I'm more comfortable spending more money once I've already started making some.. in other words, I'd feel more comfortable investing the revenues in my business to expand it and make it more efficient, especially in the beginning.
I don't mind spending a few bucks here and there to get started, such as
- a web host,
- domain name,
- and a Aweber account
These are what I've paid for so far since starting out in January this year (with my flagship blog.) I've been sticking with free themes, trying for free traffic, and using free website critique services for feedback.
It may take a little longer but I'm wondering if this approach (which I deem as bootstrapping) is feasible or doomed to failure? I also still have the $100 Adsense credits that my webhost gives to its new customers.
You get what you pay for. Free traffic is the worst, most uncontrollable traffic on the planet and ten or twenty times the work. Almost half the traffic on the web now is bot traffic. The rest of free traffic is mostly disinterested users that are not willing to fulfill conversion requirements and only click on banners as a matter of browsing practices.
Paid traffic, good trackers, and learning to interpret the data is the fastest and most reliable means to develop a positive ROI. Especially if you are doing content marketing, but holds true for the rest of the industry. The businesses you sell banner and contextual ad space to are going to rely on you providing quality targeted traffic.