Knowing your Skill Level
There are two types of WordPress’ internal and external. By knowing what you are capable of will help you in the next set of steps. If you own a domain + hosting or are willing purchase one and what to use the WordPress there then you’ll need an external WordPress and can jump to Full Guide to WordPress External Blogs – Setup.
The internal is located a WordPress.com. WordPress.com is designed to give the blogger space to put out their content with zero preexisting HTML knowledge. Currently WordPress.com is a free service with limited restrictions, the main being that you can’t choose a preexisting name because what ever name is chosen is made into a sub domain of WordPress.com (i.e. TimeStampStudios.WordPress.com). WordPress.com is design for independent bloggers who wanted a place for a dear diary or a list of updates about a subject or topic. If that is all you need and you don’t need to read past part 1 of setting up your WordPress.
Setting up a WordPress.com
First look for the sign up now button on the WordPress.com website. Also in the home page is a little more information on their features
Next you’ll see the sign up form. With the following fields: Username (Can’t be changed after the fact), Password (Must contain an Uppercase, Lowercase, and Number), Confirm (confirm you password), E-Mail (Don’t screw it up because then someone else will get access to your site), Legal checkbox (read it), finally the radio buttons (if your reading this then you want a WordPress.com blog, but if you were supposed go to setup part 2 by were too curious then take note of the second option because you’ll need to sign up for a username later. Why? To get your WordPress API for the spam blocker)
Next up is the blog setting, Blog Domain (Which is the name of your blog, i.e. subdomain.wordpress.com), Blog Name, Language, Privacy (Do you want search engines to find the blog). Once you fill in those fields press sign up and an e-mail will be sent to you to with an activation address. the email is as follows.
Howdy,
Thank you for signing up with WordPress.com. You are one step away from blogging at [Blog Subdomain].wordpress.com. Please click this link to activate your blog:
http://wordpress.com/activate/[your 16 charactor activation number]
–The WordPress.com Team
(If clicking the link in this message does not work, copy and paste it
into the address bar of your browser.)
Back in the browser you have the options to add you name first & last name as well as an about me section. You can fill them out but please keep in mind it my be displayed in some themes. Anyway, once active you can use the blog. SAVE the E-Mails sent to you by WordPress! Next up is Setup Part 2 which is for people who own their own domain and want to use an external WordPress. So as an Internal user of WordPress.com you can skip that and go straight to Full Guide to Internal WordPress Blogs – Configuration (Coming Soon).