The Most Important 10 Things You Should Do Immediately After Installing WordPress
If you’re new to WordPress, this post will be right up in your alley. Whether you’re installing the world’s leading CMS through your hosting
company’s auto-installer or are practicing the famous WordPress 5 Minute
Install, you’re probably excited to engender initiated.
If you’ve picked out a theme here on Elegant Themes it's probably time to start adding content
Elegant your website. But like most affairs in animation, a little preparation
and grooming can go a long way. Passing some time acting on the particulars in
this list will help to construct sure your situation is set-up and working
properly now and in the long run.
We’re failing to go through a laundry-list of points in this billet. These are
all tasks you should consider doing right out of the gate. For the most part,
once they’re done you won’t have to worry about them ever again.
I’ve tried to organize this list in order of importance. Some items are mission
critical while others are more decorative. If you’ll be putting up more
WordPress sites in the future, create yourself a checklist in Google Docs to
avoid missing out anything significant. Automate Your Backups
Backups are as much about the restore process as they are about backing up. If
anything ever goes wrong, you’ll want to be able to reconstruct your website as
promptly and efficiently as possible.
Substitutes are not something you want to entrust to luck. While or so hosting
companies (especially managed hosting) will assume charge of your backups for
you, many shared hosting companies won’t. Figure out on day one how you will
manage your backups – consider a plugin like Backup Buddy to get the task done.
Alternatively, if you are looking for a more hands off solution the
Vault Press hosted WordPress backup service could be exactly what you are seeing
for. After recently switching to Vault Press On unitary of my sites, I’ve been
very impressed with the service – especially when it adds up to restoring
backups after something has gone awry with my website.
Both Backup Buddy and Vault Press are premium selections, but sometimes in life
you set out what you pay for – and when it comes to backups, it’s decidedly
more respectable to be safe than sorry. Check Your Admin Username
If you’re utilizing an auto-installer supplied by your hosting company, make
sure you don’t have a username of “admin”. It’s getting more common for hosting
companies to automatically set you up with something more mysterious, but
double check just to be certain.
Some other good thought is to make certain you’re not using
your administrator account for non-administrative jobs. If you’re printing the
post or pages, create a separate account with author privileges. Delete Unused Plugins and Themes. Delete any unneeded plugins, such as Hello Dolly.
In one case you’ve installed your preferred theme and all of your required
plugins, it’s a right idea to get backward into your admin dashboard and get
rid of any plugins or themes that you are not using (good-bye, Hello Dolly).
Having been down this route before, I recognize that many people who are new to
WordPress end up experimenting with single or more free themes. And so, they
realize it might be easier to expend a few bucks on a premium theme – saving
themselves hours of time in the process.
Old ideas and plugins that are not updated can contain potential security
exposures and it just needs a few seconds to cancel from your WordPress
installation.
Install Essential Plugins
With every WordPress installation, there is a handful of plugins that you can
safely proceed out front and set up without even calling back about it. The
specific plugins I’ve linked to are just a personal preference so you may
receive a competing plugin that you would choose to apply.
Security Plugins
Keep your site safe by installing a good security plugin
Thither are many individual steps you can learn to tighten up your WordPress
security. But if time is a consideration, then you can attain a good deal by
practicing a simple security plugin.
You’ll find an in-depth review of iThemes
Security plugin here on Elegant Themes. The
review not only feeds you a summation on the plugin, but also assists you to
interpret some of the issues surrounding WordPress security.
For those people who like to consider multiple options, you can also check out WordFence. Post Revisions Plugin Use a plugin to keep on top of post revisions saving post revision Saving be a big thing when you
get an accidental cut. If you’re somebody who creates your pages or places from
inside the WordPress editor, it won’t read long before the number of revisions
stored in the database start to total up. For instance, before publishing this
post I checked on a site that has averaged 1 post/day. After only a few months,
a total of 350 post revisions has accumulated in the database. That’s a nice
sum of database overhead.
Dispensing with this problem can be equally simple as installing a plugin like
Revision Control. If you’re getting to this step a little later in the process
and already have a slew of post revisions, you can also install a plugin like WP Sweep or WP Clean Up. These will
both help to clean up your database after the fact. *Always* perform a backup
before touching your database.
