For those with the writing bug, the world of blogging is a wonderfully active and free place to venture out and explore. Of course, you might want to do a little planning before you go live. Perhaps, you want to choose an overall theme for your blog. A blog doesn’t have to be tightly structured. Indeed, you might decide to let it be a collection of ramblings. The choice is yours.
One thing that you do have to pin down is where you want your blog hosted. The choices are almost endless. Many services offer apparently promising features that turn out not to be “creative” friendly.
WordPress is an online blogging service that is really on top of their game. As a matter of fact, they are growing in popularity at a tremendous rate because of their competence.
WordPress has a lot of features that may be customized to allow you to fine-tune your basic site. You can add custom menus and widgets, as well as links to your social media, all with point-and-click ease. In addition, WordPress allows you to use their great software to host your blog on your own servers. This feature gives you the freedom to customize the look, feel, and features of your blog beyond the features offered with the basic free service. To do so will require some technical understanding of the hosting process. Moreover, it costs money, but the freedom gained may be worth the price, especially once you’ve reached a certain level of success.
In its “administrator” section, WordPress provides numerous useful statistics. These statistics can help to gauge your success by tracking visits to your blog. In addition, built-in search engine tools allow you to link directly to the three top engines: Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
From a design standpoint, the free version of WordPress requires use of a template, albeit from a growing selection. These templates provide a mechanism to change colors and images very easily. So, if you want a blog that’s functional and can grow with you, WordPress is a great choice for the budding author in you.