8 Essential Settings after Installing WordPress

I have already written a detailed post on How to install self hosted wordpress blog, this is the second post extending the WordPress series on settings to do after installing WordPress. This is the list of essential WordPress settings one should follow after installing WordPress. WordPress changes like updating WP ping list, WP permalink, WP threaded comment.

Before we will start with how to start with basic WordPress set up, you should read this post: Checklist to setup new WordPress blog & how much it cost to start a self hosted WordPress blog.

WordPress Permalink

By 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.

You should change it to other permalink structure which is SEO friendly, I prefer keeping it as

/%postname%.html or /%post_id%/%postname%/

Though later one is what I will recommend to you as it tends to be faster than /%postname% permalink.

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.

Disable users registration

Until unless you are not creating a wordpress blog where only registered users can comment or revenue sharing blog, there is no point of enabling user registration on your blog. 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.

Though when you edit or update any old blog post, wordpress ping all the ping services again and this lead to ping spam. Make sure you install the maxblogpress ping optimizer to stop wordpress ping spam. This will ensure no ping services will be pinged when you update or edit your old posts.

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.

WordPress Privacy settings

Sometime users report that their blog is not showing in search engine even after weeks. This may happen because you haven’t submited your sitemap to Google webmaster or Bing webmaster tool, other reason could be your   WordPress privacy settings. WordPress privacy settings has two options :

• Visible in Search engine
• Hidden from Search engine

To make sure your blog is visible to search engine, follow following steps :

Under Settings> Privacy Enable   “your blog is visible to search engine”.

Quick Recap

• WordPress permalink Structure.
• WordPress Security.
• Disable user registration.
• WordPress time zone.
• Threaded comment.
• WordPress ping list
• WordPress Gravatar.
• Privacy Settings.

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 Shoutmeloud feeds to keep receiving more wordpress updates.

What next?

Once you are done setting up WordPress, it’s time to install plugins. I have created two list of plugins, and you can read the detail of each plugin and install the one which make more sense to you.

• Recommended SEO WordPress Plugins
• 30 WordPress plugin Worth installing

Article by Harsh Agrawal

Harsh has written 947 articles.

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