Here is the complete beginner’s guide to help you start your blog and see the bottom section to learn how to use WordPress.
All this information is free, feel free to take action and start building something new.
- Part 1: Differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org
- Part 2: How to Buy Hosting for Your WordPress Blog
- Part 3: How to Install WordPress on Bluehost
- Part 4: << You are here >>
- Part 5: How to Install WordPress Plugins
- Part 6: How to Choose a WordPress Theme
- Part 7: How to Install a WordPress Theme
- Part 8: 14 Tips to Secure Your WordPress Site
- Part 9: [Pro Tips to Speed Up WordPress and Reduce Loading Times
You can download the WordPress Guide eBook to get an A-Z manual on setting up WordPress.
Things to do after installing WordPress (Required)
When you install WordPress, you get a stock installation that includes some content, such as dummy posts, dummy pages, and dummy comments.
So first things first…
1. Delete default posts, pages and comments
Log in to your WordPress dashboard and go to Posts > All Posts and delete the default “Hello world” post.
Likewise, go to Pages > All Pages and delete the default "Sample Page".
Finally, click Comments and delete the default comment.
2. Set the time zone
The next two settings are found in Settings > General.
Make sure to set your time zone to your local time so that when you schedule posts they will go live according to your time.
Also note:
When you installed WordPress, you added a "Site Title" and a "Tagline." You can change these at any time from this settings page. These two things are very important because they show up in Google searches.
You can also set your admin email address (where you will receive all admin communications) from this settings page.
3. Enable/disable user registration
You need to decide if you want to have a multi-author blog (like SidelinePlay), or if you want to be a sole author.
If you allow guest posting, be prepared to receive a lot of spam registrations. However, you can solve this problem with the help of plugins.
To allow this functionality, check the box for "Anyone can register" and set the "New user default role" to "Contributor".
If you don't want people to register, don't check the "Anyone can register" box.
4. Set up WordPress discussion/comments settings
Now, go to Settings > Discussion.
This can be confusing if you don't know what to do. But just follow the screenshots above and you should be fine.
Must Read: 6 Tools to Stop WordPress Comment Spam (+ Discussion Settings)
5. Populate the WordPress Ping List
By default, WordPress only pings one service. But you can notify more services by expanding the ping list.
Go to Settings > Writing and add more services to the ping list.
You can get a large ping list here: WordPress ping list .
6. WordPress Media Settings
This setting will greatly improve the way WordPress handles images.
By default, WordPress creates multiple sizes for each image you upload. This is not a good practice. It will load your blog with unnecessary files and your blog will quickly become bloated.
Go to Settings > Media and configure the correct settings using the following screenshots:
I also highly recommend adding a plugin called ShortPixel which compresses your images as you upload them.
You can read all about WordPress image compression plugins here .
7. Configure Google Tag Manager
In the coming days, you will install many scripts like Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, etc. Now, Google Tag Manager makes it easy to manage all these scripts (aka tags) from a single dashboard.
This makes the website management process much simpler and you don’t even have to edit your theme to add any scripts. Everything will be done from the GTM dashboard. Read all about Google Tag Manager here .
8. Add Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free program from Google that lets you know everything about your WordPress website traffic. It takes 10-15 minutes to set up, but it’s one of the most important things everyone should do after installing WordPress.
In this guide, I shared how to add Google Analytics to WordPress .
9. Add a cache plugin
Caching plugins help improve the loading time of your WordPress website. Without a caching plugin, every time a visitor accesses one of your pages, your server must query the database to fulfill the request.
Whereas caching plugins help reduce the load on your server and store duplicate files in cache.
Here are the best caching plugins for WordPress :
- WP Rocket (paid)
- WP Super Cache
- WP Fastest Cache
- Litespeed Cache (if you use Litespeed web server)
10. Disable directory browsing
For this setup, you’ll need to edit the WordPress .htaccess file. Don’t panic; this is actually very simple.
- You can follow this guide to learn how to edit WordPress .htaccess file .
Add this line of code to your .htaccess file (at the bottom):
Options All -Indexes
This will disable directory browsing, which is a very important step in maintaining the security of your WordPress blog .
11. Set up WordPress permalinks
The default WordPress permalink is – http://yourdomain.com/p=123.
This permalink is short, but not search engine friendly.
Go to Settings > Permalinks and select “Post Name”.
Click Save.
Now, when your URL appears in search engines, some of the keywords will be visible. This will help you rank higher and get more traffic.
11 basic settings after installing WordPress
- Remove the default value.
- Set the time zone.
- Set up user registration.
- Topic Comments.
- Populate the WordPress ping list.
- Set up WordPress media settings.
- Setting up Google Tag Manager
- Add Google Analytics
- Adding Caching to WordPress
- Disable directory browsing.
- Setting up the WordPress permalink structure.
If you've just installed WordPress, make sure these 8 essential settings are configured correctly. Every time you install WordPress, you should make sure you do these 10 things before you do anything else. I recommend you bookmark this post so you can refer to it every time you install WordPress.
Important Things to Do After Initial WordPress Setup
Once you have completed your WordPress setup, it’s time to install plugins .
Here are a few must-have plugins ( click here for a list of the best WordPress plugins ):
How much of these essential WordPress settings do you know? What other settings would you recommend to all WordPress users? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
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