getting Started with WordPress.com

If you are considering becoming a professional blogger, most likely would want to have your own domain name, and a custom blog design, luckily for you, WordPress.com offers you an excellent, affordable service to do just that – without the stress!

step 1 – register your domain

This is not a required step for setting up a blog on WordPress.com, but if you are seriously considering blogging or especially if you want to become a professional blogger, it would be to your benefit to use your own domain name from the beginning.

Before you start, your will need to register your domain name, using godaddy, namecheap, or your favorite domain registrar, and set the domain name servers to “ns1.wordpress.com”, “ns2.wordpress.com”, and “ns3.wordpress.com”.

If you are using namecheap.com, you need to select the option “Transfer DNS to Webhost”, and enter the WordPress.com nameservers into the fields provided (see screen capture below).

step 2 – create a WordPress.com account

To setup a WordPress.com account, you need to click over to www.wordpress.com, then use the “sign up” link to create an account.

The sign up form will take about 10 seconds to complete, screen capture below.

In the next step, select a name for your WordPress.com blog, although you already registered your domain name, you still need to create a blog name for WordPress.com to associate with your domain name, once you submit your blog name, your blog will be automatically set up for you.

You can take some time to read about all the wonderful features of your new WordPress.com blog – the feature list will introduce you to everything that you can do with your new WordPress.com blog (most of the same features are available on a self-hosted WordPress blog as well). For a more detailed user guide, you can try the WordPress.org website. And finally, if you are not already reading Lorelle, you really need to, so visit her and subscribe to her feed.

step 3 – point your domain to WordPress.com

Once you are logged into the main control panel, you should notice that the labels are all easy to understand and the interface is simple to use.

To set up your own domain, you need to navigate to “Options” (from the main, light blue menu), then to “Domains” (from the sub, dark blue menu), then add in your domain name, “example.com” (without the http://) into the “Add a Domain” field on the page, and select “Add domain to blog”. Once this is completed, your blog should have it’s own domain!

optional – create a community of bloggers

Creating a community blog on WordPress.com is extremely easy! All the bloggers within the community need to create a WordPress.com account, just like in step 2, then you will need to add them into your new blog. Using the “users” tab, located in the top, light blue navigation, add the email addresses of the bloggers who would be contributing to your community blog. These community bloggers need to log into their own WordPress.com accounts and they would be allowed to make posts to the community blog. Easy as pie! And your account remains private.

Costs (per year):
1) Domain name (brand new ones are usually less than $10 per year, while domains on the market can go for thousands) – $8.88 at NameCheap
2) WordPress.com’s DNS changes – $10
3) WordPress.com Custom CSS service (optional) – $15

So for $18.88, you can have a no-stress, WordPress blog up and running on your OWN domain! Or for $33.88, you can have a WordPress blog with your own domain name, and a custom look and feel! Pretty good deal if you ask me! And because you are using your own domain name, once you are established and ready to move out on your own, your domain rank should remain in tact.

UPDATE: You cannot run ads on WordPress.com, but this is still an excellent way to get your feet wet without significant cost or setup time.

Up next: how to customize your WordPress theme using only the CSS