When I started my Blogging journey, I started with BlogSpot but later on I moved to WordPress. I have been using it for almost 4 years and so far it’s the best platform for Blogging that I can think of. Most useful Settings after Installing WordPress. WordPress is scalable and there are thousands of tutorials for WordPress that is available, which will help you in getting started with WordPress. You can also read WordPress complete guide, which will help you to get started and everything which you need to do with WordPress.
I have already written a detailed post on how to install WordPress on Bluehost server, this is the second post extending the WordPress series on settings to do after installing WordPress. This is the list of Most useful Settings after Installing WordPress one should follow after installing WordPress. Before we will start with how to start with basic WordPress set up, you should read this post: Checklist to setup new WordPress blog
Most useful Settings after Installing WordPress:
Honestly, there are many things which you need to do and there are many things which you will learn with time. For example, it will take some time before you understand about desktop blog editor and you will set up Windows live writer with WordPress. My suggestion to you is, always prefer doing quick set up and then work on promotion your blog with high-quality content.
I tried to put all the basic settings, which you need to do after installing WordPress.
WordPress Permalink
Very first thing, which I recommend is to change default permalink to custom permalinks. As default WordPress permalink is like http://yourdomain.com/p=123 This permalink is short but not friendly for search engine. So the first thing you should do is change your permalinks.
At Blogpacific I use /%postname%.html but according to me, best permalink setting is to just use post name. Earlier there used to be some performance issue with custom permalinks, but with latest WordPress it’s easier. Simply go to settings >Permalink and select the post name option, and save.
This ensure that your permalink when appear in search engine, it will contain some keywords and will ensure better ranking.If you are already running a blog and would like to change your permalink to make it search engine friendly, you should read my post on: How to change WordPress permalink with 301 redirection.
Change Admin user for Security
By Default WordPress login Id is admin. This put you in little risk because any intruder can make a brute force attack to take down your wordpress blog. To ensure the security of your WordPress blog create a user and give him the admin right. Login with that ID and delete the default admin account. Make sure you use a complex password which contains mix character. Like instead of using password try something like p@ssw)rd.
If you already using admin as username, you can refer to this guide to change default WordPress username.
Disable users registration
It’s always a good idea to keep your registration open if you are creating a WordPress site like Blogpacific or any other Websites which allow guest posting, but spam registration will be a pain. But, if you are sole writer and don’t need people to register, I recommend you to disable the WordPress registration Disable it under Settings > General.
WordPress time zone
Under Settings> General , Change the time Zone to match your country time zone. If you schedule your blog posts, changing time zone to your time zone will ensure your blog posts will be published in your desired schedule time.
WordPress Threaded comment
Threaded comments make your blog comments discussion keep going. With the latest versions of wordpress, you can enable Threaded comment from
Settings> Discussion. Check Enable Threaded comment and uncheck Break comments into pages to avoid page duplication issue.
Update WordPress ping list
By default wordpress ping only one ping service, you can notify many more services by extending the ping service. Change the settings under Settings> Writing. Here is my wordpress ping list .
http://rpc.pingomatic.com
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://bblog.com/ping.php
You can get updated WordPress ping list here.
WordPress Comment Gravatar
Remember few days back I talked about Gravatar : Add images to your comment, though you will see images of all those commentator who have signed up for Gravatar, but what about those who have not. Under Settings > Discussion, you can change the default image to be shown for people who have not signed up for Gravatar.
Quick Recap
- WordPress permalink Structure.
- WordPress Security.
- Disable user registration.
- WordPress time zone.
- Threaded comment.
- WordPress ping list
- WordPress Gravatar.
For now if you are installing wordpress for the first time you can refer to this post, for quickly check if you have done the basic settings for wordpress settings. You can also bookmark this post on delicious or stumble upon for future reference. Make sure you subscribe to Blogpacific feeds to keep receiving more wordpress updates.
