The beginning of a new year is an opportunity to start things afresh — why should your blog not benefit as well? Here are six things you can do to start your blogging in 2015 energized, recharged, and focused.

Explore your new dashboard

We introduced several major upgrades to the WordPress.com dashboard right before the end of last year, including updated Stats and navigation and the ability to manage and edit all your content across sites from one central hub.

Now is the perfect time to get familiar with some of these new features for a smoother blogging experience. Whether it’s from your computer, tablet, or smartphone, you can check out which posts generated the most likes and comments (and much more) on your Stats page, browse through all your posts and pages, and easily tweak your account settings, review your billing history, and visit your trophy case from My Profile.

Sign up for a blogging course

Our free Blogging U. courses are a great way to get you closer to meeting your blogging goals — whatever those might be — while being part of a supportive, engaged community.

Our next Blogging 101 course starts January 5, and is geared toward new bloggers (you can read more about it, and sign up for it, here), but throughout the year we’ll be offering courses that target different levels, and focus on topics like writing, photoblogging, and more. Be sure to follow announcements from The Daily Post to stay up to date on upcoming courses.

Spruce up your site

Bloggers who love their site’s design publish more. Make sure your site’s look matches the quality of your posts with a few easy tweaks, like switching themes (there are some gorgeous new ones in our Showcase, from our annual default theme, Twenty Fifteen, to recent favorites Editor and Plane). Or just customize your current theme to meet your needs — a few simple touches, like a custom header image or personalized image widgets, can give your site a distinct look with very little work. (Need inspiration? Check out our customization and Early Theme Adopters posts.)

Join a blogging event

Becoming active in the blogging community (or at least in a blogging community) can make all the difference between posting sporadically on a near-dormant blog and keeping yourself energized and your audience engaged. There’s so much to choose from: browse our searchable event listings to find one that’s up your alley, or share your work on our weekly photo challenges and Community Pool posts.

Feeling more adventurous? Consider attending a blogging confernece or creating your own blogging workshop.

Create an editorial calendar

Whether your vision for your blog is to publish once a month or twice a day, your chances of sticking with a regular publication pace increase if you make concrete, sustainable plans. Devoting a little time every few weeks to sketch out an editorial calendar for your blog will help you allocate time, decide on your priorities, and give you the flexibility you need in case unexpected developments keep you away from your blog for a while.

Download our mobile app

Being on the move should never prevent you from publishing a post, engaging in conversations and moderating comments, or keeping up with the latest from your favorite bloggers. With our mobile apps — available for iOS and Android — you can do all of those things wherever you are. You no longer need to wait to get back home to make your voice heard.

Happy 2015 from the entire WordPress.com team! May it be a wonderful year for you and your sites.

New to blogging? A new session of our introductory blogging course starts on Monday, January 5 — and all bloggers are welcome, whether you blog on WordPress.com, a self-hosted WordPress blog, or somewhere else entirely.

Blogging 101 is four weeks of daily bite-size assignments that take you from “Blog?” to “Blog!” — along with a supportive community to encourage you all the way through. At the end of the course, you’ll have a blog you’re proud and excited to publish, and that others are excited to read.
Here’s how it works:

• Assignments fall into three broad categories — publishing posts and pages, customizing your blog, and engaging with the community — and are designed to build on one another.
• We’ll post a new assignment here on The Daily Post each weekday at 12AM GMT. Each assignment will contain all the inspiration and instructions you need to complete it. Weekends are free (but we’ll suggest some ways you might want to spend them).
• Participants will have a private community site, the Commons, for chatting, connecting, and seeking feedback and support. Daily Post staff and Happiness Engineers will be on hand to answer your questions and offer guidance and resources.

You’ll walk away with six (or more!) published posts and a handful of drafts, a customized theme that reflects your personality, a small but growing audience, a good grasp of blogging etiquette — and a bunch of new online friends.

My blog has gone from being dull and plain to having widgets and all this shmancy tech stuff, and from having almost no followers to having a loyal following now!
– Microgalactic

Ready to kick start your blog? Sign up by filling out this simple form:

Registration is closed, but Blogging 101 will be back in February!

Note: you won’t receive an automated confirmation email immediately, but you will get a welcome email with complete instructions prior to the start of the course.

Here’s more great reading for you: five stories we love from across all of WordPress.

1. Spaces of Freedom in Iran

Jake Threadgould

An account of one traveler’s stay in Iran:

On my second night in Iran I was invited to a party in a middle-class area of Tehran. Since we were a mixed gendered group with a foreigner (yours truly) in their midst, we had to be reasonably inconspicuous when we stepped out of the car and onto the street. As soon as we stepped over the threshold of the house, however, we were no longer in the Islamic Republic.

2. Livin’ Thing: An Oral History of Boogie Nights

Alex French and Howie Kahn, Grantland

The full story of how Paul Thomas Anderson created his first masterpiece—and turned Mark Wahlberg into a movie star.

3. York & Fig

Marketplace

An examination of how the neighborhood of Highland Park in Los Angeles is quickly gentrifying. The team at Marketplace interviewed current and former residents, business owners, and investors and developers to paint a full picture of what’s occurring.

