30+ Things That You Need To Do After Installing WordPress

After installing WordPress on a newly created WordPress blog, many people forget to do some changes that will create trouble for them in the future. If you have not created a blog yet then here the complete guide on how to create a WordPress blog.

So here, I have mentioned all the things that you need to do or change after installing WordPress or before posting your first article.

Most Important Things To Do After Installing WordPress

General Settings

From the WordPress dashboard, open the General setting from the main setting menu. Here, you have to change the following things:

• Site Title: Write your website name here.

• Tagline: Write a few words about your website.

• WordPress Address (URL): Write your complete website address. If your website is SSL enabled then use Https rather than Http.

• Site Address (URL): Here the homepage of your website will come.

• Email Address: Use an email address that you want with your user profile. It will help you in case of forgetting the password of your user account.

• Membership: If you want that anyone can create an account on your website then check this box otherwise leave it blank.

• New User Default Role: If you have checked the above option then here mention the role of a newly registered member. You can choose it from Subscriber, Contributor, Author, Editor, and Administrator. Never choose the Administrator here. If you choose Administrator here then anyone can create an account on your website and can do anything on your website.

• Site Language: Select here your website language.

• Date, Time, and Week Start on: Setup date, time, and weeks starts on according to your timezone.

Also read, how to change WordPress admin username (3 different ways)

After changing all the above things, don’t forget to click on the Save button.

Writing Settings

Go to Settings > Writing then change the following things:

• Default Post Category: Set here your default post category. Whenever you publish an article, it will be shown in this category by default. You can create different categories from Posts > Categories.

There is no other change required in the writing setting.

Reading Settings

Go to Settings > Reading then change the following things:

• Your homepage displays: If you want to show your latest blog posts on your website homepage then select “Your latest posts” and if you want static homepage then select “A static page”. Here you have to mention the homepage and blog page.

• Blog pages show at most: Select the number of posts that you want to display on each blog page.

• For each article in a feed, show: Here, select “Full text”

• Search Engine Visibility: Uncheck this box so that your website can start indexing on Google. If you have checked this box then your website will not be indexed on Google.

Discussion Settings

• Default article settings: Only check on “Allow people to post comments on new articles“.

• Other comment settings: Check on the following two options:
  • Comment author must fill out name and email
  • Enable threaded (nested) comments levels deep

• Email me whenever: This option is just to get an email notification whenever you get a comment on any blog post. If you want any email then check on both box otherwise leave it blank.

• Before a comment appears: If you want that each comment will be moderated then check the first box. And if you want that comment author can comment and publish it instantly with moderation once his first comment approved then check the second option.

• Avatars: If you want to show avatars for your profile and other comment authors then check the box. If don’t want to show then uncheck the box. If checked then select which type of avatar you want to show from the given avatars. It also includes Gravatars that will show each person’s Gravatar.

Permalink Settings

Go to Settings > Permalinks then change the following:

There are many different URL structures for blog posts. But the “Post Name” is the best for SEO purposes. So select “Post name” then click on save.

Privacy Settings

Keeping a privacy page is necessary. If you have already created a privacy page then select it otherwise create a new privacy page by clicking on the “Create New Page” button.

Upload Website Logo and Icon

Create a website logo and icon for your website. The icon must be in ICON format and the image should be in PNG format. The default icon size is 512*512 pixels.

Install WordPress Theme

Using the best WordPress theme is necessary for business success and it can be achieved by getting the best user experience and SEO of your website.

You can find here the best WordPress themes that you can install on your website. These themes are super fast SEO optimized. I recommend you to choose from the first two WordPress themes: Genesis and Astra.

Delete Unwanted WordPress Themes

Once you have installed your selected theme then delete unwanted themes. To delete any WordPress theme, click on “Theme Details” then click on delete.

Delete Default Posts

After the installation of WordPress, check your posts. If found already published posts like “Hello World” or any other then delete them.

Create About us and Contact us pages

About us and Contact us pages are necessary for all websites. They provide information about your business website and contact information. They also increase the trust of your website visitors.

Install Recommended WordPress Plugins

1. Akismet Anti-Spam (For Blocking Spam Comments):

Once you publish any post then after some time, you will start getting many comments on those blog posts. Most of them are spam comments. To block those spam comments, you can use the Akismet Anti Spam plugin.

This plugin comes installed with WordPress by default so you need not install it. You have to just activate it by getting an activation key. You can get it free by registering on their website.

2. Yoast Plugin (For SEO Purposes):

Search engine optimization is necessary for any website to rank well on Google search results. Yoast is one of the best SEO plugins that will help you in optimizing your website and content easily. It also creates XML sitemaps so that you do not need to install any separate plugin for the website sitemap.

3. WP Rocket (For Website Caching):

Today, the fastest-loading websites rank well on Google search results. WP Rocket which is one of the best caching plugins has many features like website caching, lazyload for images, database optimization, and many more. This will make your website super fast than you think. So I highly recommend you to use WP Rocket for your website speed improvement.

4. Duplicator (For Website Backups):

WordPress is a highly secure platform to create a website. Still, in some cases, your website can be crashed. In this type of case, you should have a backup of your website. The Duplicator is one of the best WordPress backup plugins that will help you in creating a backup of your website whenever you required it. So backup your website database and files every few days by using this plugin.

5. WP Forms (For Contact Forms):

If you want your website visitors to contact you easily then you need a contact form. You can create a very user-friendly and simple contact form with the help of the WP Forms plugin which is one of the best contact form plugins.

Setup Google Analytics Account

After installing everything and making all changes mentioned above, now you need to create a Google Analytics account. In Google Analytics, you will find all the details of your website visitors.

In Google Analytics, you can check real-time active users on your website, how many visits your website has got at any time, visitor locations, and many more. You can create a Google Analytics account from here.

Setup Webmaster Account

Webmaster is a tool that will help you in finding the website rank, impression, clicks, errors, manual penalties, mobile usability, backlinks, and many more. With the help of the webmaster tool, you can create your website marketing strategy to make it better in the future. You can create a webmaster account from here.

For more optimization of your website, you can check our following articles:

• 7 Mistakes That You Should Avoid While Setting Up a WordPress Site
• How to Hide Your WordPress Login Page
• How to Migrate a WordPress Site to a New Host
• 12 Must Have WordPress Plugins for Bloggers
• 5 Best WordPress Security Plugins
• 5 Best Image Optimizer Plugins
• 14 Important WordPress Maintenance Tasks To Do Regularly