1. Choose your topic, and stick to it

There are many blogs that haven’t got to where they want to go because they tried to take on too many things at once. If it’s a personal blog, stick to writing about the events in your life; or if it’s a topical blog, don’t venture too far from the main topic base. If you try to write about too much you end up with the ‘Jack of all trades, but a master of none’ scenario, where your writing doesn’t develop the deep knowledge about the subject that will make it great.

2. Know your audience

Your target audience is the most important thing to you. When writing a blog, you want to match what you write to what your audience wants to read. If your targets are mainly businesses, then write in a way that attracts professionals. If it’s a social blog, don’t be too formal and try to write in a way that you would talk to friends. You want them to be able to relate to your writing, so that they will come back for more next time.

3. Find some plugins that work with your site

There are millions of plugins and extensions for whatever blogging platform you use. Get to know what you can add to make the experience of your blog unique. There are many options for customising style as well as adding functionality. Plugins such as WordPress SEO by Yoast offer a lot for helping your site appear on searches. Other things like JQuery Easy for Joomla! allows you to use JQuery easily to customise the look of your site. Have a look to see what you can find for your site!

4. Don’t be afraid to ask for help

If there’s something you want to do with your blog, but you don’t quite know how, don’t be afraid to stick your request into a search engine, or head over to a developer forum for the blog software you’re using. All scripts have documentation somewhere around the internet, and it’ll be easy to find someone who knows how to do what you want. All you have to do is not be stubborn about doing it on your own. How else will you learn if you don’t get someone to help you?

5. Don’t expect immediate growth without putting the work in

Your blog isn’t going to become the next internet phenomenon over night. It will take work from you to add posts and turn it into something that people will want to check every day. You’re going to need to be focused and write often to keep readers interested. Don’t lose heart because you’re not getting many readers, and don’t lose interest in your own writing. You can’t expect people to read something that the writer doesn’t care about. Show your passion for the subject and stick to the writing. Remember, even the greatest blogs started out small.

We will be updating this blog when we take the server down and keep it up to date during the downtime.

Thanks very much for your understanding.

23:17 – We are almost ready to take down the servers to continue with the maintenance. We will do the work as quickly as possible, please stay with us for updates!

23:34 – We have now taken down our servers. Please stay tuned.

00:08 – Servers all plugged in and booting up. Should be back online soon.

00:17 – Everything should be coming back online now! Total downtime 53 minutes.

There will be an outage between 22:00 and 01:00; if all goes well downtime is expected to last 1.5 hours. Your service is to be considered as ‘At Risk’ from 21:00 throughout the window as we will be working in the rack. In the event of a problem may downtime last the extent of the window.

We will log the work while we carry it out on twitter via our account @InspireHosting we will be able to respond to any questions there during the work so please make sure you are following us. We will also be posting a live blog here on our server status page.

We will issue an all clear notice once the work has been completed.

If you have any questions please contact our support desk.

Thank you very much for your cooperation.

Our first Facebook promotion is very very simple, all you have to do is like our page, write ‘Hello Inspire’ on our wall and you could be one of our 5 lucky winners! Click here to go to our Facebook page.

But what are the prizes I hear you ask? Well, have a look:

- 1st prize is a £20 iTunes voucher, free .uk domain & a years hosting,
- 2nd prize is free hosting for a year with free .uk domain
- Runners up will win 1 year of free hosting!

Winners will be picked at random on 28/10/2011. Hosting package prize is our ‘Personal Plan‘

DeStyle by ThemeShift

DeStyle is a very stylish and attractive theme that will make your website stand out more than any others! It looks like a posh premium template, but it’s free!

Dreamworks Redux by BlogDesignBlog

Dreamworks Redux allows you to have an official looking business blog with a touch of class and style along with it. The colour combinations are stunning and eye-catching, and the layout is simple so everyone knows what’s going on around your blog!

Ultra Business by WPExplorer

Ultra Business is perfect for anyone wanting a plain yet stunning design. It allows for customisation of modules, if you know how (and if you don’t, there’s always MieowThemes for WordPress design to help!), and your own style to be added!

Notepad by iThemes

Notepad, like Ultra Business, is plain but it draws in your visitors and makes sure they become your customers!

WP Coda by Choice Themes

WP Coda allows for you to keep your own individuality through your business, whatever kinda of thing you do. The one column slider layout lets you have all the information your visitors need in one easy place.

Yellow 3 by SkinPress

We don’t know what happened to Yellow 1 and Yellow 2, but Yellow 3 is definitely worth their fate. The design is so bold, no-one will escape your website and you’re guaranteed they will remember you!

Timeline Digest by Dezzain

Timeline Digest is a simple design that has everything you need within easy reach, and plenty of advertising space for your business to grow and earn some extra revenue, or even show off your fancy contacts!

Evolution by Blogging Tips

Evolution has style and simplicity all in one bundle, using a clever layout to show yourself off however you want to, including a stylish RSS feed so that nobody misses a post!

Business Corp by New WP Themes

Business Corp shows off your professional side, including RSS feed, Twitter, and other social networking links so your customers can find you wherever they are.

Incorporate by FT Themes

Last, but not least, Incorporate uses simplicity and subtle gradient balance with a photo slider to show off your classy skills, including advertising space and a recent posts, comments and tags slider to show off your social side!

So there you have it. 10 Business WordPress themes to set your business off for free. But if you want something a bit more personal, talk to K@design for a custom WordPress theme!

Need hosting for your WordPress blog? Have a look at our UK Business Hosting plan for a good deal for your new business.

The first step in this process is an easy one: Google. Or Bing, or Yahoo, or whatever your favourite search engine is. Search whatever you want, be it a premium WordPress theme that you pay for, or a free one that you love.

Then you have to download the file to a location you can remember. WordPress themes come in .zip files, making this quite easy, as WordPress has a clever system for installing them. Once you’ve downloaded your .zip file, log in to your WordPress Dashboard (your domain.com/wp-admin). You then find the ‘Appearance‘ tab on the left hand menu. Expand this tab and click on the ‘Themes‘ link. This will open a page of previously installed themes; this will be empty if you have not installed any, only including the default themes.

You should then click on the ‘Install Themes‘ tab at the top.

This button will take you to a search screen, which you can also use to find a theme you like. This is another easy way of installing a theme, but limits you to only themes that have been submitted to the WordPress themes catalogue. If you want to do it this way, choose a search term for the search box at the top, or select colours and styles in the tick-boxes and click ‘Find Themes‘. WordPress will then list the themes it thinks you will like. If you find one suitable, click on the Preview link to see what it looks like with your content, and then click Install. WordPress will then install the theme and you’re ready to go!

If you have downloaded a theme you wish to install, there will be a little menu above the search box in the Install tab. Click on the ‘Upload‘ link. This will take you to an upload screen, where you should click ‘Choose File‘ and find the theme you have downloaded. Click ‘Install Theme‘, and WordPress will extract the files and save them in the right place.

Now you should have your perfect new WordPress theme up and running! If you can’t find a theme you like, why not talk to our friends at K@design for WordPress design, who will gladly customise your website to whatever style you want!