Need an Excuse to Splurge? Spend Money on Your Blog

If there’s one thing every tech blogger loves to point out, it’s that starting a blog is not only easy – it’s free!

With the exception of domain hosting, which is pretty inexpensive anyway, it doesn’t cost you a penny to start a blog. Simply install WordPress, pick a design from the theme library, and start publishing. Easy stuff.

But what if I told you that it often is worth it to spend money on your blog? That there are a few exceptions to the seemingly dominant “blogging should be free” perception?

Premium Theme Blog

Even if you’re a social blogger – not a business blogger – it could make sense to make a few small purchases that will seriously improve your blog. Here are a few of them:

Premium Theme

If you’re using WordPress, there are some pretty attractive free themes at your disposal.

That being said, none of those free themes offer the following:

  • Unlimited support from the theme creator(s)
  • Design options that save you from writing code
  • Regular updates that keep your theme compliant with new WordPress versions

These are features you definitely definitely want. A lot of us need them.

It might not be until you’ve spent hours fooling with your theme’s code only to hang your head in utter defeat that you decide to take the plunge and click “purchase theme,” but you’ll be glad you did.

Check out theme frameworks that have lots of design options. Thesis and Genesis are among the most popular, but many theme designers have created excellent out-of-the-box solutions.

Most premium themes cost less than $100 for a single site. If you’re truly dedicated to your blog and know you’re in it for the long haul, get one.

Mobile Theme

A large chunk of your audience will reach your site via a mobile device.

If you aren’t using a mobile WordPress theme, there’s a good chance those visitors are having a hard time getting your blog to display correctly – especially on smaller screens.

Thankfully, there are themes that automatically display a version of your site that looks good on any mobile device. You don’t have to change the theme you’re already using. Simply install the additional theme as a plugin, and it works.

And it’s not very expensive – less than the cost of a premium theme. While some mobile themes offer a free option, the paid versions usually give you more flexibility when it comes to content display, and some even offer mobile browsing formatted specifically for iPad.

Stock Images

If you sell anything on your Website – even ads or affiliate products – it can be hard to locate relevant images that are licensed for commercial reuse. And when you do find them, they’re usually pretty ugly.

If having great images is important to you, why not purchase a membership at a stock image repository?

You’ll never have to hunt through Google Images again or worry about finding quality photos. While stock images definitely aren’t the answer for everybody – travel and photography blogs come to mind – they make it easier for many bloggers to make every post look “just right.”

They’ll save you time searching for photos, too. And who wouldn’t drop a few bucks on that?

This article is written by Jon Green. He is a freelance writer and avid blogger. He also keeps up with R hadoop, NoSQL, and database “stuff.”

10 thoughts on “Need an Excuse to Splurge? Spend Money on Your Blog”

  1. I bought various themes for my site http://www.burnyourfuel.com, First i started with a free theme from WP and there was something which was missing since updated, once i bought from Theme Junkie and i got the same feeling after months and now i am using WP Zoom Manifesto which is great not only in design but also in support wise. Keep in mind that I am not promoting it !

    Now I have decided to create a customized template for my blog which will be presentable, user friendly and easy navigation for the users and I am happy to invest money on that to give the user a good experience and at the end of the day, quality article does matters.

    Hope you all agree with me.

    Thanks, Kama.

    Reply
  2. Good info Jon, though premium themes might not fit the budget of a cash crunched newbie, but it's well worth the investment. One can save hours of search and coding efforts finding plugins and customizing the free theme.

    Reply
  3. I haven't spent money more than a hundred bucks on blogging. My purchases includes a simple theme and a great web hosting. Other than that, I think I have not spent bucks for plugins and advertising. I always got them free from blogging friends.

    Reply
  4. Hi,

    Somebody told me. If you will spent some money for your blog then might be you will get some more options to earn money with blogging but at that time i was just started did blogging. But now i am planing to purchase some of the nice tools which prove good for blog post.

    Thanks for share this nice Info!!!!

    Reply
  5. Hi Jon,
    thanks for the info. I agree as well that we need to spend some money on our blogs in order to reach more clients. however, my opinion is that for one blog, the most important thing is the quality of the articles, because that is something that will attract more readers.

    Reply
  6. I've spent money on my blogs. I've purchased premium themes and hosting ans some other tools. I've happy to spend money on my blogs as those are my investment.

    Reply

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