Open your Web browser, point it to www.wordpress.com, and click the Sign Up Now button.

In the sign-up page, type the name you want to use in the Username field. This can be your name, an online identity (handle), or the name you would like for the blog. In this case, I used HollywoodBartender. Next, type a password. WordPress advises users to choose a password that mixes uppercase and lowercase characters as well as numbers and symbols. An example of this kind of mixture would be P@ssW0rd789. Retype the password in the Confirm box.

In the next box down, type in your e-mail address. Like the online warning says, triple-check that you have the spelling correct. If you ever forget your password, a new one will be e-mailed to this address. You can use your existing e-mail account; or, if you want to establish an entirely new identity just to deal with your blog, you can create a new e-mail identity at a free e-mail site. Make sure that the I Have Read and Agree to the Fascinating Terms of Service check box is selected. (Please click the link and do read the terms of service before agreeing to them.) Select the Gimme a Blog! radio button, and then click Next.

This next page is where you pick your domain name and the title of your blog. You will need to think carefully and maybe try a number of options in this next step. Type in the domain name you want for your blog. This isn't necessarily going to be the name of your blog, but it should be as close to it as you can get. If your name is already in use by another blogger, you'll be prompted to try another domain name. The default name here is the same as your Username. Try to keep this name short and sweet so that your readers can type it as easily as possible. In this instance, I chose to keep it the same as the Username, so the resulting URL for the blog is http://www.hollywoodbartender.wordpress.com. Remember: Like the site says, after you choose this Web address, it can't be changed. You can, however, start all over later if you come up with a genius idea for a domain name.

In the next box down, give your blog a name in the Blog Title field. Most people try to come up with something memorable. Unlike the URL, you can change and tweak the blog title later. In this case, I wanted to build on the words Hollywood Bartender that appear in the URL, so the blog title is "The Secret Life of a Hollywood Bartender."

Choose the language you will be blogging in. This list will set the default character set available for your text. That is, if you're going to blog in Hindu or Farsi, choose that language so the characters show up how they're supposed to (rather than appearing as blank spaces and random punctuation).

Leave the Privacy check box selected if you want your blog to show up in search engines. (Um, clear the check box if you don't want to be listed in search engines or WordPress.) However, clearing this check box doesn't mean that your blog will be totally invisible and private — just that you're not going out of your way to publicize it and try to drive traffic to it. Click the Signup button when you're satisfied with your choices. Remember: After you click this button, you cannot change the URL: You can only start over and pick a new URL.

WordPress sends a message to the e-mail account you entered. Go to your e-mail inbox and check for the message. You must click the link in the message (or cut and paste it into the browser navigation bar) to activate your blog. It may take up to 30 minutes for the confirmation message to arrive, so be patient if it doesn't show up immediately. However, you must confirm this activation e-mail within two days, or WordPress will assume that you entered an incorrect e-mail address and then delete your blog.

If you haven't received your confirmation e-mail yet, scroll down to see some other options. You can click Contact Support, or re-enter your e-mail address. When you do click the link that you receive in your e-mail, you are taken to a page that says Your Account is Now Active! Your username and password should already appear in the blanks on that page.

You are prompted to update your profile. You can do this now, or get back to it later. If you want to do it now, enter your first and last name, and write a short description about yourself and why you are blogging. Click the Save Profile button after you're done. Don't worry — you can go back and change it if you later don't like it. You will be taken to the Login screen.

If the fields in the Login screen aren't filled in, enter your username and password; then click the Log In button. You can select the Remember Me check box if you're on your own computer and want to have it fill in the blanks for you.

When you login, you will be taken to the Dashboard. This is where you have an overview of all the controls you can use on your blog. Start by customizing your template, which is the focus of the next task.

Log in to your WordPress account. On the Dashboard page, scroll down until you see the Appearance drop-down list. Click the Appearance button to open up that menu.

Under Appearance, click Themes to navigate to the directory of free themes available through WordPress. You can scroll through multiple pages to find one that suits you. Click the thumbnails to open a window showing a mock-up of what your blog would look like. When you find a design you like, click Install to make that your template. Note: You can always change your template later.

I'm using a theme called MistyLook as an example here because it offers a couple of easy-to-control features and allows me to show off interesting widgets. After the theme is installed, it appears on top of your Manage Themes page.

