theme downloaded, blue host, what's next

You won’t even have to download the theme to your computer. You can search the www.ads-software.com theme repository directly from the WordPress Dashboard and install themes directly as well.

As far as what options you’ll have, you will have many more options available to you versus having a blog on WordPress.com. You’ll be able to change the CSS styling for your blog without having to pay to do it. And you’ll be able to make edits to theme files as well.

The downsides being that you could easily crash your blog if you mess around in the theme files and don’t know what you are doing. Plus, you won’t have the large amount of server power running your site when you switch over to Blue Host versus WordPress.com.

But I would recommend switching over as using the .org version of WordPress allows you to do many more things.

Once you get the blog up and running its really no different than .com, except there are no restrictions, you can do whatever you like on your own blog.

I wouldn’t worry to much about crashing your blog or messing around with it, there are plenty of people who can help you and even if you have to pay for tweaking it’s cheap. (I’m on/use Fiverr.com and it’s only $5 a tweak, it’s even $5 for someone to install your wordpress blog and setup your database.)

Thanks for the info folks, but I don’t know CSS, and I know very little about HTML. I don’t even know what those 2 acronyms mean. I am an absolute beginner. I Do know WordPress.com pretty well, and have had several blogs there, and even created some for other people. But I am tired of the themes offered; they are all very similar.

So I found a theme I really like on WP.org and downloaded it. I have no idea what those files are. So in piecing it together I’m wondering if I can now pay Blue Host to host my site, and somehow upload the WP.org theme as I would on WP.com, and still be able to understand how to manipulate it and control it on my own with little help?

Sorry for not making sense.

Thanks again.

AC

You will need install wordpress on bluehost as you will be hosting your own blog you will need to setup wordpress and install the plugins you want and install the theme you got. There is learning curve involved but as you said you can mange wordpress.com blog so this should any different.

1. Sign up for an account with Blue Host
2. Use Fantastico or similar program to automatically install WordPress for you (most hosting providers nowadays have software that will automatically install WordPress for you)
3. Log into your WordPress Dashboard, you should receive an email with all of the login information after creating the WordPress install
4. Once logged in, visit the Themes page under the Appearance section on the left hand side of your screen and click the Install Themes tab up at the top of the page.
5. From there you can search the entire WP.org theme repository and install themes easily

If you want to modify the theme once you have it running and activated, you can visit the Editor page found under the Appearance menu as well to modify theme files. Just make sure to make a backup of the file you are editing in case a mistake is made you can easily revert back to the default code.

Thanks everyone.