Setting Up a WordPress Blog Checklist

byTheCatherine

13.9K followers

Updated 3 years ago

Are you setting up a new WordPress blog?

Then use this checklist to make sure you haven't forgotten anything.

INSTALLING WORDPRESS

Maximize your Security settings

Change Username

Did you remember to change the username from admin? Admin is the default setting and any hacker worth their salt will always try admin before anything else. To change your username login to WordPress go to your dashboard and scroll down to users. At this point you will be logged in as the default admin. Click on add new user and give yourself a username and how to remember password. Make sure you give the new user administrator privileges. If you don't you will not be able to fully control your site.

Write down your new username and password or use LastPass to remember it. I f you are hosting here synchronize the new user anme and password so it is remembered for you

Write down your new username and password. Log out of WordPress as the administrator and log back in using your new username and password. Go to users, all users and actually delete the admin user. This is just a way to make it more difficult for your website to be hacked.

Don't work under the delusion that because you are hosting here at Wealthy Affiliate you can't be hacked. The hacker will always get into your site if they are determined enough. However, that doesn't mean you can't take preventative measures to deter them.

Did you write down your passwords and put them in a safe place?

CUSTOMIZING WORDPRESS

Did you choose how you’d like your name to appear on the site? (E.G. First name

only, first and last name, or perhaps a company name – whatever you choose, be

sure it’s something that your users will know and recognize.)

Go to the “Settings” tab in your dashboard to set up your newly

Installed blog? Check the following settings and adjust them to your needs and preferences:

• General settings

1. Select a site title and tagline. Make sure this reflects your niche
2. Be sure to type in your best email address, one you will remember and when you check emails
3. Format the date and time.

• Writing settings

o Choose a login name and email address if you intend to post from email.

• Reading settings

1. Choose how you want your front page to appear and how many posts you’d like on the front page. Decide whether you want to have the full post appear or whether you want to see only 150 words, as an excerpt.
2. Decide if you want to discourage search engines from indexing your content.

• Discussion settings

Enable comments if you want comments to appear on your website, or what pages you want to disable them.

Go to My Site(s) → Posts or Pages and select the post or page you want to enable (or disable) comments on.

In the setting's sidebar, find and open the Discussion tab.

Select Allow Comments to enable comments, or deselect the option in order to disable comments.

o Decide if you want to moderate comments.

o Decide how you want your comments to appear.

• Media settings

(decide how you want your photos and videos to appear) Make the size equal for every post

• Permalinks settings (decide how you’d like to format your links).

Change and add categories

You cannot delete the default uncategorized, but you can go to the dashboard, categories and change it. Don't forget to save it

Did you set up different categories for your blog posts?

Do these categories include keywords that are optimized for the search engines?

Did you delete the generic “Hello World” post that WordPress automatically installs?