Start the customization by working in the Header Image first. Click the Custom Header link. I prepared an image to replace the picture of the trees and bridge over the pond. You can use any photo-editing program to make a similar Header Image, as long as it fits in with the size requirements. In this case, you can crop an image to fit; or if you have one that's 760 × 190 pixels, you can use it as is. Click the Browse button to navigate to where your image is stored. When you find it, click to select it and then click Open. Then click the Upload button.

You see a message that reads Header complete! Click the Visit Site button to see what your new blog header looks like.

Check out your new blog header. You can go back and edit the source picture if you're not happy with the way it looks (using a photo-editing program like Photoshop). Click My Dashboard (top of the window) to go back to the control panel to customize a couple other things about your blog's appearance.

Under the Settings panel, click General. These settings control the title of your blog, the tagline, time zone, e-mail address, and other basic data.

Because I customized the image to include the title of the blog, I'd like to get rid of the redundant words that appear above the banner. I clicked here and deleted the words that were in the Blog Title and Tagline text boxes. You can also use this page to change the title and tagline, if you want. Click in the text boxes to make your changes; then click Save Changes at the bottom of the page to make the changes take effect on your blog. Click Visit Site (up at the top of the page, next to the title of your blog) to see what the changes you have made look like. Your tagline can be a longer explanation of what your blog is about, a favorite quotation, a joke or you can go without one.

As you can see in the figure, I removed the distracting words above my nice new banner. Now it's time to customize what appears in your sidebar(s). (You likely noticed by now those boxes running down the side columns, depending on your layout and the features that come with your template.)

Click on the Dashboard button in the top left corner of the page to return to your Dashboard page, and scroll down to the Appearance panel. Click to open the Appearance panel if it's not already open and then click Widgets.

You navigate to the Widgets control panel. Click a widget that you like and drag it to one of your sidebars. Hint: If you have multiple columns in your blog layout, you will have multiple sidebars to choose from.

A four-pointed icon appears over the title bar to the widgets that you're dragging. This means that you can drag the widget to your sidebar, or drag it out of your sidebar, if you don't like how it looks or acts. You can also reorder the widgets by dragging them up or down in the sidebar. Some widgets will have boxes for you to fill in with information, such as the title you'd like to appear above your most recent posts, or the URL to a Flickr account. When you're done making entries and you want to see how the new sidebar looks, click Visit Site at the top of the page.

You see the new widgets as they appear in the sidebar on your page. If you don't like how they look, navigate back to the widget page and either adjust them or drag them out of your sidebar.

In the Appearance box, click on Themes to navigate to the Manage Themes page. The last, and most complicated option for customizing your theme, is Edit CSS. This is most definitely not for beginners. You will need to purchase a Custom CSS upgrade, which will cost you about $15 per year per blog that you want to totally customize. With this option, though, you can control the fonts, colors, sizes, arrangements, line thickness — basically everything in your layout. You can make one change here without having to pay: setting the maximum width for media files in your blog so that pictures or videos don't overflow your columns and mess up the look of your blog. If you are going to embed videos on your page, your columns should be at least 360 pixels wide. Most basic videos are 320 pixels wide. If you want to display higher-quality videos, they are 640 pixels wide, so your layout should be at least 680 pixels wide, to allow some breathing room. The total width of your blog is up to you; but most Web designers try to keep their pages under 970 pixels wide so they display well on monitors set to a 1024×768 resolution.

Log in to your blog at www.wordpress.com. Scroll down to the Posts button and click it to open its drop-down list.

Click Add New to open the Add New Post page.

The Add New Post Page looks complicated, but after you work with it a few times, the basic functions are pretty intuitive. First, write a snappy headline for your post. Click in the text field at the top of the page and type in a short description of what you want to say. Then press Enter (Windows)/Return (Mac).

A URL and a couple of buttons appear below the headline text box. The URL, or Permalink, is the address where your post will appear when you finally publish it. You will see the Web address of your blog, followed by the date and the word(s) in your headline. You can click Edit to change the words in the Permalink if you want to make them different from your headline. Or, if you're planning on sharing your post via e-mail, or social network sites like Facebook and Twitter, click Get Shortlink, and WordPress will automatically compress the post's URL to a combination of letters and numbers.