4. Cheerleaders for Christ

Jia Tolentino, Adult magazine

“I tell people all the time I never really drank the water, but of course that’s not totally true.” Recollections of a former cheerleader at a Texas private school attached to a Baptist megachurch.

5. Larry Bird’s Greatest Shot Was the One He Didn’t Take

Michael Rubino, Indianapolis Monthly

How basketball great Larry Bird almost walked away from the game.

You can find our past collections here—and you can follow Longreads on WordPress.com for more daily reading recommendations.

Publishers, writers, share links to your favorite essays and interviews (over 1,500 words) on Twitter (#longreads) and on WordPress.com by tagging your posts longreads.

We’re happy to introduce two brand new free themes today!

Minnow

Designed by Mel Choyce, Minnow is a light, simple theme that puts your social presence front and center. A social links menu is displayed prominently below the site title and logo, so readers can easily find you on your favorite social networks.

When activated, the optional Custom Menu or Widget area appear in a slide-out sidebar, making secondary content accessible while keeping the focus on your content.

Learn more about the free Minnow theme at the Theme Showcase, or preview it by going to Appearance → Themes.

Cols

This theme is designed by yours truly: Cols is a novel theme that lets you tell your stories without the layout getting in the way.

Standard-format posts are displayed in a newspaper-like layout, with three columns on large monitors, two columns on medium-sized displays, and a one-column layout on small screens like phones. Other supported post formats — Aside, Image, Video, Quote, Link, and Chat — are displayed in a simple single-column layout.

Learn more about the free Cols theme at the Theme Showcase, or preview it by going to Appearance → Themes.

Here it is! A new collection of our favorite stories from across all of WordPress.

As always, you can find our past collections here. You can follow Longreads on WordPress.com for more daily reading recommendations, or subscribe to our free weekly email.

Publishers, writers, you can share links to your favorite essays and interviews (over 1,500 words) on Twitter (#longreads) and on WordPress.com by tagging your posts longreads.

1. What Happens When a Veteran High School Teacher Becomes a Student for the Day

Grant Wiggins

“I waited fourteen years to do something that I should have done my first year of teaching: shadow a student for a day.” A high school teacher learns some sobering lessons about how kids experience a typical day — and the amount of sitting required.

2. No Apology

Mehreen Kasana

The truth about being Muslim in America:

In the eyes of those perpetually seeking an apology from Muslims, I am a Bad Muslim. I don’t put hashtag-suffixed apologies online for what someone else of my faith does. When 9/11 happened, I was as shocked and terrified as anyone else was. We scary-looking Muslims experience human emotions, too. … We Muslims react to unexpected loss of life like any non-Muslim would. We cry, we mourn.

3. The Rise and Fall of Public Housing in NYC

Richard Price, Guernica

A “subjective overview” of the history of public housing in New York City from the novelist Richard Price, framed through the lens of his own upbringing in the North Bronx’s Parkside Houses.

4. Ways Men In Tech Are Unintentionally Sexist

Kat Hagan, This Is Not a Pattern

How our behavior and language can have a harmful impact — and how we can fix it. “Small, simple changes will build the foundation for a better tech culture.”

5. Gone Girls: Human Trafficking on the Home Front

Mike Kessler, Los Angeles Magazine

Kessler talks to survivors of child prostitution, as well as law enforcement officers, judges, politicians, and advocates working to prevent the sex trafficking of minors.

6. The Evans Family Is Living in This World

Linda Vaccariello, Cincinnati Magazine

A community comes together to help a family after a tragedy:

“The reality hit me like nothing I’d ever experienced,” McDonald says. “She had no one. I couldn’t imagine what that was like.” McDonald went to Ao, threw her arm around the sobbing woman’s shoulders, and said, “We’ll help you.”

7. The Plunge

Carl Schreck, Grantland

The story of Shavarsh Karapetyan, a Soviet swimming champion who dove into Armenia’s Lake Yerevan and saved dozens of lives from a sinking trolleybus.

8. How Pixar’s Gurus Brought the Magic Back to Disney Animation

Caitlin Roper, Wired

A profile of John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, whose intense focus on storytelling helped revive Disney’s animation studio with hits like Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph.

9. ‘I Am Darren Wilson’: St. Louis and the Geography of Fear

Sarah Kendzior & Umar Lee, Quartz

St. Louis is a city long on the run from itself. White flight has spread from suburbia to exurbia, while decades of black demands — for better jobs, better schools, better treatment—go unheeded. This is a region deprived of resources, forcing residents to scrounge for more fertile terrain.

10. Stephen Powers Puts the Writing on the Wall

Neima Jahromi, Bklynr

From the magazine Bklynr, a profile of the street artist behind some of Brooklyn’s most recognizable murals.

Photo: dystopos, Flickr

Blogging 201: Branding and Growth starts Monday, October 20. If you’re a recent alum of Blogging 101 looking to build on the skills you’ve developed so far, or a blogger looking for new ways to grow your site and its audience, this is the course for you.

What will Blogging 201 cover? We’ll introduce tools to increase your traffic within WordPress.com as well as through other platforms, discuss ways to develop a coherent, effective brand for your blog, and show how to use your archives and your site’s stats to build your readership.

