If you are thinking about having a blog, you are probably wondering, are there any costs of running a blog? For those with plans to blog for fun with no plans to turn it into a source of income then you can happily blog for free. You can have a blog that will have a domain such as blogging101.wordpress.com, but it will still be a place for you to share what you would like and it costs no money.
However, if you have plans to blog with the potential for a source of income in future it is going to need a small outlay from you to invest in the blog. You can start a blog up with just a small Investment and I am going to explain the minimum you are going to need and then some other items that I purchase to use on my blog frequently.
Key costs of running a blog
Domain name –
This will be the first thing you need to invest in. It is key to pick a domain name that you are going to love going forward as it becomes your brand.
Once you have your domain name in mind, you just need to work out what you would like it to be, such as .co.uk or .com. There are now so many options for you to pick from, I personally tend to stick to the .co.uk or .com options for my blogs but this is up to you.
With this, you can go ahead and purchase your domain name. Should you be looking to buy hosting, it is usually easier to buy your domain when you purchase your domain so it is easier to link. However, that is not essential, I currently have blog domains held by different companies and they work absolutely fine.
Blog hosting –
Once you have purchased your domain name, the next key thing you need is your blog hosting.
When I first started out, I was using Go Daddy and they were ok. They were not the best and the costs started to increase so I moved over to Stablepoint. Moving was simple and the team at Stablepoint are on hand to help out where needed. The customer service here is the best I’ve ever had and I am glad I moved over. For £74.99 I get medium hosting which allows me to host 5 blogs on there and have the SSL security on all the sites. If you would like to join Stablepoint I have a code that will get you 20% off! Use 2CP2GD2Z7K at the checkout to make the most of this Stablepoint discount code.
Other costs of running a blog
These two are the key things you need to invest in for your blog to become viable as a source of income. Now, of course, there are plenty of other things you can invest in to make your blogging life a little easier but also to make your blogging journey a bit more technical. However, none of these is required to be able to blog. Here are a few other things that I invest in monthly to help me with all my blogs.
Canva Pro –
This is the place where I can create all my images and graphics on my blog and social media.
There is a free version of Canva which is great and does the job, however, with the pro you can adjust sizing, get access to more fonts and have access to a huge amount of stock images. This alone has made this worth it to me. It is not the cheapest at £99.99 a year, but to me, I have saved so much time since I invested in this it makes it worth its while.
Keysearch –
I have just invested in Keysearch it is going to be a game-changer when it comes to my SEO on the blog. The site allows you to work on your keyword and SEO on the site and ensure you are ranking well on your blog posts. It is a great way to get some inspiration for posts and keywords or terms to integrate into your post.
It is $17 a month however if you use this link and the code KDISC you will get 20% off at Keysearch.
Rytr –
Rytr was not something I had heard of before it was recommended by another blogger but I managed to pick it up on AppSumo for $39 for a lifetime purchase.
It is an AI writer that helps you write the bulk of posts for you. Now the writing is not always the greatest but for the basis of the post, it has saved me so much time on the blog posts for my link selling posts that it has made its money back already. Keep an eye out on AppSumo for it coming back up on the offer.
Tailwind –
This is the number one scheduler for Pinterest. Now Pinterest is its own little battle that many bloggers have, it is not something to crack overnight. I have shared my success with Pinterest before on my other blog but I will be sharing this shortly on here too.
Tailwind is not cheap and it has a whole host of power up bolt-ons for you to add on. I would recommend starting with a trial account and seeing how you get on before you invest.
Social Bee –
For me, Social Bee is the best social media scheduler out there. It is so easy to use and again it came up on App Sumo to get lifetime access that saved me a small fortune. It allows you to set up a schedule for 10 different social media accounts under one licence. So whether you have multiple blogs or just 1 blog with multiple social media, you can link up all of them.
There are options to set up campaigns for certain times of the year, all year round or just post a social media post once.
These are just some of the options you can invest in on your blog, trust me when I say it can be a bottomless pit for your money. There are plenty of other things to purchase such as some courses, WordPress themes and other subscriptions. If you are just starting out, take things slowly before you start heavily investing in your blog. You need to make sure you are going to stick it out before you spend your hard end cash on it. Then when you are happy to, at least you will know what you are going to benefit from the most.
