Ok, so now you’ve got your blog set up. You’ve created a blog on Blogger or WordPress.com, or maybe you’ve had a friend host you or you bought your own hosting and your blog is now installed and set up. So now what do you do?
Well, first, you want to make some decisions about what you want for the blog design. Blogger & WordPress.com are a bit more limiting when it comes to how you design your blog, but you can still have a blog that you like, regardless.
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to show you how to pick a layout for Blogger. I’ll discuss using the layouts Blogger comes with, finding free layouts for Blogger blogs on the web, and looking for paid layouts for Blogger blogs. I’ll also show you how to customize the layout to your liking – such as rearranging elements, changing colors, etc..
Then I’ll show you how to choose a new theme for your WordPress.com blog, how to customize it using the customizer, and how to make it your style. You’ll have less freedom with themes for the free version of WordPress.com, but you can make it work.
Finally, and this will work for any self-hosted WordPress blog that is NOT on managed WordPress hosting, I’ll show you how to find a theme, install that theme, customize it to your liking, and how to install any plugins you’ll need to run your blog – including anti-spam plugins, analytics plugins, and more.
Stay tuned next week for the next part of our series on how to get your own book blog up and running!