Hopefully the step-by-step guide on how to install self-hosted WordPress has helped you set your own blog. WordPress features many customization options and settings, even before you start installing the different plugins. In this article I will look at the 9 settings I adjust as soon as I install a new WordPress blog.
Setup blog title and tagline
(In Settings – General)
- You don’t want your blog to be branded as “just another WordPress weblog”
- Write your blog title and explain why your blog is unique in the blog tagline
Change permalinks
(In Settings – Permalinks)
- You don’t want your blog articles to be called something like:
http://www.yourdomain.com/?p=123
- You want to make your URL’s unique, keyword-rich, SEO and user friendly
- On HowToMakeMyBlog.com I use the custom option field like this:
/%category%/%postname%/
- By doing this my blog permalinks look like this:
http://www.howtomakemyblog.com/category/postname/
Change the admin nickname
(In Users – Your Profile)
- You don’t want “Admin” to be the name of the author of the blog posts you write
- Change admin nickname to your own name and have it displayed alongside each post
Clean up
- Delete Hello World! generic post (In Posts)
- Delete the generic About page (In Pages)
- Delete generic blogroll (In Links)
- Delete Hello Dolly plugin (In Plugins)
Activate comment spam filter
(In Plugins)
- Akismet is the best comment spam filter and it comes with your WordPress
- You just need to get the free WordPress API key to be able to activate it
No to email updates
(In Settings – Discussion – E-mail me whenever)
- As default WordPress notifies you via email when there is a new comment on your blog
- I prefer to use WordPress Notifier (Mac only – not sure what the Windows software is) to get updates on my desktop so I change the default option to no emails
Update ping services
(In Settings – Writing – Update Services)
- Pings help you promote your blog by automatically notifying different online services when you publish a new blog post
- I use the following update services on HowToMakeMyBlog:
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b http://api.feedster.com/ping http://api.moreover.com/ping http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2 http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2 http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2 http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi http://coreblog.org/ping/ http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php http://ping.blo.gs/ http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc http://ping.feedburner.com http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2 http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/ http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/ http://rpc.pingomatic.com/ http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping http://rpc.twingly.com http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2 http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
Make it visible to search engines
(In Settings – Privacy)
- Make sure your blog is visible to everyone, including search engines
Get own blog theme
(In Appearance – Themes)
- You don’t want WordPress Default to be your blog theme
- Read why I use Thesis Theme on my blog
- Find the theme you like and download it
- Upload the theme onto your server (/wp-content/themes/)
- Activate
These were 9 adjustments I always do on my WordPress blogs. I also have 8 additional optimization steps that I do for a new WordPress blog. I would recommend you to spend some time and browse the WordPress platform, get familiar with it and adjust some settings that you find relevant.
Image by TwoBlueDay
Join thousands of bloggers and get all my blogging tips for FREE! Subscribe to HowToMakeMyBlog via RSS or via e-mail.
{ 46 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice advice – this is basic stuff every blogger should know.
One of the first things I do is also installing the Google XML Sitemap plugin and the Google Analytics plugin
These are some basics… however this is a great read; especially those changing from blogger!
Heh. Timing is everything. I just (this weekend) set up two new sites and though they are not blogs per se, I didn’t see any other CMS that tickled my fancy so I’m using WP2.7
As it turns out, you and I do almost the same exact thing. I essentially do all of the steps you listed. After that I downloaded All in one SEO and Google xml sitemap. I monetized the thing, posted an article and got it up and running in no time. Thanks for putting this stuff in an article. I hope folks that go with WP take the time to follow your steps – they’ll have a much better experience for it!
Cheers! George
I never bothered about the “ping” until now. I always overlooked it. Thanks for reminding me once again.
Thanks for the link to the WP Notifier for Mac. Very useful!
Great post. Just from using Wordpress for so long, I did most of those things when I first install a new WP blog. But I found some new things that I should do for next time.
Very complete list.
Nice list of services to ping. It’s perhaps a bit more complete than the list of services that I ping.
oh my this is helpful, this just got added to the top of my list of things to do today…
Thanks for the list. As a recent adopter of WP, I have spent some time learning the basics. Your list confirms some of what I discovered by trial and error. I will be back to learn more!
Amendment to previous comment: Warning – if your blog is not brand new, don’t change your permalink settings or any previous links back to your posts won’t work anymore?
Thanks for all the comments!
@Tanya – These tips are for brand new blogs, even before making the first post or installing plugins. But if you are using WordPress 2.7 it will automatically change URL’s for all the old articles as well in case of change in the permalinks. Only problem are search engines as they would still show the old article which would be non-existent, so you need to use redirection in that case.
@Josh Miller – I am not sure but most probably you did not write the custom permalink in the correct way. You must remember to put “%” in front and after words, otherwise it wont work. WordPress have a great guide on permalinks at http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks
Just a question or comment. I had an issue with permalinks not working when I set them to use the long URLs. Basically none of the links worked anymore. It was like it want4d to link tot he files but it wasn’t making the connection.
That’s very nice of you and will be helpful for newbie..Though I wont suggest using category/%post permalinks rather I will suggest using %post permalinks which will be much better for anyone specially when you select more then one category for one post.
It’s good to see the ping options and for those who miss it they should remove the default pingomatic service and use this one.
few plugins like all in one SEO or platinum SEO are must from the beginning.
