I suppose this post could be considered counter-intuitive. After all, aren’t we web companies supposed to convince you to hire us? Certainly. But pulling the wool over your eyes on what you can do yourself is dishonest. I’m 100% in favor of beautifying the web and simplifying your ability to get information where it needs to go in an efficient fashion. You should hire a web company when the scope of what you need to accomplish exceeds the limitations of a cheaper service or platform.
With that being said, I’d like to give my recommendation that you check out creating a WordPress.com blog with some premium features. If you’re just wanting to create a blog for fun and not intending to use this for business or any type of self-promotion, just set up a free account. However, if you intend to hold any level of professionalism, I recommend the following:
- Get a custom domain name, like example.com. It’s only $12-$17/year, and it shows some level of seriousness about your site. Don’t skimp on this!
- Buy a premium theme. WordPress.com just debuted these, and it will be a fast-growing market. The premium themes will look significantly better than the stock, free themes.
- Go Ad-free. At $29.97/year, you can show your blog to non-WordPress.com users without ads. It makes your site look better!
- If you plan on using video, subscribe to VideoPress at $59.97/year. In addition to taking all the complications out of using videos on the web, it will automatically turn your site into a video podcast that can be used in iTunes.
You can make a aesthetically-pleasing, easy-to-use site easily! When the features you can find in WordPress.com blogs (or Blogger, etc.) no longer meet your needs, contact Logos to look into building your own custom web experience.