower niche for your blog you will need to switch out ‘skincare’ with your specific niche for this search.

Next, note down the URLs/web addresses of each of the websites shown on page 1 and 2 of this search.

Now that we have a seed list of skincare blogs, we will need an SEMrush account.

Once you have your account, search for each of the blogs in your list in the Domain Overview tool.

With the Domain Overview tool, you can see what keywords the various blogs on your list are ranking for/driving traffic from on Google.

You can also see who their main competitors are, and get some great ideas on content you might to create once your blog is live.

Don’t rush to do anything with all the information available here just yet.

You don’t want to get overwhelmed and, with so much information available, you want to keep your mind open to inspiration and ideas.

In a later step we are going to ensure that we get the most value and use out of this information as we possibly can, without getting overwhelmed by it.

Starting a Skincare Blog in 7 Steps

Now that we have our firm plan in place, we will start making our skincare blog.

1. Pick a Domain Name for Your Skincare Blog

Your domain name is the web address that people type into the address bar to find your website.

The best domain names are short, memorable and suggest what topic your website is about.

Odds are that you will want the domain name for your skincare blog to contain some word(s) related to health, wellness, skincare and/or beauty.

Keep in mind that the shortest and most generic domain names (like skincare.com or skincareblog.com) will have already been registered.

You should try using multiple related words, or adding some random yet appealing ones into the mix until you find a domain name that matches the style you’re after.

Tips on Selecting a Domain Name

Keep it Short
Make it Memorable
Add Relevancy (Include a Word Related to Your Industry)
Avoid Using Hyphens, Numbers & Special Characters

Spend an hour or two selecting your domain name.

A domain name can be changed later, although this wouldn’t be ideal. It is well worth spending at least one or two hours thinking about potential names before committing to one.

Now that you have your domain name and know that it is available to register (to do this, search the name on a domain registration site like SiteGround), you need to register it before someone else does.

A domain name will only cost you a few dollars/pounds, or you can get one free when you sign up for a hosting package using the SiteGround tool above.

Ideally you don’t want to have to change your domain name after you have built up a readership and loyal following. So spend a good amount of time picking the right domain name for your blog.

I recommend setting aside one hour or two to find a good domain name, but not much longer.

Too many people get stuck at this stage, spending hours and hours or even days picking a domain name.

Keep a bias for action and spend a couple hours thinking of ideas, but then pick one and move on to the next step.

2. Select Your Skincare Blog Hosting

Free Vs Paid Blog Hosting

The main point, it is possible to host a blog for free.

But I wouldn’t recommend anyone do this.

Not only does hosting these days cost as little as $2 each month, but it is also significantly more scalable and makes it much easier for you to customize your blog.

By paying less than a cup of coffee per month you are making sure that you are ready to customize, moneitze and scale your skincare blog from day 1.

For the most part your blog hosting will be your main cost.

Any other spend is optional and will depend on exactly how much you want or need to personalize your blog.

The main takeaway is that if you want to eventually make money from your skincare blog, you will need to pay for hosting at some point. It will be a lot easier and less stressful if you set it up this way from day one!

Still, with that being said I do know that people have different resources and budgets available.

So, I have put together a couple lists below of both free and paid blog hosting options.

Free Blog Hosting Options

WordPress
Blogger
Wix
Weebly
Medium
Tumblr

These are some great free options, but they have their limitations.

Paid Blog Hosting Options

SiteGround
NameCheap
HostGator
AWS

These are some great paid hosting options. For beginners, I’d recommend going with SiteGround.

3. Install WordPress

There is no shortage of blog content management systems (CMS), all with different features and functionality. However, I always recommend that beginner blog owners go with WordPress.

WordPress is quick and easy to install via most hosting providers thanks to softwares like SiteGround or Softaculous.

The tool mentioned above, provided free when you sign up for hosting with SiteGround, is particularly beginner friendly. With this you can have your blog live and ready to start customizing within minutes.

4. Find a Skincare Blog Theme

Once you have installed WordPress on your blog, you will see one of the default WordPress themes active.

Most people want a theme more bespoke to them, which users will remember and love.

Fortunately, developers have made loads of other free themes available that you can choose from and customize.

