Installing WordPress is easy. The issue is what you should do after you installed WordPress. WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms currently available; it is also a great platform for a website as well. WordPress is popular for their 5 minute install, which is great, as it allows you to get your blog or website up and running in literally 5 minutes. However, there are still a couple of things you need to do after installing WordPress. This article discusses exactly what those things are.
1. Change Your Password and Add Authors if Needed
Once you’re finished installing WordPress, you will receive a randomly generated password for your admin password. Unless you’re a robot or you’re a fan of long strings of letters and numbers for your password, you’ll never remember it. So, change it to something you will. Also, once your installation WordPress is finished, this is the best time to add any blog authors you may have.
2. Change your Permalinks
Whenever you post a blog entry on WordPress, the permalink is set by default to www.yourblog.com/?p=123. The number after the = sign shows what post number that particular post is, but of course you don’t expect your readers to know that. In addition, this isn’t exactly SEO friendly, so you’ll need to change.
How can you do this? You’ll need to go to Settings, then Permalinks. From there, go to Common settings and choose Custom Structure. You can enter %postname%/ in the field, so that your post URL will look like this: www.yourblog.com/25-smart-investing-tips
If you want to have the category included in the URL, you’ll need to enter %category%/%postname%/ instead, so that your post category will show in the URL along with the post title.
3. Choose a Great Theme
There are several free clean WordPress themes available, and you can either download a free theme and activate it, or if you know how to design your own theme, you can feel free to do so. If you choose to download a theme online, you’ll need to unzip it first and then upload it to wp-content > themes. Once you’ve uploaded it, go to Appearance, then Themes, and then just click on the theme you’ve uploaded. You’ll find lots and lots of themes online with different numbers of sidebars, customizable widgets, and a ton of other features.
4. Add your Post Categories
With a default WordPress installation , your post category is Uncategorized, which is not professional. This is also the default category whenever you post something and forget to choose a category. To avoid this, what you need to do is:
- Go to Posts, and then Categories.
- Click on Uncategorized, and change it to something else.
So whenever you make a post and you don’t choose a specific category, it will default to what you changed Uncategorized to. You can also add more categories now, or add them as you go along.
5. Turn Askimet On
No one likes spam, and fortunately WordPress comes with a plugin called Askimet which blocks out spam comments. You don’t need to buy Askimet separately; all you need to do is to head to the Plugins page and activate Askimet. During the activation process, you will be required to enter an API key which you can get it by registering on WordPress.com for free. You can find the API key in your profile, and then enter that API key in the Askimet configuration page.
6. Get Google XML Sitemaps and add it to Google Webmaster Central
Google XML Sitemaps is a great way for major search engines like Google and Yahoo to quickly index your site. Whenever you write a new post or even edit an existing one, the XML sitemap will update itself. Y0u can get the XML sitemaps plugin by clicking here.
Once you’ve downloaded the plugin, you need to go to the Google Webmaster Central site, and log in using your Google account. Follow the instructions on how to verify your account on the website. After you’ve verified your site, click on Add Sitemap and put in the URL to your sitemap, which would look like http://www.yourblog.com/sitemap.xml
7. WordPress Database Backup
The importance of backing up your WordPress site is self explanatory. Accidents can happen, or even a server problem which could cause you to lose all of your content. The WordPress Data Backup will create a backup of your WordPress blog, and there are even settings wherein a copy of your backup files can be emailed to you on a weekly basis. It’s like the backup will be on autopilot and all you need to do is to turn it on. You can get the said plugin here, and read a guide on automatic backups here.
8. Create sample content to test your blog
Your blog will look different while it’s empty, and when it has content like your posts, comments, images, etc. You’ll need to test your blog with sample content so you can see what it will look like in the long run. You don’t have to create a whole bunch of content just to test it; you can get from WP Candy a sample post collection which will fill your blog with posts, comments, and formatting. In this way, you can make any last minute changes and alterations as needed.
9. Use Feedburner and submit your RSS feed to RSS directories
Before doing anything else, you’ll need to edit your current RSS settings. Go to Settings, then Reading, and then choose how many posts you want to be shown in your RSS feed, and if the whole post or not should be shown.
Then, sign up with Feedburner; it will give you stats of your feeds and even ping different services so that the online community will know whenever you post new content. You’ll need to edit your feed subscription link in your WordPress theme; you’ll find instructions on how to do so on the Feedburner site.
Finally, submit your feedburner feed to rss blog directories.
10. Turn your Site Analytics On
With everything set up, you’ll need to monitor your viewers and traffic. Google Analytics is one of the most popular site analaytics available, as well as StatCounter and Mint. We even explained how to install google analytics to your wordpress blog.
11. Set your Media Image Sizes
You can set all of your image sizes to fit the content area of your blog. You can do this by going to Settings, and then selecting Media.
12. Edit your Blog Tagline
WordPress comes with a default tagline, which may or may not be visible with the theme you choose. In any case, it will show up in your RSS feed. To edit your tagline to something more appropriate, go to Settings and then General to change your tagline.