@p@r@noid – Thanks for the comment! I usually put my article into only one category and I try to have some keyword in the category name, so that is the reason for me using category/postname. But it is up to the blogger to decide what way to go. This was only internal WordPress settings post, I am planing some posts into plugins and other customization for the near future.
Thank you I just changed over to a self-hosted domain and started using W/P 2.7 last week. Your ideas helped me setup a bit more of my back-end correctly and gave me some more stuff to think about. Just put your site in g-Reader, lots of info that I need will be found here I think.
Thanks
Harold
Now I remember again where I read how to get the numbers and question mark out of my urls.
Thank you for that!
I always wanted to post an article similar to this. But, this post completes my desire and even updates my knowledge by adding some more steps which are essential when a blog is priorly setup.
Thanks for posting this article.
This was great! I’m a new blogger and still getting edumacated about all this stuff. Most of your advice I had done already but I didn’t know about the pings submission list… I’ve added that now! I’m also going through your other articles of recommended plugins and I’m adding several of those as well. Thanks so much!
Thanks
that ping option really helped me a lot..
Thanks for the tips! I’ve just switched from Blogger to WP and it’s been much more time consuming learning everything. This is a great resource, thanks for all the work you’ve put into it!
Thank you! I never had any idea what services to put in the ping section, so I just left it with the default.
Hello Marko,
It’s very refreshing and helpful to read a post like this after struggling to dig it all out over a period of months when I first set out to learn some of this.
This post can serve as a great default list of steps for all the blogs I’m now considering to build for customers and friends, instead of relying on remembering everything I did.
Your entire site is my blog dictionary.
Thanks,
Bernard
Good Advice, however, I wouldn’t recommend Thesis to new bloggers. It’s a hefty price to pay, unless they are serious, have a brand, and plan to make income. Pretty standard stuff, but I like your permalink structure, think I’ll change mine.
I never used ping services before, I always figured it would slow things down when posting. I suppose I would get more traffic. I can’t seem to break the 10k unique views per month barrier. Thanks for that list of ping services, I’ll give it some consideration.
Excellent information.
I would add:
Change the default password that WordPress generates.
In Options > Miscelanous: I change the default “wp-content/uploads” to a more small URL: “uploads”.
Enable a statistics plugin (I use Wassup).
I don’t have this on my blog
(In Settings – Writing – Update Services)
so I can’t update the ping services
Is that an Upgrade option?
@K. Henderson – You might be using WordPress.com. I would suggest moving to Wordpress.org to get the full WP experience.
Hello Marko,
Love thei site even htough It’s taking me along time to get through everyhting here.
Was wondering if you could help me implement the: /%category%/%postname%/ tip above on my blog?
Seems that when I go to my “settings” page there are several places to customize this in the permalinks section and I’ve tried a few of the field options but with no sucess?
There is: “Custom Structure”, “Custom Base” and “Tag Base”? I know it’s a duh but I need to know what to put where to get this to work.
I do like the Category + Post title option if I can get that to work.
Thanks,
Bernard
@Bernard – In “Settings” in “Permalinks” put it under “Custom Structure”.
Excellent post. I subscribed to you RSS on my iphone. Many thanks!!!
Very Informative post. Thank you for this! Your work is awesome here. Well done Marko
nice checklist – will keep this as a reminder
Hi Marko, I tried to change the permalinks as you suggest, but now when a visit clicks on comments, they get a 404 page
Also, Google and Yahoo search have picked up my blog automatically it seems, but not Bing. Any suggestions?
Not sure what that can be, sure that you typed the correct permalink format? Maybe try to switch to another theme just to see if it works then.
I don't think you need to do anything specific at this point, give it some time and they will start ranking you as well.
Great post! Thank you for sharing these tips, as a new blogger I can use every Bit of information possible.
Any idea why our custom permalinks break? We started off using the date but when we switch to custom it gives us a 404. Anyone?
It happens sometimes, it is something to do with your host. Give it an hour or two and it will work correctly.
Thanks for the tips! I’ve just switched from Blogger to WP and it’s been much more time consuming learning everything. This is a great resource, thanks for all the work you’ve put into it!
Great blog Marco!
I just installed Thesis myself and I’m finding a ton of info here. Thanks heaps for all the effort.
If I understand permalinks, if I change the setting now then all the permalinks out there (like on a Facebook fan page) will no longer work. Is that correct? I’d like to change the permalinks but not if it’s going to mess up my previous links.
Thanks. Great info here.
Depends, if you’re going from default to custom permalinks, everything should be fine. If you’re going from custom to a different custom, then I would probably let it be as it is.
@Marko~
Even after a few days, the custom permalinks gave us a 404, links would not work at all. We have i-power for hosting. I will be switching for further websites and blogs.Thanks for your help!
Could the permalink issue be Thesis????
I don’t think Thesis has much to do with it. Either you put in the wrong text in the “custom” field or your hosting company is very bad. I don’t see any other reason why permalinks would not be working.
This is a great post, something i have been trying with a couple of sites and had moderate success so far. A couple of things in this post that have given me a few ideas to try so thanks for that.
Great article for less experienced bloggers like myself. Thanks for the great tips!
Thanks, just used several of these tips.