You are unlikely to struggle finding a theme that comes close to what you are looking for.

However for some, an even more bespoke and customizable theme is needed.

If this sounds like you, you should head over to the online marketplace Themeforest which has a huge selection of more bespoke blog themes available for you to buy.

The average paid theme costs around $40, and they are completely optional.

It is likely that you will want to change your theme in a few months time anyway, I always do with my new blogs!

So personally I would stick with a free theme, at least initially.

You can always upgrade to a paid theme further down the line.

5. Personalise Your Skincare Blog

A personalized blog makes readers remember it, and find more enjoyment when using it.

And I have great news if you are using WordPress as recommended above, since they have a boat load of great customization options.

After installing your WordPress theme, you will find a ‘Customize’ link in the side menu of the admin area, or top menu if you are viewing your blog whilst signed in to the admin dashboard.

You can start by uploading your own personalized logo, before selecting a custom color scheme and unique fonts/typography.

Keep in mind that images can make or break a blog, so make sure you are using high-quality and relevant ones throughout your blog.

6. Carry Out Keyword Research

Now that we have our blog live and customized, we are almost ready to publish our first blog post.

First, we need to find some keywords to include in that first post.

To do this, you will need to head over to this great keyword tool SEMrush and create an account (I suggest signing up for the free trial also).

Once you have done this, head over to the Keyword Magic tool in SEMrush.

Here you can put in some words related to the skincare industry and see what kinds of things people are searching for (and how many times each month they are searching for them).

Once you know this, you can write and publish blog posts that talk about these commonly searched keywords.

In SEMrush you can also grab the web addresses/domain names of those competitors/skincare bloggers that we got whilst planning our blog, and put them through the Domain Overview tool.

This tool tells you what keywords are helping those bloggers drive the most traffic and readers to their websites.

7. Publish Your First Skincare Blog Post

From the previous steps we now have a skincare blog live, it is personalized to our liking and we even have a list of relevant keywords that we can write articles to target.

All that is left is to actually publish our first blog post!

Writing a blog post is nothing like those papers you had to write back in school.

For one thing, you will hopefully actually like and be interested in what you are writing about.

There are some things you can do to give your blog posts the best chance of showing up at the top of Google for the keywords you are targeting. This is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You can find details on the things to do to help with this below.

Remember, your main goal with your blog posts is to answer the questions and concerns that people looking for skincare related information might have, and to provide useful, unique and interesting skincare related content for your readers.

Tips on Writing & Publishing Blog Content

Use Clear Headings to Establish Content Structure
Add Links to Relevant Resources (On & Off Your Blog)
Answer Common Questions People Might Have About The Topic
Break Up Text Heavy Pieces With Relevant Images
If Possible, Make Video Versions of Your Content

It will take some time for you to find your particular tone of voice and writing style. Remember, practise makes perfect!

Marketing Your Skincare Blog

Virtually every blogger will at some point wonder what they need to do to get more readers to their blog.

This section of our ‘guide to creating a skincare blog’ aims to help you understand exactly that.

General Blog Marketing Tips

Pick One Marketing Method & Perfect it
Focus on Building a Lasting Reputation
Avoid Overly Aggressive Strategies That Could Damage Your Reputation
Time & Consistency is Everything
Even in Your Marketing Campaigns, Always Try To Do Something Unique & Different

So pick your preferred marketing strategy, and stick at it for at least 6 months.

SEO For Your Skincare Blog

SEO, otherwise known as Search Engine Optimization, consists of strategies, techniques and methods to improve a website or blogs ranking in the organic search results returned by search engines.

If SEO is a completely new concept to you, we have a more in-depth post about what SEO is.

Although many search engines like Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yandex exist, most people are still searching on Google.

It is for this reason that much of our SEO related content talks to how Google in particular ranks their search results.

Now, providing you have followed the keyword research step covered above, you should have a good idea on what kinds of things potential readers are searching for online.

This list should include longer keywords that tend to have significantly less competition also.

With a new blog, the last thing that you will want to do is spend a lot of time and resources writing content for keywords that you are decades away from ranking for.

Not only do broad keywords with tens of thousands of searches a month have extreme levels of competition, but they’re rarely even that relevant for a blog post in this context.

