Blog your way to success using WordPress.com
Blogging is an important component of any businesses social media plan. This blog is a WordPress blog and using one of many free themes available. WordPress is the number one choice for bloggers around the world and open source.
It’s possible to find free services for blogging like Blogger.com and WordPress.com. Both work just fine if you are just starting out and on a tight marketing budget. Before Facebook and Twitter, a blog was one of the first ways a business could interact with its customers. It allows 2-way discussion and communication with your customers. It is also an easy way for someone not familiar with website coding to get online.
WordPress.com Blog – socialmarket.wordpress.com
If you want to keep your cost down the free version of WordPress is the route to take. Create your free account by filling out some basic information so you can keep the account protected and secure. With the free version your blog address will be yourblogname.wordpress.com and you are limited in storage space. However you can upgrade to premium features if needed at a later date. You are forced to stay with WordPress and if you change your mind you can always import your blog postings into another blog service. If you want more control over your blog, better search engine optimization, better selection of themes and plug-ins then regular WordPress is the best option. You can get your own domain name (typically $10 a year) for your blog and monthly hosting is inexpensive.
When done with the registration process you can start posting right away. There are a few other things to set-up like categories and tags but that can be done as you go. By setting up categories and tags you will help your readers find postings they are interested in. I suggest that you take a few moments and think about the goal of your blog and your target audience. Write out the categories that best fit with your blogs focus. If you were going to write about fashion your categories might be hats, shirts, pants, accessories and shoes. The tags you might use would be bonnets, derby hats, t-shirts, polo shirts, jewelry, watches, jeans and tennis shoes.
WordPress starts you out with the default theme which you can choose to use or you can search through hundreds of free themes 
or find specially customized theme for purchase from many different sources. If you are a real estate agent you can find a theme geared towards the housing market or whatever line of business you might be in. If you are a hobbyist you can find lots of themes to showcase and blog about your favorite hobby. If you don’t like a theme all you have to do is find another that you like and install that theme. Anything you’ve already posted takes on the look of the new theme. Just keep in mind that with the free version of WordPress you are limited in your choices of themes. But there’s something for everyone and more are being added all the time.
Check out more WordPress themes here:
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/
I’ll talk more about themes, plug-ins and widgets in a future post to give you time to get familiar with the free WordPress. Plus I’ll cover the differences between the free version and hosting a WordPress blog.