Are you a blogger trying to work out what sort of blog is right for you? Are you not yet in a position to throw a lot of money at a blog, but still want something that looks professional? Have you tried self-hosting and decided that it’s more trouble than it’s worth?There are ways to make a hosted blog look professional and even to use your own domain name with your hosted blog. We’ll take a look at a few of these tricks to get your blog looking just as good as a self-hosted WordPress blog.
Why Use A Hosted Blog?
A hosted blog is one that is run by a blogging provider such as Blogger, WordPress or Tumblr on their own site. A self-hosted blog is where you run it yourself on your own site. There are many reasons why someone would choose a hosted blog over a self-hosted blog. It could be that you lack the technical skills or time to make much-needed changes. It might be that you don’t trust any of the web hosts you can afford on a small budget. What happens if you get hacked? What if a post gets suddenly popular?
Why WordPress?
Deciding between the available blog hosts is another question entirely. The big names are Blogger and WordPress, the differences between them largely comes down to a few main points.
Why Would You Choose Blogger?
- If you’re technically-minded you can make CSS adjustments on a Blogger blog without paying a cent.
- Blogger allows you to use your own domain without paying extra.
- Blogger allows any sort of embedded objects and Javascript, meaning you can use all sorts of widgets.
- If you want to earn money with your blog, Blogger lets you add Adsense adverts easily and allows other forms of advertising.
- Google FriendConnect will easily let your fans follow you.
Why Would You Choose WordPress?
- Even a basic WordPress setup looks quite professional.
- The WordPress.com “related posts” or “freshly pressed” features could bring you new readers.
- By not allowing Javascript, WordPress is making it safer for everyone.
- When viewers see your site on a mobile, WordPress.com automatically optimises it for them.
- If you want to move to a self-hosted option in the future, migrating from WordPress.com to a self-hosted WordPress is as easy as it gets.
WordPress.com is certainly the more difficult and expensive option (if you want to do certain things), but as you can see there are compelling reasons to choose it. Since it’s the more difficult option, we’ll look at how to go about making your WordPress.com blog look even more professional.
Use Your Own Domain
This step costs a little bit. You need to pay for the domain (either through WordPress.com or your own registrar), plus you need to pay WordPress yearly for the ability to use your own domain. All this will put you out around US$20, but it’s an essential step towards making your hosted blog look more professional.
From your WordPress.com dashboard, head to the upgrades section. If you get your domain through them too it’s painless and easy to set up.
What’s also great about this step is you can easily skip it for now and do it later when you’re ready.
Use A Great Theme
Most of the free WordPress.com themes are quite professional-looking, but it’s worth spending a bit of time browsing to find one just right for your blog. Design a professional header for the theme you’ve chosen and personalise it somewhat.
If you’re not satisfied with the available themes or you are desperate to customise your CSS, it’s possible to upgrade to be allowed to do so. However, I think most bloggers can find what they need by using a great theme and some handy widgets.
Embedding Interesting Media
For a long time, WordPress.com users couldn’t embed any media in posts because WordPress didn’t want to leave users open to exploits. Nowadays, there’s a growing list of websites which WordPress.com supports using their own embedding code. However, if you’re not a regular reader of the WordPress.com forums, you might not even know just how much is supported by shortcode.
Subscribe