So you love doing your nails and now you’re wondering how to start a nail blog to showcase it all and maybe earn some side hustle income? Well this is the perfect place to start! Follow these easy steps to get your website up and running so you can start writing and making content for your viewers!
Keep in mind this is a very general and basic start to blogging. There is a lot more than this, but I like to keep things simple to start. However, the more you learn about the blogging world the better at it you will be and the more you can do with it!
The last thing I’ll say before we dig in is that I wish I had started my blog sooner.
This post contains affiliate links for products that I personally use or believe you will love based on quality. If you click on a link and make a purchase I may receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you). This helps support my continued effort to make “emazing” content for you!
Pick A Topic
The very first (and arguably the most important) step when learning how to start a nail blog is to figure out your niche or topic. Obviously you have it narrowed down to wanting to blog about nails and nail art, but keep in mind there are a lot of other generic blogs about nail art already. The competition is fairly strong so getting your blog and articles looked at in the sea of big time bloggers (like Simply Nailogical) will be hard.
That’s where getting even more narrow with your topic will benefit you. It may seem counter intuitive to want to narrow your audience, but you’ll rank higher in google for those people looking for exactly what you’re giving! It’s better, I promise. I started this blog (formerly blog.thehappyrainbow.net) in 2019 specifically for Color Street nail polish strips – a very narrow niche. Today I’m grossing anywhere from 12,500-15,000 visitors per month because I narrowed my topic.
Website Builder
Once you’ve got your topic, I would say it’s time to create your website! This is definitely the fun part. A website builder is essentially the backbone for how your website will look to the visitor. It is what allows you to write your thoughts and add photos or videos for people to view. Unless you know HTML and other computer languages, you’ll need a website builder.
The most common one out there is WordPress and for very good reasons. It gives you the greatest level of customizability while being easy to figure out.
If you’re looking for a free website to write down your thoughts and share nail art, wordpress.com will provide you with everything you need to start. This is great for the beginning stages of learning how to start a nail blog.
HOWEVER, if you want to monetize your blog and try to make some money on the side, you will have to download the WordPress builder through a hosting service. I will go over hosting later. Sometimes thinking to the future is better because it can make things easier later if you do things different now.
But don’t worry about necessarily making that decision now. If you start with a wordpress.com blog, it’s easy to switch once you have a hosting service and you can follow their tutorial here.
*Monetization is an advanced topic that you can’t tackle until you’ve learned how to start a nail blog. Even if you plan to monetize in the future, keep that topic for another day. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself.
Domain
If you do decide to go the route of a self hosted blog, you’ll need your own domain (for example mine is www.emazinglypolished.com). This is how you want people to know you and your blog. Branding is another essential part of how to start a nail blog. You want it to be unique enough so visitors know where to go for great content.
Domains are fairly inexpensive (typically less than $20/year) so this is a small investment to start. You can buy your domain separately through Google Domains or GoDaddy or you can usually get it through your hosting service as well.
If you plan to keep your free and easy wordpress.com website, I wouldn’t necessarily buy a domain unless you really wanted to have your own. If you choose not to buy a domain, then your website will be www.wordpress.com/whateveryouchoosehere
Hosting
Now on to hosting. In order to utilize your own WordPress blog you will need to self host it, like mentioned above. (wordpress.com blogs are already hosted and this step is not needed) This will be the biggest expense, but it is absolutely necessary and an important part of how to start a nail art blog on your own.
I personally recommend Siteground for hosting. They are one of the top hosting services on the internet and has been my trusted host since I started my blog in 2019. They have amazing 24/7 online support that I have used multiple times due to not being the most savvy person with websites and how they function. I was able to have my issues resolved at 1:00am one day, too! Their support is included at no additional expense. Siteground has saved me so much stress and worry by having to wait until normal business hours to get a question/problem resolved.
Learn how to start a nail blog with Siteground for as little as $5/month with this exclusive offer!
Once you have your host, downloading the wordpress builder through them is easy and you can immediately start working.
Get Writing!
Now that you’ve set up your site and got it running, the next step in how to start a nail blog is to get writing! You can’t have a blog without content. This can be tutorials on how to recreate a certain nail art design to basic nail care information. Need some ideas to get going? Check out these 50+ nail blog post ideas. There’s no right or wrong thing to post about because it is YOUR blog.
You’ve likely guessed by now that there is a lot more to blogging than what I’ve written here. However, I did this because that’s exactly what I did when I learned how to start a nail blog. I created my wordpress website -> bought my domain -> got hosting through Siteground -> and started writing.
After I got the basics done, I slowly started to read other articles about more difficult blogging topics such as monetization and SEO. If you dig deep too quickly, you’ll likely get overwhelmed and not start at all. I don’t want that to happen to you! They key to being successful in blogging is “slow and steady wins the race” as there is no success overnight despite what others say.
Did you learn how to start a nail blog with this tutorial? Post it in the comments below so I can take a peak!
Emily
