Or you can buy a domain (~$8.49 per year) and then get hosting (~$9.99 per mo) and put WordPress on there and you can basically have the same look and feel, but with your company name as the web address.
But if you create a name.wordpress.com blog then that can be just as nice, as long as you make it look professional.
You are definitely thinking in the right direction.
I agree that going with your own .com and personal email address (myemail@mysite.com) is more professional, and will help take your work more seriously. If you aren't invested in yourself, why would they, so to speak.
It could still be via a Wordpress template, making it a platform you are familiar with.
I'm actually in the market for a graphics person right now to create ebook covers for me, so shoot me an IM or email if you're interested in that path, or if I can be of additional assistance.
You can do both cheap! A personal website is great for portfolios, especially in design and blogs are great for seo and personal followers. Also for contact with other designers :)
I have changed over some of my online stores to Wordpress and they do not look amateur.
You have to find a suitable good theme to suit your requirements and then add new header and/or footer graphics. Add various plugins for seo. security, social bookmarking, sign up forms, e-commerce etc.
To present a professional image, yes. You should have the site under your domain name and be using email at the same domain name. Financially you should be able to accomplish this for under 60.00 a year.
Okay so my real question is this, I am a graphic designer that is starting out and I have been using wordpress as a place for my portfolio and what not. In the end though the more I think about it the more I feel that it might make me look amateur to do so instead of building my own site. Now I'm in a bit of a financial spot so I'm trying to figure it out does it make a large difference professionally to have your own site vs having a blog for the portfolio?
