• If you don’t have a WordPress account, go to www.wordpress.com and create one (username and password).
• Log in to your new account (or existing one). Once you are logged in to WordPress, you should be on the WordPress home page. If you don’t see Register a new blog about center page, go to My Account (top left) and select WordPress.com from the drop-down menu.
• Click on Register a new blog. Type in the name of your blog in the Blog Domain box. Add the title if you are sure what you want. Otherwise, it can be done later. Check your language and leave the privacy box checked.
• Choose a design for your blog. This can be changed later, but try to decide what basic layout you want. Choose one that features a custom header and at least two columns. My marketing blog design is Mistylook with custom header. See also my devotional blog (Ocean Mist) which features a photo I took myself. You can take your time finding a design for your custom header, but you don’t want to have to re-arrange your content if you change your mind about your design later.
• Once your blog domain has been accepted, you’re ready to go to My Dashboard and select your new blog from the drop-down menu.
• The default “home” page is a blog post. To use this blog as a Web site, you want a static page to be “home.” From the menu on the left, click on Pages, Add New. In the title box for the page, put Home. Also, look for Attributes on the right side. Under Parent, leave Main Page. Lower down, under Order, enter the number 1. Click on Publish to establish your home page.
• Go to Posts on the left menu. Place your mouse under the title of the default post, and a menu will appear. Click delete to remove this post.
• Scroll down to Settings at the bottom of the left-hand menu. Click on the arrow to expand the menu, then choose Reading. Under Front page displays, click Static Page. Next to Front Page, choose Home from the drop-down menu. You now have your home page set up.
• Set up other static pages such as About or Contact using the New Page menu. Come back to Reading menu and set the page order like you want them to appear on the site navigation bar.
• Go to Links and click on the arrow to open the menu. Choose Edit. Delete all of the default links. Add your own links now if you want.
• Go to Appearance and click on the arrow. Choose Widgets and, if there are existing widgets in your sidebars, drag all of the ones you don’t want down to the bottom of page under Inactive Widgets. You can always re-activate them if you decide you want them.

It’s not possible to list every single detail for setting up your site. Once you’ve done these basics, though, you can work on the sidebars, links, and other navigation details. WordPress has a pretty good help section, but, if you can’t find what you need there, go to Google and search. I’ve found excellent help there.

Although I make no guarantees that you will find this easy or that you will like it, I’m happy to try to answer questions you might encounter in your experiment. I welcome comments on this blog or questions by e-mail to akinemily@gmail.com.

Making the decision was a slow process, since I am not a technical genius. I looked at Godaddy, EZ Christian Hosting, Hostgator, SquareSpace, and Webs.com. All offer free trials, and I did experiment with all of them. I won’t get into all the pros and cons of the different companies. I’ll just tell you what I decided.

Since I wanted to have a hosted WordPress site to house all my blogs, I ruled out all of the sitebuilders. However, I seriously considered Squarespace because the look and function of their designs is very much like WordPress. When I checked into pricing, though, I decided against Squarespace.  I found that, if I wanted to have my own domain name (which I already have and want to continue to use), I would have to go with the Pro plan at $14 a month rather than the $8-a-month basic plan. See pricing here.

I chose to go with Hostgator with WordPress, and here is the result: www.emilyakin.com. Hosting cost is about half what it would have been with Squarespace, and the WordPress theme was free on WordPress.org.

I’m not done yet, but I will be transferring some of this free blog’s content to my new site. If you are a subscriber, I may be able to change the feed and save you the trouble of re-subscribing. More on that later. Meanwhile, feel free to comment on my new site here on this post.

I was slow to hop on the blogging train, but now that I have, I am enjoying it immensely. Last year, in Blogger vs. WordPress post, I shared my research about the pros and cons of the two blogging tools. If you’re new to this blog, review that post before continuing.

I decided then to go with Blogger, mainly because I found it easier to use, especially for beginners. Later, I decided to work with WordPress more and to see what the differences were. I now use WordPress for most of my blogs. On the Blogger version of Wired to Write, I explained why I decided to change here.

Paste from Word: Now that I’m using WordPress regularly, I am discovering some really great features. For example, you can compose your posts in Word and paste into WordPress using the “Paste from Word” tool. All the formatting comes with it, including hyperlinks and text formatting like boldface and italic. This is a big time-saver, because, f you compose your posts online, it takes longer to do all that formatting. If you just copy and paste from Word without using the tool, you lose the formatting entirely.

Static Pages: One of the primary reasons I changed back to WordPress is that you can have a static page on WordPress, and you can’t have that on Blogger. See my book review blog as an example. Notice the menu bar across the top. There’s an About-Guidelines page and a Reading and Resources List for Writers page. Those pages are always there no matter how many blog posts I enter.

Use as Web Site: Some writers use WordPress as their primary Web site rather than having a main site and a separate blog. See Brandy Brow’s site here as an example.  Using one of the standard WordPress designs, she has the welcome message on the home/blog page. Her other pages are static pages ( not available on Blogger). This makes a great free Web site, and Brandy can use it as a blog later if she chooses. I’ve tried some of the free Web site offerings out there, and I think WordPress is much easier to use than most of the ones I’ve tried.

Generally, WordPress offers a lot for the low price of FREE. If you get into it and find you need more sophisticated features, you can always upgrade to the paid version which is described at WordPress.org.

I started from scratch with the Ky Christian Writers site. The theme for the writers conference is “Publish His glorious deeds among the nations” Psalm 96:3 (NLT). The print logo used by the group has a globe and a book with the Bible verse superimposed. I wanted to keep the concept but have more color and depth for the Web site design. I searched for a free graphic on the Web and found one that’s just right. I set up the banner in Publisher 2000, copied and pasted into Ulead photo software and converted it to a jpg. Once I had the banner, it was just a matter of plugging it in and setting up the rest of the page. I’ll admit, I did have to get professional help at one point.

I used the same banner on http://www.kychristianwriters.blogspot.com/ to provide continuity between the two sites. If you’re at all interested in writers conferences, please subscribe to the KCWC blog, and maybe we’ll see you at the conference next year.

I’m doing OK with Front Page, but I would not have gone out and bought it to do these sites. I want to do more research on the WordPress version that you download onto your computer. This version requires a hosting account, and therefore is not free. Supposedly, though, you get a lot more functions with that version.

News flash: I just found a great article on Web sites for writers on the Writer’s Digest site. Be sure to check it out, especially if you don’t already have a site or if you’re thinking of changing your current arrangement.

I’ve noticed many other writers like WordPress or Typepad. My primary criterion was that the blog service be free. Next, I wanted it to be easy to use…”intuitive” in Geek-speak. Typepad costs, or at least it did when I was doing my evaluation, so I didn’t even consider trying it.

I’ve decided to stay with Blogger after experimenting with WordPress. Although WordPress does have features that Blogger doesn’t, I think Blogger is easier to use and has more features that I want for my purposes. There’s plenty of help available through the regular Help channel and there’s a blog on using Blogger, too.

I’ve done some research on what others think about this subject. Here’s some info that helped me make my decision.

http://pulsed.blogspot.com/2007/07/blogger-wordpress-chart.html

http://www.jonbishop.org/2008/05/blogger-vs-wordpress/

Many writers are using blogs in lieu of a Web site to promote their work. I’m not sure it’s a good substitute, but it’s working for some people.