How to Set Up a Skin Care Blog and Explore Dermatology

Skin care and dermatology has a big online market. People are always looking for information about how to care for their skin, as well as information on how to use products and where to find them. Why not start your own skin care blog for people to follow?

If the thought above has popped into your mind before, then you are in the right place. Today, I am going to show you exactly how to set up a skin care blog so that you can write articles, review products, create tutorials, and connect with others who share the same interests as you.

There are several things you need to accomplish in order to get your new skin care blog up and running, though. Follow the steps below as they are laid out and you should have the site live in no time at all.

What You Need to Build a Skin Care Blog

As I stated above, there is a lot to do. That being said, the first thing I always recommend having is a website checklist. Having something like this in place will not only give you something visual to look at, but it will show you things you need to have done before you ever even start the website building process.

You may be surprised at some of the things you need to have in place. Having certain items done will help you in the long run and make the process go smoother. If you already have a checklist, then great! If not, here are some things to add to it and think about.

Skin Care Blog Checklist

• Content (have some ready to publish)
• What type of content will you produce (articles, reviews, videos, etc)?
• Review layout (if you want a skin care review blog)
• Will you have a website forum?
• Put Together a Rating Scale
• Your brand and site info (contact, about us, etc)
• Branding (logo and colors)
• Photos for Each Review
• Videos (if applicable)
• Domain name (below)
• Web host (below)

Domain Name and Web Host

At this point, your checklist is in place and you have started working on those items. Your next move is to get a domain name and find a web host. Make the entire process as easy on yourself as you can. One of the things you can do is get your domain name and web hosting from the same provider.

Luckily, I know just the one. GreenGeeks will give every tool you can imagine as part of their web hosting plan. Furthermore, they are also a domain name registrar. You can choose a free domain name as part of the web host plan and have everything in one place.

Remember, the exact domain name you want may be taken. However, there are a couple of things you can try if you are not able to find the exact domain name that you want.

Play around with some of the wording. See if you can come up with something that fits and that you like. If that doesn’t work, then try using a different domain name extension. There are so many now available that you should be able to find something that will work well for your new blog about skin care.

Installing and Using WordPress

At this point, you have your domain name and web hosting plan. It is time to move forward and select a content management system to build your website. There are actually several really good CMS platforms to choose from.

I recommend WordPress for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, WordPress is very user friendly and fairly easy to create and build with. There are a lot of page-building tools available, and the platform makes it as easy as possible to build a site without having to use code.

It is also very easy to install and activate. Once you have your web host setup, you can easily install WordPress in a couple of different ways.

Use the one-click installation process found in your cPanel. Or, if you choose, you can install WordPress manually and activate it that way.

Finally, since WordPress is so widely used and respected, you will never have to go far to find tutorials and resources to help while you build your new skin care blog.

Choosing Themes and Plugins

Now that you have your WordPress CMS installed, you are ready to choose a theme and some plugins. WordPress has thousands of themes that are both free and paid. Most of these will help get your skin care website where you want it.

You want to get a theme that works well with what you are trying to accomplish. In this case, you are putting together a skin care blog. Try searching for themes that have built-in tools that you can use to accentuate your specific site.

When you finish picking your theme, it is time to figure out the right plugins. There are certain plugins you need to have to make any WordPress website function smoothly. Things like a great SEO plugin and a feature that allows you to optimize and compress images are also important.

With that in mind, there are also some specific plugins you may want to check out that could be useful for a skin care blog.

If you have a theme and plugins in place, then no worries. If you are having trouble finding something that fits, then here are a couple of themes and plugins to look into.

Skin Beauty

Skin Beauty is a clean, responsive, mobile-friendly WordPress theme that is perfect for any skin care blog. It has a master slider integrated, the ability to easily add WooCommerce for products, and a fully functional page builder. This is a theme you definitely need to check out.

Accalia

Accalia is another great WordPress theme built for skin care blogs and websites. It comes with the fantastic WP Bakery Visual Composer page builder. This allows you to set up and layout pages and posts however you want. It also has plenty of amazing pre-made templates to use, lots of widget areas, and a built-in online booking system. Give it a look.

Easy Video Player

Easy Video Player is a plugin that will come in very handy if you are doing demonstration skin care videos on your blog. This is a very user-friendly video plugin that will allow you to easily embed both self-hosted videos or those that are externally hosted using direct links. This makes getting videos on your website much easier.

Easy Affiliate Links

Using affiliate links is a great way to make money on your skin care blog. One of the easiest ways to manage those links is to use the Easy Affiliate Links plugin. This tool will help you easily manage and cloak all your affiliate links right from your WordPress admin dashboard.

Marketing Your Skin Care Blog

Marketing the content on your new skin care blog is your final step. It is important to get the blog name out there and get some traffic drummed up. You may already have some ideas in place. If not, then here are some to consider.

• Build Social Media Pages
• Publish Social Media Ads
• Get on Forums
• Add Sharing Buttons to Content
• Be Active in Comment Section
• Write Reviews for Other Sites
• Allow Guest Reviews on Your Site
• Build an Email List
• Run a Promotion
• Use Google Webmaster Tools (for proper indexing and search)
• Add Google Analytics (in order to see where your traffic comes from)

Conclusion

That’s it! At this point, your site should be up and running, or very close to it, and you should be well on your way to becoming a skin care blogger.

Follow the steps above as they are laid out and you will find that creating your new skin care blog was not as difficult as you may have originally thought. I hope this tutorial gave you everything you needed.

Good luck!