10 Fantastic Ways To Spend Your Blog Money

So, you’ve got a blog and you have money to spend on it. You are either one of the well-off bloggers who is entering the blogosphere with a budget, or you managed to make a handsome profit last month and are looking to re-invest. (Before I go any further, yes that is a weeping gorilla)

These are the options available to you:

1. Get a professional blog redesign. You only get 1 chance to make a first impression and having a unique professional design is a fantastic way to go. It also helps with branding, usability, monetization and being viewed as an authority. If you don’t have enough for that you could always have a “blog makeover” and have parts of the blog redesigned.

2. Upgrade to a dedicated server. Bluehost has always served me very well but if traffic is going to substantially increase or come in big spikes (e.g. a page 1 on digg.com) a dedicated server will be needed to handle it.

3. Spend the money on advertising. Perhaps you already have a sleek design and are ready for all the traffic the Internet can throw at you. Buying advertising may be the option for you. You could attain better rankings in the SERPS by buying text links or go for brand building banner ads.

4. Buy a review for your blog. This overlaps with advertising somewhat but when choosing a review it is the blogger who you pick combined with the type/level of traffic their blog receives (for a limited time only you get a free sitewide link with a review on Blogging Fingers!)

5. Pay a programmer to make a plugin for you to release. Of course this is assuming you are not a programmer yourself and that you have an idea for a plugin. This builds your authority and providing the plugin is a good it can attract many 1000s of links. You don’t have to have a massive blog for this to be a success, it works the other way around. E.g. the Shylock Blogging Adsense plugin.

6. Pay a programmer to make a Wordpress theme for you to release. This has many of the same benefits as releasing a plugin only there are money making opportunities here by finding multiple sponsors for your new theme.

7. Use the money to develop another sort of product. For example releasing an e-Book/PDF. In many cases this can be free but it’s often a good idea to buy some exposure for this to ensure it gets the attention it deserves.

8. Hire coauthors. Blogging Tips did this fairly recently and they have experienced nothing but growth. If your blog is popular enough you may hardly have to pay the coauthors anything because it will be worth it for them just for the exposure they gain. This is a serious expansion option and once coauthors are found gives you more time to work on other projects.

9. Add new features to your blog. This could be in the form of a forum, a social network or even a voting section akin to 45n5s Moneylinks.

10. Invest in new money making techniques and then educate your readers about them. Readers like to know the actual numbers about an online money making method, not some vague estimations. In this niche running an experiment and then sharing the information freely with your blogs readership is a great way to gain respect as someone of knowledge. For example running a PPC campaign or getting started in domaining (buying and selling domain names) involves spending some money. The useful articles you could write about your campaign (not to mention the knowledge you would have gained) make expanding your horizons a sound investment.

Conclusion

Those are just 10 ways to spend money improving your blog. If you are not quite making that sort of money, those things can be a goal to work towards. Think of it this way; if you can make just $50 in a month from a blog with 0 advertising budget, think what you can do with $50 to spend on any of the above.

If you have any more thoughts about spending money to develop a blog I would love to hear about it in the comments.

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