Start a Beauty Blog with WordPress Today

If you’re fascinated with beauty, or are always getting asked for hair, skin, and makeup tips, you’ve probably thought about parlaying that experience into starting a beauty blog. However, you might be overwhelmed with the thought of a complex setup process on a platform you don’t understand.

WordPress is the perfect solution for beauty bloggers. It’s super easy to set up a good-looking website by employing one of the many available beauty-related themes. Similarly to how the right accessories can transform a person’s look, choosing a suitable theme can also make your blog look great.

In this article, we’ll firstly show you a few examples of well known WordPress beauty blogs, then walk you through step by step how to set up your own beauty blog on the world’s most used publishing platform. Let’s get started!

Popular Beauty Blogs That Run on WordPress

Beauty blogging is very popular, and because of the vast number of blogs available, its difficult to choose a favorite. However, all of the top beauty blogs are content-rich and beautiful to look at (naturally!). Here are a few popular beauty sites built on WordPress that we think are worth checking out.

The Blonde Salad

Founded by fashionista Chiara Ferragni, The Blonde Salad is a site dedicated to all things high fashion, beauty and lifestyle. Here you’ll find useful tutorials, product information, life lessons and of course makeup and fashion for all types of women. This site uses a typical layout for their content, utilizing mainly single images and photo sliders throughout their content. It also features a prominent shop page, with product carousels preceding related items on individual posts.

Fashionlush

Don’t let the name mislead you. Fashionlush features more than just clothes – you’ll also find fantastic DIYs, health & beauty tips and travel diaries. This chic-looking blog is designed to inspire and cultivate its readers’ creativity. The professionally shot photos make this site feel like a magazine straight off the rack – a style that can work well for beauty blogs.

Skinny Confidential

The Skinny Confidential is the personal blog of beauty and fitness influencer Lauryn Evarts. Here you can find her personal tip on living a more beautiful life – inside and out. Tips range from hairstyles and morning routines, to the best food in various cities around the world. While most photos are professional or candids, product heavy images cleverly help feed into the monetization of the site (a-la here is a picture of what I use, followed by affiliate links in the text).

Kate La Vie

Covering various aspects of life, Kate La Vie offer tips for beauty, interior design and general lifestyle. The fresh, clean design keeps the content front and center. Plus the easy to browse on-site shop makes it easy for followers to purchase Kate’s top picks.

How to Start Your Own Beauty Blog with WordPress

Now that you’ve been inspired, let’s move onto how you can start up your own beauty blog using WordPress. There are four basic steps to get started:

1. Choose a great WordPress host
2. Pick a Domain Name

1. Choose a Great WordPress Host

You’ll firstly need somewhere to host your WordPress site. There are many top WordPress hosting options available to choose from. Whichever you choose, make sure you pick a host that provides you with either managed WordPress or one-click WordPress installation.

We highly recommend WPEngine’s managed WordPress hosting (starting at $20 per month) as they handle installs, backups, and updates for you. If you’re really low on cash and want to start small, you could check out Bluehost, which starts at $2.95 per month and is a WordPress recommended host. Though we personally strongly suggest going with WPEngine if you can.

Pick a Domain Name (the URL for Your Blog)

You’ll also need a domain name. Some hosting packages include your domain name for free for the first year (such as Bluehost). But if your hosting doesn’t include this feature it’s easy enough to buy it separately. We like GoDaddy, but most registrars work the same. Search for the url you want, purchase it (we also recommend adding on privacy and a SSL certificate) then point your new domain to your host. After that you’re ready to start blogging!

2. Select a Theme

Simply put, themes govern the look of your WordPress website. There are a plethora of themes available (with many free options as well). But for your beauty blog you’ll want to make sure to choose a theme that makes the most of your content. The right theme should have a great layout that puts the spotlight on your content, and good integration with social media.

So let’s take a look at a few good free examples.

Pineapple Free WordPress Theme

Pineapple is a simple free WordPress theme created for any type of blog – including makeup, hair, fashion and lifestyle bloggers. The clean centered, single column layout with social links gives this theme has a very professional look and feel that will give your beauty blog a perfect starting point.

Plus the theme is designed around Gutenberg, with Full Site Editing, so if you want to really customize your post layouts you can! It’s also compatible with most popular plugins, so adding one any of the ones we recommend below like Yoast SEO, VaultPress, Akismet, or even an e-commerce plugin like WooCommerce will be no problem at all.

