Thread: Starting a blog, advice needed

I'm thinking about starting a blog to build a community of people (similar to bodybuilding.com) who are interested in my particular genre of music. My goal is to use this blog as a marketing tool in order to launch my fastlane venture in the music industry. I guess the idea is that I can build up an e-mail list through a newsletter and I can put ads directly on the blog for the business.

I used 1&1 hosting for my last web site venture and it came with a blog tool. I thought it was really awful because there were only a handful of templates to work from and the one I chose had problems with it. My aim right now is to get a blog that is basic but not so blog looking. I only have a handful of sub-categories so I don't need a large magazine layout.

Should I use Wordpress for this site? What would be involved in getting a professional looking blog like I described with my own logo? Would I have to hire my own designer?

Thank you!

Agree with that. When I used to blog, it was with word press.