Oh, I’m computer literate, I suppose. But no whiz, that’s for sure. Too old for that.

I had been blogging for a long time when my buddy Charles Heflin looked at my blog one day and said, “You know, Richard … you ought to use graphics in your posts.”

And in fact, I did know that. But I’m not a techie. How could I possibly do it?

Turns out I already had the Wordpress plug-in that makes it easy:

Tiny MCE Advanced Wordpress plug-in

When you upload this plugin to your blog, it’s easy to feature graphics.

So, which graphics?

Well … mostly I like to lighten things up a bit. I prefer cartoons. And I just found a great source of colorful cartoons you can use for your blog graphics:

Bucchino - The Wizard of Draws

The cartoon at the start of this post is an example of his work. You need to link to his website, but just add that link in your list of Resources, and you’re free to use any of his hundreds of cartoons.

It’s a good thing.

Richard Dennis

I like a Wordpress blog for a lot of reasons. There are so many ways you can personalize a Wordpress blog, so many ways you can leverage the power of that website … all while having zero or very little technical knowledge yourself.

You want a Wordpress blog on your own webspace - not the one hosted by Wordpress. If they host it, they have control over it. And we have seen them simply delete blogs, seemingly on a whim. You sure don’t want to put yourself in that position.

So, I recommend getting webspace at Hostgator.com, for ten bucks a month. You get a lot more space than you’ll probably ever use, plus you can put up 50 blogs if you want to, each with its own domain name.

What I especially like about Hostgator is that in their Back Office, you can do a keyword search for just about any online action you want to perform and find a video on how to do it. Their videos will walk you step-by-step through anything you want to do with your webspace. And if you still have trouble, just make out a “trouble” ticket. They always respond within a few hours.

One reason I like a Wordpress blog so much is … Wordpress themes. Because Wordpress is an “open source” software program, lots of people create themes for WP blogs. A “theme” is the appearance of the blog

• What does the header look like?
• Is there a gizmo column on the left or a gizmo column on the right … or both?
• What color combination does the blog use?
• What fonts?
• Etc., etc., etc.

The attractiveness and appeal of a blog has a lot to do with the theme you choose. Does it appear cluttered? Or is it more like sitting by the ocean, listening to the waves lap up on the shore?

It just makes a big difference what the darned thing looks like, no matter which blog platform you choose. But with WP, a ton of themes are free and easy to load into your blog.

You can just go to Google and search

free Wordpress themes

You get a ton of results. Take a look at a few and see what appeals to you.

I admit to being a theme junkie. I’ve tried a lot of them. I find things I like and things I don’t like about each. But for the forseeable future, I have settled on my favorite over all the others I’ve tried …

Flexibility Theme

I like it because “flexibility” is its middle name. Well, technically, “flexibility” is its first name. You have lots of different options within the theme. Heck, you even get a control panel just for this theme. It’s the first theme I’ve ever found with its own control panel … althought I’m sure there must be others. You can control & experiment with a lot of elements in the appearance of your blog.

There are also paid themes available. Here’s one I really like:

Thesis

Looks great, lots of gizmos, well-supported, about $90.

Back in high school, I read a short story by Ernest Hemingway titled, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. Hemingway blew his brains out long before anyone conceived of the internet, but his short story title perfectly describes what your blog should look like. Anything less, and you will not create the impression you want your visitors to have.

Many themes you’ll find have names that describe what they’re like: magazine theme, church theme, diary theme, blue theme, etc.

Ultimately, it’s the content you offer that will determine whether your blog is successful or not. But people do often judge a book by its cover, so it’s important your theme’s appearance not be a turn-off. I strongly recommend you do that Google search and look at a lot of themes, to get an idea what others are doing.

When you set up your blog using Cpanel at Hostgator or other hosting services, your blog is formatted in the Wordpress Classic theme. Nothing wrong with that … but it’s pretty common and pretty uninspired and doesn’t have too much functionality. Yet, many bloggers just stick with it.

But there is a whole world out there, outside of WordPress Classic. You can find a dozen you like and upload them all to your blog, then sample and see what your blog looks like in each theme. So take a look and make some inspired choices.