So start by targeting those more niche specific keywords, the ones only a true skincare nerd would find themselves searching, and you will see results much faster.

I have included a few SEO tips below to get you off to a good start when it comes to your skincare blog SEO.

Skincare Blog SEO Tips

Identify Low Competition, Very Niche Relevant Keywords
Publish Comprehensive Content That Fully Covers The Topic You Are Discussing
Include Internal Links To Other Blog Posts You Have Published When Relevant
Start Mingling With Other Skincare Bloggers & Journalists
Read Frequently About How Things Are Changing in The World of SEO
Avoid Any “Overnight” Ranking Strategies – More Often Than Not They Will Hurt Your Efforts
Keep Your Strategies & Blog Within Google’s Guidelines

Remember that SEO requires patience, commitment and consistency. If you stick at it and follow these tips, you’ll be giving yourself the best possible chance of success.

Also, check back here often and read more of our SEO tips, tricks and tutorials.

Social Media Marketing For Your Skincare Blog

Social media marketing is presents a huge opportunity for your blog.

Success in this area could really turn your blog into a respected brand within the health and wellness industry.

Also, maintaining an active social media presence forces you to get the most out of your existing content (since you should be re-purposing it in new and appealing ways for social platforms).

Skinecare Blog Social Media Marketing Tips

Keep an Up-to-Date Link to Your Skincare Blog in The Bio of Any Social Profile
Aim to Post at Least Once Per Day
Engage With Your Blog Readers on Social Media Where Possible
Connect & Engage With Other Skincare Bloggers & Influencers on Social Media
Develop Your Own Unique Look, Style & Social Content Format

It can be easy to get in over your head with the endless list of social media platforms available to you. If this is your first project, picking just one platform will be a good idea, at least initially.

Enjoy our other social media marketing tips, tricks and tutorials and find out more about this increasingly important marketing channel.

Content Marketing For Your Skincare Blog

If a skincare blog needs to do one thing right, it is content.

The whole reason people will be coming to your website will be to consume the content that you are publishing there.

This goes hand-in-hand with SEO.

The more unique, comprehensive and useful your content is, the more likely others are to share it and link back to it.

Google and other search engines are also masters when it comes to crawling, understanding, indexing and ranking your blog content.

So make sure that you are publishing only your best work.

Skincare Blog Content Marketing Tips

Keep Up Momentum By Posting New Content Often
Add Social Sharing Buttons to Blog Posts
Don’t Forget to Make Other Well Known Blogs, Websites & Journalists in Your Industry Aware of Your Great Content – Send Them an Email or DM On Occasion
Update Your Content When New Relevant Product, News & Information Comes Out

Just so you know, it takes a real long time to write good content. But the rewards of doing so are well worth it. Publishing lower quality content on your blog is always a recipe for disaster.

Explore more content marketing tips, tricks and tutorials on the Internet Marketing Hub website.

Email Marketing For Your Skincare Blog

Perhaps the single biggest regret established bloggers (myself included) have is not starting an email list sooner.

Trust me, if there is anything that you want to make sure you are doing on your skincare blog, it is asking your readers to subscribe to your blogs newsletters.

Not sure how to do that?

Well WordPress has some amazing plugins that will make doing this a breeze.

In terms of actually convincing someone to give you their email address, you simply need to offer them something they might value.

Try offering a free ebook (perhaps teaching them a proven skincare routine), solving a problem they might have or just asking if they want to receive notifications whenever you update your blog or add new content.

Skincare Blog Email Marketing Tips

Offer Your Readers Something in Return For Their Email Address
Let Your Newsletter Subscribers Know When You Update The Blog or Publish New Content
Have a Clear, Simple & Clearly Linked to Privacy Policy
Ask Your Email Subscribers For Feedback (What Do They Want to See More of?)

Email marketing is all about building a better relationship with your blog readers. Within the skincare niche, their are countless pieces of advice, information and value that you could offer your readers in return for their email address.

Paid Advertising For Your Skincare Blog

If this is your first blog or website, I would hold off on the paid ad campaigns for now.

They require time, money and a lot of testing.

In the early stages, you might actually lose money running advertisements like this.

