If you get a blog from wordpress.com you have a limited amount of different layouts to choose from and even though you have a limited amount of freedom to customize these layouts you must to a large extent settle for one of the available layouts. If you on the other hand host your wordpress blog yourself than you will get access to 1000s of different free and paid themes that you can install and use on your blog. You will also have the option of developing your own theme from scratch. Building wordpress themes are rather easy and anyone with a little bit of HTML knowledge and the time to read the instructions on the internet will be able to do it. If you do not want make your own layouts you can outsource it to someone else to make you a unique layout. Having someone design a unique layout for you do not have to be that expensive. You can find people to do it from USD 100 but you will also find a lot of designers that charge several thousands to make a layout.

If you are happy with using an existing layout you will find a lot of free and paid layouts to choose from. The best layouts are generally paid layouts but there are a lot of good free layouts as well. If you need some extra functions or plan to use your blog as something else than as a regular blog you will generally need to pay for a premium layout to get a layout that add the functions you need to wordpress. It is rather common that premium templates also contain plugins and addons that will add new functions to wordpress.

If you want to find a free layout than there are plenty of different sources to visit. We recommend that you start by visiting wordpress codex and their theme depository that is moderated by wordpress.org. If you want magazine style themes you are better of looking in other places than on wordpress.org.

Before you choose a layout you should plan your blog well so you know what functions you will need. It is of course always possible to change the layout at any point in the future but changing layout might affect SERPs and might as well annoy regular readers that might not like the new layout if the enjoyed the old one.

You will need to consider how you want to display content as well as what types of content you need to display. Do you want different types of content being showed in different ways?

You will also need to consider what you need to display in the side bars. How many sidebars do you needs? Should the theme have slots ready for advertising or will your blog be advertising free.

Taking the time to plan your blog and to choose the right layout / theme right from the start can save you a lot of hassle down the line and it is therefore well worth to take the time needed to find the right layout. It can also be well worth paying for a premium theme if you plan to build a blog that you hope will become big and popular over time.

Content is king but the framing of that content is more important than you might think.