Most of us start our blogs as a hobby; maybe something to pass the time or a way to capture our family memories. Often they can develop into something else, our jobs or a way to make us some extra money. Either way, whether your blog is a major part of your income or a much loved hobby, there are some things that you really should invest in.
You would be lucky to take up any hobby and not have to buy the equipment to enable you to take part and you certainly couldn’t run a business without making some investments.
What’s worth spending your money on?
Try to focus on what you think you need, don’t be seduced by things other bloggers are spending their money on. It might work for them, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it will do the same for you. So keep your own needs in mind.
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A custom domain
Having a custom domain will make your blog look much more professional to the outside world. It will give the impression to readers and PRs that you are serious about your blog. I think back in the day mine was £19, so it won’t break the bank either.
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Going self-hosted
If you want to earn from your blog then you will need to go self-hosted. It can seem a bit scary, but it really isn’t that difficult to make the change and most hosting companies will do it for you if you will be using them for your hosting. Moving to self-hosted also gives you much more control over the theme you use, the design options and you can add amazing plug-ins to your blog, which will help you more than you can imagine. There are various hosting companies and basic hosting is usually around £2.99 per month. I’m currently with TSO Host and have never had any serious issues. I pay for Pro hosting, which is £4.99 per month.
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Branding
Your branding ties together your blog, social media platforms and any other places you have a profile on. Branding may start with your logo, but it goes much further than that. The colours, fonts and images also make up your branding and in an ideal world you want people to be able to catch a glimpse of a header or of a profile and know it’s your brand. That immediate recognition, which will go a long way to making your brand seem more professional, authoritative and cohesive. You can create your own headers in Canva or Picmonkey, play around with colour schemes and fonts or get a designer on board to create something for you. It needn’t cost the earth. I paid an illustrator on Fiverr to do my current logo/header text and it was around $8.
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Blog design/theme
The design of your blog is such an important factor. It can make the difference between someone landing on your blog and bouncing straight off or hanging around and becoming a regular reader. It’s better to go with a theme you can customise, so that you can truly make the design unique to your blog. This will also strengthen your branding further. You can either tinker with it yourself or hire someone to do it for you. However, lots of blogs have a really user-friendly front-end, so you don’t necessarily need lots of coding knowledge to have a go.
5. Schedulers to help you boost your social media presence
As well as growing your blog, you need to simultaneously grow your social profiles, so they support each other. This growth will make brands sit up and take notice. Most bloggers use multiple social platforms and it can be exhausting, impossible even, to keep on top of them all. I always say you have to be on them all, but you don’t have to win them all. I pick one to devote lots of time to (whichever I want to grow at that current time), then I will work on another two to a lesser extent and tick over the others (mainly with auto-posting).
You need to share your posts on social media to make sure your content is getting the attention it deserves. However, scheduling all of your content can be so time consuming. I think you need to spend you time on networks to engage, but let a scheduler take the strain with the scheduling and distributing your posts. After all it doesn’t make any difference if you do this manually or if a scheduler does it for you. The engagement is where it’s at, so save your time to do that.
It’s false economy not to use schedulers, for the reason that they are a few pounds/dollars a week. They will save you hours of inputing and will free up so much time; so you have more time to earn, write content or just be with your family. At the moment I pay for Social Oomph*, Grum, Board Booster and Tailwind, they seriously save me hours.
So, if you are starting to think about where to invest some cash, these are the areas that I would recommend injecting even a small amount of money into. Once you have these five areas under control, the landscape of your blog and how it’s perceived will change immeasurably for the better.
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Comments 28
I normally agree with all of your fabulous tips but have to disagree today – you definitely don’t need to be self hosted to earn from your blog (I’m not self hosted and blog full time) xxx
Author
Are you on blogger? My understanding has always been that you can’t earn from a free WP site, so you have to go self-hosted. However I know people are able to earn if they are on Blogger xx
Yes, for once I’ve done most of these! I have just reached the point where I think I should start paying for a scheduler but I’m not really making anything from my blog yet so I’m hesitant to pay out something else.
Fantastic tips, I couldn’t agree more on paying a bit of money to make your branding really stand out. xxx
Great tips. I’ve done most of these and have just started using a scheduler for Twitter. Looking forward to investigating some of the other options for scheduling too. x
Great tips. I am so glad I payed to go self hosted, if I’d known it was so cheap I would have done it sooner! I’m not paying for a scheduler yet but think I will look into it. I would love to be able to justify spending money on a pro theme and some branding but not really got the spare cash at the minute xx #TheList
Some great tips – I do most of these but certainly could spend a bit more money on my blog if I wanted to. #TheList
Grum was the best investment ever. Thanks so much for suggesting it in your 5 day productivity challenge. I absolutely love it 🙂
Great tips! I definitely need to start using a scheduler though! #thelist
great tips, as always. thanx. #thelist
I started reading this about 3 hours ago and got distracted by following your advice. So thank you for the tips, I’m off to grow my blog into something fabulous! #TheList
As always brilliant tips, Aby. Thank you for being so generous with your knowledge. #TheList
Nadia – Scandimummy x
Great #TheList of tips. Amazing that you got your logo designed so cheaply, I’ll be checking that out. I really need to get organised with a scheduler so will check out your recommendations there too! Thank-you x
Just a quick question actually…why do you pay for several schedulers? Do they all do different things?? Thanks #TheList
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They all do different networks
Great tips! I had my own domain from day 1 and I quickly moved to going self hosted, I love the freedom it gives me to make my blog my own. Xx
**Runs off to investigate social oomph** Great post as ever Aby 🙂 x
Really interesting suggestions here – am going to investigate canva and picmonkey. Thanks for the ideas. #thelist
This is brilliant Aby , I feel like you are my Fairy God Mother in the Blogging World. I love all your tips 🙂
Ive done all of these except the last. I’m still not sure I want to commit to a weekly payment for anything yet as my blog is still young but maybe one day x
#TheList
I love the way your site is looking I can tell you have put so much into your blog and website design. Can I ask though if I need to re-subscribe as I used to get your emails and now I don’t? Not sure why. Anyway great tips lovely xx #Thelist
Thank you for this, perfect for a newbie like me who is still finding their way!! #thelist
I agree with most of it and have had my domain from the start. Still using free scheduling for now but will probably upgrade soon x #thelist
Self hosting is a no brainer, even if you’re not wanting to monetise, but just with everything you can do. I found WP so much easier than my old craft blogger blog.
As always, great tips.. slowly I’m taking steps to win them all..;)Tnx, Aby!
Great tips, I am looking into more schedulers at the moment. I am concentrating on Pinterest at the moment.
Awesome tips thank you!
I love this post.
I’m actually struggling with themes and customisation. Because I have Borderline Personality Disorder, I randomly have the urge to alter the entire look of my blog several times a year.
I’ve never been able to get my blog to represent my personality properly and so I don’t think my brand becomes recognisable for a long enough period.
Does anyone know how I can be more assured of the theme I choose, and way I customise my blog?
Xx