During this two-week course we’ll give you a daily task and provide you with all the necessary resources and information to complete it (there will be no new tasks on weekends, to give you time to explore more on your own, or just publish a post or two). You’ll also have access to The Commons, a private, staff-moderated space where you can chat with other participants, ask questions, and give feedback.

Ending right before NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo kick off in November, Blogging 201: Branding and Growth will help you get your site ready for a new wave of viewers — as well as to keep them coming after their first visit.

Like all Blogging U. courses, there are no prerequisites for Blogging 201 (if you’d like to follow the courses in sequence, though, that’s fine: Blogging 101: Zero to Hero will be back in November!). Self-hosted blogs and blogs from other platforms are just as welcome to participate.

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in trying, sign up for Blogging 201: Branding and Growth using this form:

Whether you’re a personal blogger, a designer, or an artist, Isola gives you a bright, clean space to showcase your work. Its minimalist design stays crisp across devices and screens of all sizes, with generous white space to keep the focus on your content.

Isola, a free theme, comes with numerous customization options, from featured images and custom header images to sleek post formats. Let’s take a look at three sites that are already using it to great effect.

Design_That’s_It

Leon Scott, who writes thoughtful posts on design and technology on his aptly-named blog, makes the most of Isola‘s out-of-the-box look. He kept the layout simple and clean; all the widgets are tucked into a panel off screen.

Many of Leon’s posts — like the one shown above — include featured images, which establish their tone and also add a welcome burst of color.

Beyond the Black Mountain

The environmentally-conscious blogger who writes at Beyond the Black Mountain focuses on the intersection between fashion and eco-friendly living. Her site’s vibe echoes her approach elsewhere, with a stylish, spare look. A moody custom header image coupled with a retro serif font (Ambroise, which is available with the Custom Design upgrade) personalize Isola even further.

a dimpleate blog

The blogger behind a dimpleate, based in Northern Virginia, has created a photo-heavy lifestyle blog that still maintains an airy, clean feel. She uses Isola‘s image and gallery post formats to highlight the beautiful images, linking them to her Flickr galleries for visitors who wish to explore more of her work.

Have you also customized Isola? Is there another theme you’d like to see featured here? Let us know in the comments.

Check out Edin and Espresso — today’s spiffy new additions to our massive family of themes.

Edin

Edin is a brand-new, free business theme designed by yours truly. It’s a modern and fully responsive theme that will help you create a strong — yet beautiful — online presence for your business. Edin offers multiple theme options and supports the recently launched Site Logo feature.

Espresso

Espresso is a responsive, content-centric premium theme designed by Justin Carroll that allows you to choose between two charming layouts. Go with a traditional post stream for your writing-based blog, or go grid-style for your photography blog. A fixed sidebar on the right keeps widgets, menus, and social links at the ready for visitors.

Edin is a free theme, and Espresso is a premium upgrade. Check out each theme’s showcase by clicking on its screenshot above, or preview it on your blog from Appearance → Themes.

We're launching two new themes this week -- one free and one premium -- check them out!

Twenty Fourteen is much more than a magazine theme. From blog to small business homepage, Twenty Fourteen does it all -- as these four sites show.

Your site's front page is like the front door to your home: you want it to look and feel inviting, as well as unmistakably you. Here's a quick list of five things -- big and small -- to consider when building your front page.

Group blogs like Long Awkward Pause shine on WordPress.com -- and now you can say you knew this comedic confab before they hit the big time.

With millions of users around the world, we're an international community of writers, photographers, and more. Enjoy these recent snapshots and soundbites, from Moscow to Cairo.

Have some featured content that desperately needs saving? Have no fear, our new theme Hero is here!

Hero’s featured content-rich Front Page template

Designed by antthemes, Hero is a dark and minimal theme that features the content you care about most with a Front Page template that’s packed with the promotional power of our Featured Post Slider, a custom tagline, and three featured post callouts. Hero also comes packed with sidebar and footer widget areas galore, and a full width page template for those times that you just want to eliminate some of the distractions.

Read more about its features on the Theme Showcase or dive right into previewing it on your blog from Appearance → Themes.

Happy Themeday, all! Today we have two brand-spankin’-new themes for your visual enjoyment.

First up is Gridspace, a classic, elegant premium theme by Graph Paper Press.

Gridspace lets you show your work in style. Designed as a portfolio for photographers, its slick features include light and dark color schemes, multiple thumbnail sizes, a responsive design, and a convenient space for your logo. Your readers can easily switch between two blog layouts on the fly – grid view and list view – while large featured images and an elegant overall design make your work the focus.

Live on the grid, and check out Gridspace on the Theme Showcase!

Next up is Ascetica, a beautiful theme from AlienWP, designed by Galin Simeonov.

Get rid of the clutter and concentrate on your content. Ascetica prefers subtle details over flashy gimmicks and provides the perfect balance of minimalism, white-space, responsiveness, and customization to allow you to focus on and support what matters most – your content – while doing it in a way that is uniquely your own.

Love that minimalist look? Then make sure to visit Ascetica on the Theme Showcase.