However, if you have already got your skincare blog live and are seeing some success elsewhere in your marketing, now could be a great time to test some paid ads!

Paid advertising lets you get more visitors to your blog fast.

In fact, you could potentially double the amount of readers your blog receives overnight if you wanted to, but it would cost you.

Just make sure that you know how you are going to recoup your advertising costs before you start your campaigns.

Skincare Blog Paid Advertising Tips

Know How You Are Going To Recoup Your Ad Costs/Monetize Your Audience
Make Every Ad Unique, Attention Grabbing & Targeted
Perfect Your Audience Targeting – Know Who Your Ideal Customer Is
Always Be Testing Your Ad

I believe you will know when you are ready to try paid advertising. The risk of potentially losing your ad spend won’t scare you quite as much as it used to, and you will be itching for a way to grow your customer base quicker.

Enjoy more PPC tips, tricks and tutorials.

Monetizing Your Skincare Blog

Massive congratulations on setting up your very first skincare blog!

If you have got your skincare website live, customized and even getting some traffic/visitors, then you will want to see if you can make any money from it.

Monetization is the process of making money from your blog/website by selling something, using display adds or affiliate links.

There are many way to monetize a skincare blog, but in most beginners will see the best results starting with the simpler methods like display ads or affiliate links.

Below are a few potential monetization methods.

Skincare Blog Monetization Methods

Add Affiliate Links To Popular Skincare Products & Brands
Manufacture Your Own Skincare Products
Offer Skincare Consultations & Services
Build & Sell a Skincare Online Course
Select Skincare Sponsors
Add Display Ads To Your Blog

You should spend some time finding the right monetization method for you and your audience.

No blog is exactly the same and, in order to maximise the amount you can earn, you need to find the offers and methods that your readers will be most interested in.

There are multiple things that you will need to consider when selecting the right monetization method for you.

For example, think about what method will give you the best return for your efforts, perhaps with requiring the least amount of maintenance going forwards so you can spend more time focused on continuing to grow the blog.

Remember, the more value you can offer your readers the more money you will make over the long-term and the more people you will help.

Experiment and find the right method for your business, your goals and your audience.

Wrapping Things Up

You made it (hopefully)!

If you follow the 7 steps above, you will have your very own skincare blog up and running.

Plus, you will know where to start when it comes to marketing and monetizing your project.

Not everything in the journey will be easy, but trust me the destination is well worth it.

Try your best to keep things simple, give yourself deadlines and keep consistently working on your blog.

Please don’t hesitate to drop any questions you may still have in to the comments section below.

Best of luck, and I look forward to reading about your success story down the line!

Starting a Skincare Blog – FAQs

How Much Does it Cost to Start a Skincare Blog

Starting a skincare blog can be free, or done for as little as $3 per month.

Whilst free blogging options are great, they do have their limitations. I suggest you consider going with one of the popular hosting providers like SiteGround which most people find simple to use, scalable and effective.

Outside of your hosting cost, a custom domain name needn’t cost more than a few dollars, and everything else is completely optional.

Can I Sell My Skincare Blog?

Yes, you can sell your skincare blog via one of the many online business marketplaces available like Flippa or Motion Invest. You can even sell larger blogs to private purchasers, investors and/or other brands looking to expand their online presence.

I recommend that you check out our other articles on starting a blog which tell you how to create, grow and even sell your blog.

How Long Does it Take To Build a Skincare Blog?

You can start a skincare blog in as little as 2 days, if you act fast. The steps above are intended to be followed by a beginner over a 7 day period, but you can move as fast or slow as you wish.

How Will My Skincare Blog Make Money?

There are many ways in which you can make money from your skincare blog.

Some examples include:

Linking to affiliate products and offers.
Creating and selling an online skincare course.
Manufacturing your own products and goods.
Adding display ads to your website.
Taking on blog sponsors.

You can use one or a mix of these monetization methods. You should test and find the best monetization method for your blog.

What Makes a Good Skincare Blog?

The best skincare blogs are created and maintained by someone really passionate about treating, caring for and protecting your skin. This person should clearly explain to readers why they should be their go-to skincare resource, and offer something of value in everything they do (including and especially when monetizing their blog).