I spent hours agonizing and stayed up way past my bedtime last night, but here’s the new and improved site! I registered a domain name, designed a logo, and moved everything over. I’m happy with the WordPress blog, but I did made a few mistakes along the way.
After researching prices for web hosting with the major sites, I decided I just wasn’t comfortable dropping $100-$200 to register a domain and host a site. I discovered that WordPress offers a domain registration option for only $15 for a year. No monthly hosting fees. It seemed to be the best option for someone like me with little experience managing a blog. So I decided to go for it.
It was only AFTER I started building my site that I realized that I have no control over the template with a WordPress blog, and there are strict limits on what I can add to my sidebars. For instance, no ads, which is fine with me because I’m nowhere near ready for a step like that. Unfortunately, though, I can’t really add any HTML whatsoever, so no Entrecard, which I did want to add. Bummer.
I’ll be able to switch to another host in 60 days, so that’ll give me some time to get the hang of managing a blog before I take full control. By that point, I’ll probably feel better about committing to a hosting service. In the end it’s probably for the best. But I’m still kicking myself for jumping in without doing all the research. Oops.
My next step was designing a logo. I really wanted something personalized, but I didn’t have any design software. Photoshop, which is my absolute favorite, costs about $650. Um, no thanks. However, Adobe offers a free 30-day trial of Photoshop. Perfect! So I downloaded it, designed my logo, and saved it as a jpg file. For free. I’m pretty excited about that. I’m also pretty proud of my first logo design. What do you think?
I’ve never done anything like this before, so I was bound to make some mistakes. Hopefully I won’t make too many more before I finally get the hang of it.
I hope you like the new layout! I’d love for you to leave me a comment and let me know you’re reading. :)
Your logo looks awesome! Good work. I didn’t realize the limitations there are with WordPress. Oh well, things look good and as you said, you can move to a new host in two months no prob.
Yaaay!
Looks great!
If you decide to move to a different host, check out bluehost.com – that’s who i switched to and i love it. plus? they have one-click installation for things like WordPress, so you don’t have to do it all manually. and they’re fairly cheap. :)
Wow! I am totally impressed by your logo, and the layout of the blog. Thanks for the notes about WP, I will look into buying my domain from blogger. Hope to do a site redesign within the next month. Good job, and have a great weekend!