There are numerous options when it comes to picking a theme to use with your blog. The main decision to make is whether to use a free theme or pay for one. All you have to do is a simple Google Search on "free wordpress themes" or "premium wordpress theme" to see all of your options. In building blogs for clients, I have had experience with both free and premium themes, and my best experiences have been with premium. Mind you the premium themes are almost always under $100 which is a little price to pay to make life easier.

Here are the advantages:

• You can get support from the developer if you do have a problem.


• You may have a footer with the developer name, but you won't have affiliate links in the footer that you can't remove.


• They typically have easy-to-use control panels that make for easier and faster customization and changes.


• Upgrades to the theme to go with updates to WordPress

Once you have your selected, installed and customized your theme, you are going to want to add a few more things to your blog. First you want to add an About or Author page. Not a post, a page. You want people to know who is behind the writing of the blog. It helps to give the reader a better feel for the voice of the author or authors. Be sure to include all your authors if it is a team blog. In addition to short bios, try to include a photo. I know, I know I don't have a photo on here and that is on my list of improvements to make.

The last thing I want to see you have on your blog are links to both your company's website and any social media spokes you are using. This provides two benefits to you and your readers. One, it let's people know other ways to connect with you, such as Twitter or Facebook. Different people prefer different social media tools, so if you link to them on your blog they are able to choose how they want to stay connected. The second advantage is that if people find you on Twitter and want to make sure you are, in fact, legitimate it helps to have links that cross-pollenate so they will know you are who you say you are.

Simple things to get your blog ship-shape and on the way to better business exposure. Tomorrow we are going to talk about giving your readers options to subscribe to your blog. What has your experience been with themes?

Note: I have been referring to WordPress self-hosted edition throughout as this is the platform I have the most experience with and prefer. You can apply most of this information to the platform of your choosing.