In the Upload/Insert area, type the text of your blog post, using the formatting icons to choose fonts, create lists and links, and customize other layout styles. Hint: To apply formatting to the text, select the text you want to affect, and then click the icon for the style you want to apply. You can choose font options, bold, italics, text color, text alignment, bulleted or numbered lists, special characters, and more. If you don't see all these options, click the Show/Hide Kitchen Sink button on the far right or press Alt+Shift+Z (Windows)/(Mac) to open what WordPress calls "The Kitchen Sink." This is the second row of buttons that includes such functions as pasting from Microsoft Word (a handy feature that allows you to avoid contaminating your blog post with Word's formatting), or designating something with the various Heading, Paragraph or Address tags.

The five buttons at the top of the Upload/Insert area allow you to insert some very special content. From left to right, they allow you to add an image, insert video, add audio/music, add media (kind of a catch-all), or add a poll. Clicking each button opens a window that prompts you to choose files on your local hard drive, or that are at a URL on the Internet. WordPress does enforce some space limitations (3GB of content comes free, but you can upgrade to up to 25GB of storage) although it does offer upgrades where you can buy additional storage and bandwidth.

To insert an image into your blog entry, click the Add Image icon (looks like a rectangle inside another rectangle). (To find out how to prepare images for use on the Web, read Chapter 5.) The Add an Image window appears, where you can choose from a handful of methods: Choose an image on your computer and upload it, provide the Web address (URL) for an image on another Web site, or add an image from your Media Library. Just click the tab you want at the top and follow the directions that appear on screen.

To add a link, first select the text that you want readers to click to find the link. Then simply click the Link icon (the link of chain) or press Alt+Shift+A. When the URL window opens, copy and paste the Web address for the link into the window. Note: You need to use the full URL, including the http:// part, to create a working link.

You can also add tags to your blog post. Tags are keywords that describe the blog post, and search engines pay special attention to tags so that they can better sort your content into search result listings. To add a tag, simply type it in the Add New Tag text box, just to the right of where you entered your post. Click the link below this box to choose from a list of tags that you frequently use so that you don't have to spend time typing in the same old words over and over again. Click each tag, and it will appear under the Add New Tag box. Click on the gray "X" next to the tag if you made a mistake, and want to delete it.

Click the Check Spelling icon (looks like a check mark on top of the letters ABC) to have spelling errors underlined in red in your blog post. Click any error to select from a list of corrections. You can choose the language you want the spellcheck to work in by clicking on the triangle next to the ABC checkmark button to open up the drop-down menu. You can then click on the language that you want spellcheck to operate in when checking the spelling in your post. Spellcheck will then underline words that are misspelled in that language. If you compose a post that uses words from a couple of languages and you're not sure about the spelling, this feature can come in handy because you can spellcheck in one language and then do it again in another language.

Before you post your entry, click the Preview button, in the upper-right corner of the Add New Post page, to see how your chosen styles look. This opens another browser window with your post in it as it will look when it is published. You can return to Editing mode by closing this window. If you decide (after previewing) to remove formatting, simply highlight any element with a style you want to remove and click the Remove Formatting icon. (It looks like an eraser.)

Click the Edit link next to Publish Immediately to see options for setting the date and time of your post. Click Edit next to Visibility: Public to control how the post is seen. You can choose to make this post always appear on the front page of your blog, password-protect it so that only people you authorize see it, or make it private so that only you can see the contents. Click Edit next to Status: Draft to make this blog entry either a draft; or mark it as Pending Review if you are collaborating with others and are waiting for them to look it over. You can leave all the options expanded, as shown in the figure, but you need to click OK in each area for the settings to take effect.

Click Add New Category in the Categories section. A text box opens where you can type in new categories, or select check boxes next to existing categories. This is a simple but powerful tool that allows your users to sort your blog posts based on categories that they are interested in, without them having to search through all your pages in chronological order to find the topics they are interested in. For example, a user who wants to see all the posts you've written that are Top 10 lists would click Top 10 under the Categories section of your blog to make your blog generate a page containing only posts that you have categorized as being Top 10 lists — or related to Top 10 lists.

The Excerpt area allows you to choose what sentences or paragraphs will appear in the RSS feed of your subscribers, or that will be weighted more heavily by search engines. You can either pick your best and most descriptive writing, or you can sum up what you have to say.

When everything looks right, click the Publish button. The system then confirms that your post has been published. After you publish your post, click the Visit Site link at the top of the page, or View Post, to ensure that your post was published successfully and looks the way you want.