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The Best Investments To Make as a New Blogger
As a new blogger, it may be hard to decide what to invest in. Of course, none of us want to buy anything if we don’t have to but you will quickly learn that you have to at least purchase a domain name and hosting to get started. Later you will see that there are other programs that you can purchase to help your blog grow. You can try it without these programs but then it comes down to how much is your time worth. You can try to do it completely on your own and for free but it could take years to do it that way. If you decide a small investment is worth your time then these are the tools I suggest and are the best investments to make as a new blogger.
Here are seven investments to make as a new blogger
- As I said before you will have to purchase a domain name unless it comes free with your hosting.
- You will need to purchase hosting for your blog. Domain names and hosting are very inexpensive though.
- Email marketing provider is going to be another important purchase. Again you can use a free email service but they are all only free for so long.
- This is probably the most important one and is completely worth it as a new blogger in my opinion….a blogging course by a bigger blogger. I took this one and it was very reasonably priced as to why I felt comfortable making the investment. I wasn’t disappointed either! Definitely worth it! This saved me so much time and heartache! (and I know because I had already failed multiple times before I took it)
- Once you get your blog set up and established with posts published then you want traffic right? A great traffic tool for bloggers is Pinterest. This is a free way to get traffic to your blog fast however constantly pinning every day can be overwhelming. There luckily is a service to help with that. It is called Tailwind and it will pin for you! This is, of course, optional but you will find completely worth it for all the time it will save you! To test it out, here is a free month trial!
Those are the best investments to make as a new blogger.
Optional
6. I would also suggest investing in a Pinterest course. That is unless you already are great with Pinterest. I learned so much with even some free courses I took so I can only imagine when I go through the paid course! Almost everyone recommends Tailwind but there is a very insightful Pinterest course on manual pinning that I really enjoyed as well.
7. You can also purchase a theme that works better for your blog but there are many free ones out there! This is definitely optional. I did purchase Divi by Elegant Themes because it has a drag and drop capability, you create your page live in front of you and no going back and forth after making changes. It is something that has saved me so much time! I can’t even begin to explain but again completely optional.
So how much is all that anyway?
1. Domain
Purchase Separately – I got my domain at NameCheap and used a 10% off coupon from RetailMeNot.com so for the year it cost me $9.00! You can also use places like GoDaddy or 1and1 to purchase your domain but I have used others and I prefer NameCheap. The main reason is in its name. They are cheaper than the others and they don’t try and upsell you at checkout.
Purchase with Hosting – Another option for a domain name is to bundle it with your hosting. Some hosting providers will offer a bundle deal if you buy their hosting package. HostGator actually offers a free domain name with the purchase of certain hosting packages. Can’t get much better than free!
2. Hosting
I use SiteGround and it cost me $5.95 a month to get started. I chose the Grow Big Plan to be able to grow but there is a cheaper plan for $3.95 a month. (those are the prices at the time of writing this post) – may have to pay yearly. I will also add that each year I have been with SiteGround my price as increased so keep that in mind too.
There are other hosting sites available such as Blue Host and Host Gator and I have actually used each of those in the past and currently, HostGator has to better price. Learn more about hosting providers and which is right for you.
3. Email Marketing Provider
I use Convertkit and they offer a free month trial but then it starts out at $29.00 a month and goes up as your subscribers grow! They recently launched a free plan and a way to add more free subscribers too!
You can check out Aweber and MailChimp to compare. Again some of them are only free for so long and eventually, you will (if you are wanting to grow) have to start paying. Then it becomes a hassle to try and move your contacts if you’re not happy with your service.
The bigger bloggers I follow recommend Convertkit and so far I have been more than happy! They have a lot to offer! My favorite feature is how you can organize your list to keep all your subscribers grouped together into groups of similarity. I can tag my subscribers to know who needs help blogging, who needs help getting traffic to their blog, or who needs help making money.
This way I am not sending out emails to people that don’t need them!
4. Courses
The course that I invested in was $47.00 back when I bought it. It is more now but again I feel this is very reasonable as I have seen some that are $300! It was completely worth the investment! Suzi has helped over 57,000+ students through her courses.
She teaches you step by step and gives great tips and resources!
After taking her course I left like I was equipped with the knowledge I needed to start a blog. I knew I wanted to but I still felt a little lost. She helped clear up so many questions I had and gave me plenty of ammo to jump into the blogging world!
I truly can’t say enough good things about this course. If anything this would be your best investment as a new blogger!
5. Tailwind
Like I mentioned they offer a free month trial and then it is $14.99 a month.
It makes it so very easy and simple to schedule pins and then that’s it! Tailwind handles the rest! You pick your pins, to which board, and even what time you want it pinned, then you are done and can trust Tailwind to do it for you!
It will even give you examples of the best times to pin based on your audience you are marketing to! With your first free month, you get 100 pins so I scheduled all 100 in about 20 mins and then didn’t have to worry about it until it was time to fill it up again!
6. Pinterest Course
There are many courses out there. Some are free and some are not. The reason I suggest taking a Pinterest course is because it is such a powerful tool to drive traffic to your blog that the sooner you master it the better. I have several blog posts on Pinterest and driving traffic to my blog so I hope those will help you get started off on the right foot but just keep in mind that you may need more assistance and a course would be worth it.
Related Blog Posts:
- How to Drive Pinterest Traffic to Your New Blog
- What I Use to Grow My Traffic as a Small Blog
- How I Gained Over 600 Page Views in One Day on My Small Blog
- Why I had 4 Viral Pins in One Month
- A Full Walkthrough on How to Use Tailwind
- How to Create Pinterest Images in a Few Steps
- How to Create Video Pins on Pinterest
- How to Start Making Money on Pinterest Today
- 4 Ways to Make Money with Pinterest
7. Theme
The last optional addition is to invest in a theme for your blog. There are a ton of free ones so again that is an optional investment for you. I did invest in one called the Divi Theme by Elegant Themes. I went ahead and made the investment because it has drag and drop capabilities which makes it so much easier for me. Instead of having to learn how to customize a theme I knew I would benefit from just dragging and dropping to build my pages quickly on my blog.
The main lifesaver has been the page templates. I just click on a premade template that I like and then change the contents to my own and had my own colors and done! Every page on my blog was a template that I customized to create my own brand. This saved me so much time and stress. I am not the most artistic person so I could envision a beautiful layout let alone create it from scratch.
Plus, there are sections in my blog that are universal so when I need to make a change I just change it in one spot and it will change it throughout the rest of my blog for me.
Not too bad for starting a business!
Once you tally everything all up and think about it, that is all a very small investment to start your own business! Starting a business usually costs thousands! And you are going to be able to start your blog on the right track with the right resources! You may come across other courses such as a Pinterest course you decide to invest in as well but these are the best beginning investments to get you started.
When I first started blogging I wasn’t sure what was necessary and what was a waste of money. I had to learn through trial and error. I did purchase many things that didn’t work for me. I learned from those mistakes so I guess they weren’t a complete waste because now I can share my experience with others.
Those are the best investments I suggest for you as a new blogger. I have personally purchased all of the above and I am all about saving money and trying to do it as cheap as possible. I have learned though that sometimes it is worth the investment to skip all the stress and heartache doing it alone on my own.
I hope this helps you! Good luck with your new blog!
Let me know if there is anything I can do to help!
Vanessa
Need more guidance with your new blog? Grab my free 30 Day Challenge Workbook to Start a Blog here!