How to Set Up a Quick and Easy Wordpress Blog

I've made a few Wordpress blogs through the years including one that later led to a few books and online classes. I was never satisfied with what was offered in terms of design, so I was always able to customize the blog to make it my own. Here's how you can start and make your blog your own.

Wordpress.com account

A computer

Optional: scanner and Adobe Photoshop

Head on over to wordpress.com and you will see the following image.

Sign up for the Blog on the top listed. You will then have a dialog box that asks you what your topic for your blog is. Like magic a sample blog format comes up. You will be asked to name your Blog. Come up with something fun and clever.

Here you have the option to pay for a domain name and have a more permanent web address that people remember, or for now, a free blog. Be sure to scroll the list to find the FREE option. Wordpress is promoting having people pay for a site, so you will see another dialog box asking which plan you want. Press FREE WEBSITE again.

Under GENERAL tab you can put your site settings in like a title and a fun tag line.

Be sure to save your settings after each change!

Go into CUSTOMIZE from the menu on the left hand side. Now we can play around with the generic website that was given to us.

Time to add a logo. I went to my computer's pictures and found this drawing I made recently of my dog, Idalou. I thought this would be fun to have her on top of my website. If you have a scanner you can upload a drawing. Or, use your phone to take a photo of a sketch and send the photo to your email onto your computer. Download the drawing's attachment in your email to your computer so you can download it.

Upload the drawing and you will find a box to crop the drawing how you like. Use the bars on either side to roll out or in to where you want. Voila! Instant logo! This is fun. Next step...

I don't like the generic theme they gave me, so it's back to the main menu by clicking on the little X in the corner. Go to THEMES and a page appears. On the top is the theme I have now: Maywood. Underneath is a row that has ALL FREE and PREMIUM. For now, click FREE.

Test-drive a few by clicking on the "..." next to each theme photo and choosing "Try and Customize."

I chose "After Flight" for the use of a large photo in the background. There are several themes listed that you can use if you want a more blog-looking blog. Then I would suggest Penscratch, Scratchpad, Button or Editor.

Back to CUSTOMIZE in the main menu to tweek the page.

• In colors and backgrounds, I uploaded my own picture for the background. You can change the color but then the entire screen becomes that color and obilterates the photo. Be sure to hit PUBLISH after you selected to see your photo being used.

• Under Fonts scroll down the menu to change from DEFAULT FONT to what you would like instead. I chose Cherry Swash because it matched my theme of creativity.

• How to get rid of that odd box there with the Welcome message? I liked the message but not the color so I went back to the Main Menu and chose PAGES. There you will see HOME page. Click on there and click on there to change the color or click on the box to get rid of it if you don't like it in front of your photo. Be sure to hit UPGRADE in the right top corner to save the changes.

• Go back to Customize to see how it looks.

If you like you can add some widgets, which includes fun things in your sidebar like, stats, or Recent Posts. You might want to do this after you posted your first Post.

Click out of the Customize menu and go back to the Main Menu to the POSTS. You will see a list of posts. Let's make your first post easy. Pick the "introduce yourself" and type over what they have there. Be sure to hit UPDATE when your done. A tiny box on the bottom should let you know your post is updated. View the post.

Wordpress free blogs used to have "wordpress.com" at the end of their titles but now have .blog at the end, which is much neater.

Congratulations! In a short time you have created your own digital webspace on the Internet where folks can visit you!

Until next time,

Designing Fairy