BlogMotive Free WordPress Theme

The free BlogMotive theme features a simple blog layout with two header menus (a top bar with social links and a main centered menu below the logo) and styled widgets. The minimal design, impressive homepage with recent post slider, two column layout and responsiveness make it a great choice for any new beauty blog.

Blog Element Free WordPress Theme

Blog Element is a unique, feminine grid style free WordPress theme designed for fashion, beauty, and lifestyle blogs. This theme will be great for current event or even review focused blogs since the grid makes it easy for visitors to your site to see new posts fast. The theme includes easy styling options for custom colors, logo, your header and is even translation ready.

Cube Blog Free WordPress Theme

Cube Blog is a free theme with a beautiful magazine-style layout. While the demo site displays a food blog and recipe related example, it’s also suited for style and beauty blogs. The prominent use of featured images, sidebar options, customizable colors and clean layout make it a great theme for beginner bloggers who need a simple yet stylish design.

3. Install a Few Helpful Plugins

One reason for WordPress’ popularity is the wide range of available plugins. Theses are add-ons that enhance the platform’s core functionality. While plugin choice is a personal decision based on the additional functionality you desire, some are downright essential – and in fact, we’ve presented a number of them in our previous article on how to get started blogging.

No matter your blogging niche, here are a handful of key plugins we’d recommend. Please note – you only need one plugin for each purpose. For example, you only need one social plugin (no need to install all of these).

• SEO: Your blog can’t get popular if people can’t find you in search engines. That’s where Yoast SEO comes in. This plugin will help you sort out your onsite SEO helping you boost traffic.
• Security: While you can choose a full-featured option such as Solid Security Pro, we like (and use) VaultPress which is part of the JetPack Security Bundle. This plugin takes comprehensive website backups for you. Some hosting companies will provide daily backups of your site but VaultPress backs up literally everything (posts, images, etc) and it includes the powerful Akismet spam blocker to boot. For just $10/mo that’s peace of mind you won’t want to miss.
• Newsletter: We like MailChimp – it’s free for up to 500 subscribers. Once you signup for a free MailChimp account just install a simple plugin like MailChimp for WP to easily insert your newsletter forms. This is great to promote new content (Note: Some themes already include built-in newsletter support, in which case you can skip this plugin and instead simply authenticate your newsletter account within your theme settings).
• Social: Many themes include built-in social widgets, which may be enough. But for those who want more control over the placement and style plugins like the free Ultimate Social Media Share Buttons are a great option.
• E-Commerce: For any entrepreneur looking to add a store their WordPress site it pretty much comes down to either WooCommerce (a simple and straightforward option to build an online store) or Easy Digital Downloads (a bit more of a learning curve, but much more customizable). Both are great choices to monetize your site.

Of course there are ton’s of other plugins for customizing your theme, adding custom post types,

4. Take Great Photos

No beauty blog can survive without stunning images. If you’re not a comfortable with a camera yet don’t worry. It’s easy to learn the basics. There are tons of free tips and guides online (and on Instagram). You can also supplement your self-taken images using free stock photos – though for a beauty blog we’d argue that its best to take your own.

Unfortunately, some images can take a up a lot of space and slow down your website. Fortunately, there are easy ways to optimize images them to ensure you maintain quality while also compressing image files to take up as little space as possible.

Bonus Tips for Fashion & Beauty Bloggers

After you’ve setup your website there is more you can do to help your blog grow. First of all you’ve got to get out there and network! Leave comments on other beauty blogs with your backlink (just make sure your comment is purposeful and relevant – don’t spam other bloggers!). Also make sure you add your website to Bloglovin’ and consider adding their follow button widget to your blog’s sidebar or footer.

Depending on your blog you might also apply to join an affiliate network like Reward Style or Shop Style Collective. These networks allow you to create a “shop this post” gallery or carousel at the end of your articles so you can make a bit of money when your readers click on your affiliate links (just be sure to properly disclose that there are affiliate links on the page per FTC requirements). You can of course sign up for affiliate programs individually and add links yourself, but the networks just make it a bit easier and streamlined which is why you might want to check them out.

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Despite the potential to be overwhelming – especially if you’re not au fait with the process – creating your beauty blog with WordPress is easy. Furthermore, if you choose a great theme and some suitable plugins, the whole process can be an enjoyable experience.

Do you have any questions about setting up a beauty blog? Or maybe other tips to share with aspiring bloggers? Let us know in the comments section below – We’d love to hear what you have to say.