Now that you’ve given some thought to your blog’s focus, it’s time to continue customizing your site to help you stand out and command attention in the blogosphere.

Spice up your sidebar with widgets

Your site’s sidebar is a great place to show off important links and make it easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for.

See how the site below has a bunch of helpful links in the sidebar? Each of those three sections is an example of a widget, which you can easily activate on your own site with just a few clicks.

Some widgets make it easier for visitors to find specific content on your site, while others can help your visitors connect with you on sites like Facebook and Twitter:

To start activating widgets on your site, go to Appearance > Widgets in your dashboard. Drag the desired widget over to the Sidebar module on the right. Be sure to hit save and close when you’re done editing a widget’s settings.

Introduce yourself

A Gravatar is an image that appears by your name when you interact in the community by leaving comments on other blogs, or posting to the forums, for example.

Once you’ve uploaded a Gravatar to your public profile, you can add the Gravatar Widget to your site’s sidebar to tell visitors a little bit about yourself and what your blog is about:

Gravatars also appear in the Hovercard that pops up when people mouse over your image:

Change your theme

If you decide that you’d like to change your theme, you can do so from the Appearance > Themes area of your dashboard:

Select Live Preview to adjust a theme’s settings before activating it on your site:

You can also activate themes directly from the Theme Showcase by selecting a theme and clicking the activate button on the top right corner of the page:

Want to make your site 100% unique to you?

Get a custom domain name (such as yoursite.com instead of yoursite.wordpress.com) with the Domain Mapping upgrade, and incorporate custom fonts and CSS on your site with the Custom Design upgrade.

Please note that custom themes are only for privately-hosted sites using the WordPress.org software. They cannot be uploaded to WordPress.com.

Additional Resources

Using WordPress.com to Create a Website

Choosing a Theme for Your Blog (WordPress.tv)

Widgets Overview (WordPress.tv)

What’s Next?

You’re ready to Get Published »