This is a post related to the Blogging 101 WordPress Course.
Day Five: Love Your Theme
Starting a blog is kind of like buying a house: you decide what neighborhood you want to live in, pick a house, and fill it with your stuff. For a blogger, that means deciding on a blogging platform, picking a theme, and publishing posts.
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We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.
Winston Churchill
Here in the UK we have a popular TV programme called Location, Location, Location.
The presenters (two property experts), assist house-hunters to look for a suitable property either as a home for themselves, or to purchase as an investment.
Location is normally a key factor in terms of personal desirability and future equity value. But whilst some individuals stick to their guns and opt for location over space, others forgo their ideal location for the advantage of extra square footage and the potential to extend the property.
I mention the above because when I first started looking around for a home for my blog, I didn’t know the first thing about what to look for. I picked a certain provider for my blog’s location simply because being a rebellious soul, I didn’t want to follow the crowd. I found somewhere obscure, which I thought would suit me and decided to set up camp.
I did all the necessary for moving in by preparing my “About Page” and so forth. However, for some reason, when it came to clicking that button to go live, I got cold feet and decided to hold matters in abeyance.
Several months later when I decided to bite the bullet, there was no sign of my carefully prepared pages. Although my account had not been deleted, my pages had.
I was annoyed. Mega annoyed!
And that bitter experience decided it for me. That site was obviously not the right location for me after all.
So I took a look at WordPress. They were offering support, a large blogging community, and an excellent choice of free themes, so I set up my blogging home with them and dear reader, I’ve not looked back since!
Now just as your residential home reflects your personality, I don’t believe it should be any different for your blog home. And just as there are different styles of residential properties (flat, bungalow, town house etc), so there are different blog homes to accommodate your preferences. These various blog homes are called themes. And each theme has its own unique style.
It was important to me that the theme I chose reflected my personality and suited the ethos of my blog. I wanted the layout to be inviting to visitors and I didn’t want anything that would be time consuming to maintain.
This factor became doubly important to me once I actually began blogging, because I’d not realised that in addition to writing posts, I’d need to interact with other bloggers and respond to comments, which all takes precious time.
Having been a blogger now for just over four years, I truly appreciate the generosity of WordPress in offering a choice of free themes. It gives you an opportunity to try your hand out at blogging without having to spend and therefore waste money, should you not continue.
And I also appreciate the wonderful blogging community here.
Dear readers, thank you all so much for your visits, likes, comments and encouragement. It has helped me to keep going and confirmed to me that my blog resides in the right location.
I do hope you experience a warm welcome whenever you visit my blog home.
Dear reader, know that my door will always be open, so please don’t hesitate to come again. If you enjoyed your visit today, why not sign my guest book below (i.e. comment box)?
And, whilst you’re here, tell me, do you like my current theme?
Why did you choose your theme and what do you think it says about you? If you respond, I’ll pop by and take a look.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Love,
Carol (aka Lady Cee)
Author of: 
Petitions From My Heart
(If you live in the UK click here)
CREDIT: The above CC0 images come courtesy of Pixabay.com
A Purpose-driven achiever 