“You have to spend money to make money.” There’s a lot of debate as to whether this is actually true, and I’m here to tell you that it is. You have to spend money to make money. You don’t have to spend a lot, but you do have to spend some. Let’s say you’re a singer and you want to send a demo to Universal in an attempt to get a record deal. Would you record it on your laptop’s built in microphone, or would you dish out a few hundred dollars for professional studio time and mixing? Hopefully, you’d pay for the studio time, because if an A&R hears pops and crackles coming from your mic, they’ll assume that you aren’t serious enough about your music to pay for studio time, and you won’t get a deal. Let’s take a look at some common expenses that come with starting a website or blog, and decide whether you should spend money on them, or save it for something else:

• Domain and hosting: If you want to start a website, you could save some money and throw it up on a free host, or you could use a Wordpress.com hosted blog. You don’t even need to buy a domain name, just use the myname.freehost.therestofthelongurl.com. The problem with this is if you’re using a free host and don’t own your own domain, your site looks very unprofessional. Very. If you’re trying to sell something, it’s even worse, because people won’t believe that it’s a legitimate business. Just spend the $10 for the domain and $5 a month for the cheapest hosting you can get, and you’re good to go. That’s $70 for an entire year of business, and don’t try to say you can’t afford $70 a year. VERDICT: SPEND MONEY FOR A DOMAIN AND HOSTING
• Advertising: Paying for advertising isn’t essential, but it helps. Most likely you’ll either use Adwords pay per click or you’ll buy a link on another site that has more traffic than yours. These are both good methods although I don’t really like to use PPC marketing unless I’m selling something and making direct revenue. In reality, you don’t really need to pay for advertising, because there are lots of great methods to generate traffic to your site. Social networks such as Digg, Twitter, and Facebook are good places to start. Commenting on other blogs is a good idea, and even telling your friends is good - it’s free, so you really have nothing to lose, and if you have good content there’s a chance they’ll tell their friends too. VERDICT: DON’T SPEND MONEY FOR ADVERTISING [UNLESS YOU HAVE MONEY TO BLOW]
• Design: Is paying a web designer to design your site worth it, or should you just use a free theme or template? Yes, it is definitely worth it. Most good designers will charge somewhere in the $1500-3500 range for a nice blog design, and yeah it sounds like a lot of money, but it’s worth it. Using a free template looks unprofessional and usually the free templates aren’t that good looking anyway. You want your site to look nice because if it looks like bullshit, first time visitors will be a lot more likely to dismiss it and never come back. I encourage everyone to spend money on a good design. If you can’t afford four figures, you can find competent designers who will do it for a few hundred - it won’t look as good as a more expensive design, but it will look better than a free design. VERDICT: SPEND MONEY FOR A DESIGN

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