Are you looking for a way to create a nice looking site? A blog is one choice you have. You can install a free WordPress blog right into your hosting account for free. Plus, there are thousands of themes you can choose from which are free. It is possible to create a cool looking website which costs you nothing but the hosting and domain expenses.

But it’s not all peaches and cream for anyone who has gone this route like I have many times. The problems with the free themes are that they don’t always work as they should. Worse yet, some of them have bugs in them which you don’t always discover right away. More than once I have installed blog and found a cool looking theme, put a LOT of work into getting the “look” just how I wanted, and then up pops a bug. Most of these free themes do not come with much support. If you are lucky, the developer might have a blog where you can leave a comment…but in most cases you are on your own.

Another issue for those of us who are not good with PHP is how difficult it is to add things to the side bar, header or footer areas. It can be very frustrating fumbling with trial and error while inserting images, ads, and such.

Here’s what I suggest. For your core sites…the ones you intend to market heavily and focus much effort on…don’t go the “cheap” route. Purchased themes are the only way to go in these cases. Themes for sale have been tested extensively. You KNOW they will work and you KNOW you’ll have support for them. Plus, they almost always look better than the free ones!

And here’s another HUGE benefit. Many of the free ones have an added configuration tool which installs automatically into the WordPress control panel. This configuration tool alone is worth every penny you pay for the theme. These tools make it ever so easy to change the banner image, change the page layout, add links or images to the sidebar and footer, etc.

If you ever buy a theme with these features, you’ll never go back to the free ones!

One company I have used and suggest highly is iThemes. They have cool looking styles and great support. There are other great ones too, but I have experience with iThemes and feel comfortable suggesting them.

Oh, and if you like my twitter icon at the top left of this page, you can download your own from their site for free!

Here’s their site:

iTheme also has FREE twitter icons you can download for your site:

Free Twitter Icons Here

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