Someone once told me “Smart investing is the key to success”.
Incredibly true words! Holds true in every facet of life, be it business, career or choice of partner. After all, you reap what you sow. If you sow nothing, nothing is what you get.
But hey, don’t worry. I know most bloggers start with a small capital. You can’t afford to spend hundreds of dollars on a marketing campaign or a product launch. It’s unrealistic.
Good news is that you don’t need to invest a lot. Small investments, if done in the right place, can yield high rewards.
How small?
How about 10 $?
Definitely affordable, isn’t it?
I am sure you have 10 $ to spare. It’s a small investment. Wherever you live, if you have a self hosted blog, I am sure you can afford spend this much.
Now, the BIG QUESTION? Where to invest your 10 $?
You don’t want to spend it aimlessly like a guy in his first day at the stock market.
Worry not. That’s what I am here to share. Here are the 9 smartest investments that you can make as a new blogger.
Build a brand with a custom logo
Personal branding is one of the most important aspects of professional blogging.If you want to make it big, you must build a brand for yourself. Something your readers can easily associate you with.
Getting a custom logo is the first step in creating a brand image.
But, why does the logo matter so much?
Because, as you know, visual cues are much stronger that textual ones. It is much easier to remember a design than a piece of text. You can easily pull it back from your memory. A well designed logo provides this essential visual cue, which sticks in the mind of your user.
That is why top brands spend big bucks to create unique designs that customers can associate with. Think the Nike logo or Adidas logo.
You can easily get a great looking logo from fiverr. Fiverr is good for these kinds of deals. Otherwise, you can run a logo competition on one of the popular web marketing forums like digitalpoint. People will come up with their entries and you can choose the one you like.
Give a quality feel to your blog with a premium theme
Think of your blog as your home. I’m sure that you try to keep your home well decorated so that it leaves a good impression on your guests. The same idea applies here.Online visitors are your guests.
To leave a good impression, you need to provide an efficiently running and attractive looking blog. A first time user must “sense” quality in your blog. A premium theme is essential for this quality feel (contributed by looks, color combination, speed, uniqueness and features).
You may be wondering “do I really need a premium theme? There are so many free themes out there. Surely there are a few which are as good as premium ones.”
UNLIKELY.
Even if you manage to dig out an efficiently coded and functional theme, there are two problems.
Firstly, it’s free. That means a large number of bloggers would be already using it. There goes your uniqueness and brand value.
Secondly, free theme developers cannot provide the dedicated support that a premium theme developer can.
But you need dedicated support. With the constant updates of WordPress and plugins, compatibility issues and feature breakdown can happen anytime. Dedicated support is very handy in such situations. In fact, most premium developers would assist you in minor tweaking of the theme to suit your needs.
So it is always better to get a premium theme. Unlike most free themes, premium themes are coded efficiently resulting in better performance. You’ll also get full technical support from the developers.
While you may have to spend a little more than $10 to get a premium theme, it is well worth it. Most developers come up with offers from time to time. Keep your eyes open.
If you want value for money, Mythemeshop is the place for you. They have a large collection of premium themes and provide lifetime updates and support for any theme you buy. They keep coming up with special offers when you can buy a theme for as less as nine dollars.
If you really need a premium plugin, invest in it
This is an interesting one.WordPress repository has 37,000+ plug-ins. A huge number. Makes you think why one would actually need to get a premium plug-in. Why waste hard earned money?
I understand your feelings. In fact, I’m a big fan of free plug-ins. For most premium plug-ins, there are more than adequate free alternatives available. I would never suggest you to go for premium plug-ins when there are free alternatives available.
But there are exceptional situations, where you would feel the need to spend on a premium plug-in.
Situation 1: You are using a free plug-in and finding it to be very useful. The paid version of the same plug-in provides certain features, which you think would be beneficial for your blog. You find value for money in this deal and decide to go for the upgrade.
Most freemium plug-ins are monetized like this. Developers provide you with a free version. You can use it as long as you want.
If you need further features, you’ll need to buy the premium version. A small fraction of users, who find the plug-in to be really useful, would go on to buy the premium version. This is a win-win situation for both parties.
Situation 2: You need a plug-in for a specific purpose. But there are no adequate free alternatives available. In such a situation, you have to spend to get what you want.
Again, Mythemeshop has a few useful plugins available on the cheap. I snapped up the WP Subscribe Pro plugin under 10 $ (during an offer). It’s not as feature rich as the high end premium plugins but it’s value for money.
The idea is simple. As long as free plugins are doing the job for you, stick to them. But if you find a premium plugin that you think is really useful, don’t be afraid to spend some money. Sometimes, those little added functionalities can do wonders for a blog. For example, WP Subscribe Pro improved my conversion rate to a good extent.
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