In semi-arid regions, the early development of sandy soil relies on the building of sand-fixing vegetation. As one of the main pioneer and constructive species of plant community in the semi-arid area of China, it is of great significance to study the impact of establishment of Artemisia ordosica and A. halodendron on the changes of soil bacterial community and further on the stability of sandy grassland ecosystem. Thus, focused on two typical semi-arid areas (Horqin Sandy Land and Mu Us Sandy Land), this study explored the soil bacteria diversity and community composition changes in two stages (mobile sand dunes and moss crusts) before and after the growth of Artemisia community through high-throughput sequencing. Results showed that: (1) Before and after vegetation built, the soil total carbon, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, electrical conductivity and moisture content all had significant differences, while the pH value did not change at different stages. (2) Before and after vegetation built, the soil bacterial diversity did not change significantly, but the bacterial community composition varied greatly at different stages. At the phylum level, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria were the dominant bacteria in these two stages, however, with the building of Artemisia vegetation and the accumulation of nutrients in soil, the relative abundance of Firmicutes was decreased, and the relative abundance of Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria were increased. (3) In both of the two stages, the physicochemical properties and the relative abundance of dominant bacteria were all found to be varied between the different depth samples. (4) The variation trends of the physicochemical properties and bacterial community were quite similar between the two typical sandy lands. By using the method of space instead of time, this study clarified the changes of soil bacterial community along with the same type of vegetation built in semi-arid sandy lands, which could further support data and ideas for summarizing the relationship between vegetation restoration and soil formation in semi-arid areas.