Richard Dennis

See that sunrise? It’s the start of a glorious day. Reminds me of Wordpress.

I don’t mind telling you, I love Wordpress.

I am that analytical personality … in areas where it’s fun for me to be analytical. When it comes to writing, I am very detail-oriented. I have to stop myself from investigating every nook and cranny when I’m working on an assignment … or I will happily research forever. A famous writer once said that a book is never finished, it is only abandoned. It’s true for a lot more than just books …

However, I am NOT at all analytical in areas where it’s not fun for me. Like putting up a website, for instance. Yes, I’ve forced myself to learn some HTML code over the years. But I hate it.

I’ve actually put up some rudimentary websites, from scratch. But I hate it.

I’ve even answered questions from those who know even less than I do about putting up a website. I REALLY hate that!

And all this is why WordPress is my darling. It is now so versatile, you can do just about anything with it, and all you need to do is learn which buttons to click. No techie stuff.

I LOVE that!

I recently took a course from Dr. Andy Williams, lessons about how to do virtually anything with Wordpress. OK, it got borderline techie, but I still put up with it. I understand a lot more now about how to use the software, and that should definitely get better results. Here is a recent article from Dr. Andy about Wordpress. Be sure to watch the video, too:

Is WordPress The Ideal Site-Building Tool?

Maybe the most intriguing feature of WordPress is, it is “open source”, which means anybody can take the software and modify it. And a ton of people have created modifications - also known as “plug-ins”, to do a host of really valuable tasks.

My blogs now use about 15 or 20 plug-ins to make promotion much easier and to make writing much easier … or entering a graphic or a video or audio.

It’s very frustrating when you know what you want to do, but you don’t know how. With Wordpress, I run into that problem very rarely.

My conclusion is, whatever you want to do online, you can do it with a WordPress blog. Get your domain name at NameCheap. Get your webspace at HostGator. And then find the video in the HostGator Back Office that shows you in 2-3 minutes how to put up your Wordpress blog, and you will be on your way.

Some people think that because they are not analytical personalities, this will be very difficult for them. Believe me - I am NOT an analytical personality when it comes to putting up a web page.

If I can do it, you absolutely can do it.

Richard Dennis

For about 18 months, I’ve been using 2 vendors I really like for the essential services of domain names & webhosting.

Domain names:

NameCheap.com

The charge for a dn has changed a couple of times in the last 18 months, up maybe $1.50 per name. It’s currently $9.69 for a domain name. But like anything else, it’s not the cheapest service that you should seek out. You want one that is dependable and does what you want.

NameCheap has a back office with a great Control Panel where you can easily do anything you want with your names, especially:

1. Find new domain names (bulk search)
2. Change servers
3. Re-direct the name

Those are the 3 main activities everybody will be doing with a domain name, and it’s easy to do at NameCheap. Plus they have videos to walk you through these and any other task you may want to do. They also have been very quick to respond when I had a question or a problem.

There are certainly other good dn vendors available. I like NameCheap because they have been very dependable, and their Control Panel is easy to use.

Webhosting:

HostGator.com

I like their “Baby” plan for $7.95/month (+$2.00 for a Dedicated IP). You get all the space you need and also, unlimited domains. So you can put up 1 blog or 50 blogs if you want. You get a Cpanel, which means it’s just 3 or 4 clicks to publish your Wordpress blog. You can sign up with HostGator and have a blog up and running in 5 minutes.

And HostGator has a ton of videos, showing you step-by-step how to do anything you could ever possibly want to do. Plus, if you can’t figure it out, just fill out a “help” ticket and you’ll get a response within a few hours. They have never left me hanging … my questions always get answered.

As NameCheap, I think HostGator is a great service. And for $10 a month, it’s probably all the webspace you will ever need. And as opposed to having a blog on a free site like blogger.com or wordpress.org, YOU have control over what you put on this blog and the promotion you do for it. You don’t have to answer to anyone or please someone else.

If you are planning to blog long-term, you definitely want a Wordpress blog on your own hosted webspace, and I highly recommend HostGator for this.

I could write a lot more about both these vendors. Neither has ever disappointed me, and I use them a lot.

If you have any questions, please comment below.

Take care,

Richard Dennis