Don’t buy a $3,000 piano until you know for sure you’re going to stick with piano lessons for several years. Instead, get a $129.99 keyboard at Best Buy and see what happens.
The same principle applies to blogging. There is no sense in spending $750 (or more) on a brand new blog design that later may end up not being adequate for your blog’s niche or purpose.
You may discover that you have a passion for an entirely different subject that may require a different theme with a brand new layout and design. This is one good reason for not spending a lot of money when you’re a newbie or don’t have a clear vision or strategy for your blog yet.
Do you intend to blog about a hobby or a sport or become a full-time Problogger? Perhaps you just want to start by sharing information about your industry and network with other professionals in your field.
As you begin to interact with other bloggers, ideas will come to you as to what direction to pursue and what type of products or services you would like to provide. All these will influence your blog’s layout and design.
There is a myriad of free themes to choose from that you can easily customize just by changing the photo on the header and making a few minor tweaks to the theme. If I were to change the image on this site’s header, I would immediately create a new look for this blog without altering any of the code or spending money. You can also change your blog just by adding a few widgets and plugins (all free).
As a beginning blogger focus on creating high quality content for your blog. How do you do that? Study what other successful bloggers are doing and consider taking a class such as Yaro’s Blog Mastermind course or Caroline Middlebrook Bloggers Bible Fast Track.
Once you’ve been blogging consistently for about 6 months and you have at least 50-100 daily readers then you can consider spending money on a fancy blog.
Another Approach
There’s another school of thought that says “establish a strong brand from the very beginning by creating logos, icons, images and a customized theme”. Yes, that is a good strategy provided: You have spent time studying other blogs in your niche, you know your niche and target market well, you have about 3 months worth of content saved on your hard drive and a clear vision and plan for what you hope to accomplish with your blog. It wouldn’t hurt to also have a viral ebook ready to distribute as a free download to help promote your blog.
Chances are most begining bloggers won’t take the time to go through these preparatory steps. Therefore, start small and start now. Learn and earn as you go.
I highly recommend using the services of someone like Ninja Blog Setup to help you get started. His services are FREE if you let him sign you up for hosting. What’s in it for him? He gets a commission from the hosting company for referring to them a new client. Everybody wins. 
Note: I am not an affiliate of Ninja Blog Setup just a satisfied customer.
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