What does it cost to start a Blog?

Blogging has grown enormously over past years and there are some millions of blogs in existence today. Though there are no schools to teach what blogging is yet many people choose it as a career opportunity leaving their 9 to 5 jobs. It’s true that people are making a live hood out of their blogs though they never knew they could actually make. Blogging is still one of the most misunderstood art for many as they keep exploring ways to make money out of it.
Read: 7 ways people make six figures income through blogging

There are many people who don’t know what blogging is and what actually a blogger can do with a blog. Pat Flynn, John Chow, Amit Agarwal etc are some of the living examples who inspired many people to choose blogging as a career. In India most of the bloggers who are now blogging have been inspired from Amit Agarwal who runs labnol.org.

Amit Agarwal is an IIT graduate who comfortably earns many times more than what an IIT holder who works for a Software company earns. Still there are many Indian bloggers who make quite a good income from blogs. It’s true that 99% of people in India start a blog for making a living out of it (to be honest I too am one among them). Many bloggers lack the inner science of making money out of their blogs as they think it is just an overnight business to earn as much as Amit Agarwal earns. Truth is that if we want to earn such huge income it’s not so easy at the same time not so hard. It needs proper planning and some good strategies to play around, especially during these crowded times.

Read: Strategies to turn your Blog into the Next Campus Craze

How much does it cost to start a Blog?

This could be a burning question to many newbie’s who have just heard about blogging. I believe you won’t be surprised if I say that you can start a blog free of cost. Yes, platforms like blogger, WordPress, Tumblr etc gives a user chance to start their own blog completely free of cost. But there will be a lot of limitations in choosing a free service. I have earned 130$ with a free blogspot blog in three years from 2008 to 2010. Only money what I have spent was for my internet connection and my electricity bill. It is not that impossible to earn money from a free blog but it takes a lot of effort and time to earn few bucks as it took for me.

Investment option for blogger(blogspot) Blog:

If you choose blogger as a platform you can change its look by using many custom blogger templates which are freely available over the net. You need to choose a proper niche (topic) and keep writing some quality articles. Once you are getting traffic from search engines then you can buy a custom domain name.

A domain name costs 10$ on an average and varies from one provider to other. If you can get a coupon of any of the domain providers you can also get a domain as low as 1$. Next you have an opportunity to apply for an adsense account and monetize your blog accordingly.

Minimal Budget to go for a self hosted WordPress blog:

If you want to increase your income opportunities then going for a self hosted WordPress blog is recommended. It gives control over your design, SEO and many other customization options which is being limited in the free platforms.

Domain name for a Year– 10$
Web Hosting for a Year – 7$ (monthly) x 12 months – 84$
Total Investment – 94$

94$ is the maximum investment required to start a self hosted blog with WordPress for a year. It can also cost less than that only thing you need is to search for a good and reliable hosting provider, proper coupon or take guidance of webmasters who already have experience in blogging.

Right time to invest on a WordPress Blog:

After you place a landmark with your WordPress blog there are lots of investment opportunities in order to take your blog to the next level. Next question is when is the right time to start investing on a WordPress blog. I believe there is no need to wait for investing if at all you are an experienced blogger with an ability to turn tons of traffic to your blog. But as a newbie you need to wait for sometime at least till you are confident that you can get back the invested amount else you have to end your blogging journey abruptly due to increased expenditure and zero returns. If you don’t want to mess up things then I believe if you are earning 150$ a month from Adsense or any other source from your blog then you can comfortably invest on your blog.
Read: How to Increase the chances of getting an Approved Adsense account.

Where can one Invest over a WordPress blog?

Theme or Framework: There are two most loved frameworks called Genesis and Thesis which are used by many bloggers. These frameworks help a blog to give a professional look and Search Engine optimized features. WordPress frameworks gives the user liberty over the look and design of a blog. There are also many other frameworks like Gantry, Pagelines, Ashford, Hybrid, Whiteboard, Bones etc apart from Genesis and Thesis. I use an open source or free framework which is designed by rtPanel.

Template: There is also a facility to use ready-made premium templates available to give a professional look to a WordPress blog.

Premium Plugins: There are many premium plugins to choose like SEOPresser, CommentLuv etc which will help the blog to reach a new level. There are many blogs which are doing better even with free WordPress plugins available.

Newsletter Option: You can keep your users in touch with a daily, weekly or a monthly newsletter. Awber and Mailchimp are two major options for a blogger to choose among them Mailchimp offers free services for 2000 subscribers and you have to pay beyond it. Still there is an option like Feedburner which generates an automated email containing the update of your blog and also free to use. There are rumors that feedburner is going to shut down but for now it is fine and well alive.

Advertising: You can spend money in promoting your blog, if you provide services like web designing, Photoshop etc you can opt advertising your blog to gain more leads, else it is waste of money to spend on advertising.

How much did I invest on Blog in Grace:

I don’t have a credit card or PayPal account to choose hosting from Bluehost or Dreamhost. I have to go for a provider which supports offline mode of payment via bank transfer and that too an Indian provider as I live in India. So I have to choose BigRock. Something is better than nothing, so I choose BigRock as it is easy for me to deposit money in the Bank. I have bought a domain name for 249 Indian rupees which equals approximately 5$ and I choose hosting from Bigrock which costs 4700 Rs (equals 85$). So on whole I had to spend 90$, if I had a credit card this expenditure would have been even lower as I would have chosen another hosting provider. I also have the facility to add unlimited number of blogs and domains to my hosting account else investment would have been even low.

Spending 100$ over building a blog is no big deal these days. If you are passionate enough to blog and explore new horizons of blogging you could well earn more than what you have invested. From those earnings you could renew your hosting and domain for many more years. So your one time investment can turn your blog into a Gold mine in few months. Still you have any doubts or opinions over the investment you need to build a blog comment form is ready for your aid.