Yoast SEO Plugin
Let the Yoast SEO plugin take care of the search engine optimization of your
site
The figure of this plugin makes it clear that its principal focus is on search
engine optimization. The benefit of SEO is entirely close to bringing more
visitors to your web site, via the search engines. As well as optimizing your
content for the search engines, good SEO also has a substantial focus on
producing a safer user experience. Truthfully, this should always be your top
priority anyway – a neat user experience means visitors are more potential to
get back.
When you’re installing your essential WordPress plugins, making time to include Yoast SEO on
the list is a great idea.
Setting a strong SEO foundation for your site is very
important and there’s nothing worse than having to trawl back through your
previously published posts to update their SEO fields at a later appointment. Akismet Plugin At fi rst, spam won’t be a problem for your new WordPress site. But fear not,
spammers will find your situation soon enough. Before you recognize it, you’ll
be inundated with unwanted comments from around the world.
Akismet is free for non-commercial websites and paid accounts start
at $5/month. It’s available individually or as part of the Jetpack suite of tools.
You’ll
find Akismet quick and easy to install and I can pretty much guaranteed it will
deliver you hours of time fighting spam.
Disqus is another spam fighting option that puts back the native WordPress
commenting system with what is arguably, a more dependable option.
Caching Plugin
If you’re using shared hosting, a caching plugin wilL provide your site w ith a
valuable speed boost. A faster site means happier visitors and that’s a serious
thing in Google’s eyes too.
If you’re using managed hosting, chances are a caching plugin will be out of
the question. But don’t worry, the well-optimized servers will provide an
equivalent or more serious performance boost. Two free popular caching plugins
include
WP Super Cacheand , W3 Total Cache, with WP Rocket providing
a premium option for those seeking a more plug and play solution.
Use an XML sitemap to help search engines index all your content correctly
If you installed Yoast SEO, you can pass over this step. If you went with
another SEO plugin that does not automatically create a sitemap, make sure you
install a separate plugin like Google XML
Sitemaps.
When Google bought comes crawling through your website content, the XML sitemap
will help to establish the procedure more comfortable and insure that all of
your content is indexed in the hunt engine. An XML sitemap is a simple text
file that provides search engines with vital information about the pages and
posts contained on your website.
If you are publishing news or TV, make sure you also use a sitemap that
contains the appropriate metadata for those mediums.
Put in Your Premium Theme
WordPress comes ready to roll with a few stock themes, all of which are fairly
well. Still, compared to premium themes, they leave plenty to be hoped. Since
you’re here on Elegant Themes, I’m going to assume you’ve picked up one of the
many available options from the Gallery.
There are s everal reasons why utilizing a premium theme is a serious idea, with
added functionality being one of them. Things like putting up your home page,
using a custom logo and favicon, and custom short codes will make the process
of starting up and running much more childlike.
Client Support is another outstanding cause to consider a premium paper. If
you’re already a member of Elegant Themes, just stop by the support forums to
find out the benefits of premium support in natural process.
And last but not least, look at the benefits of utilizing a theme that has
undergone a proper security audit and is also subject to regular updates.
Individual themes are hacked more often than the WordPress core. Applying a
well maintained premium theme usually means you’re letting down your risk of
yielding to a security threat.
Update Your Site Title
As one of the most significant components of your site, you’ll require to make
certain your site title is properly finished. Although every page on your
website should deliver an appropriate title, the one we’re referring to here is
your site title. It can be set up under Settings >> General . When
somebody sees your homepage or finds your site via the SERPs, the site title is
usually what they’ll experience. It can likewise serve to tell Google what your
site is entirely astir.
Pursuing best practices, you should continue your site title close to 55
characters in length. It should be specific, descriptive and not spammy . An
appropriate site tit le would be “Dave’s Barber Shop | Portland, OR”. An
instance of an inappropriate site title would be “Men’s Haircuts, Women’s Hair
Cuts, Cheap Haircuts, Affordable Haircuts | Portland, OR”. Spend a few minutes
exploring the web and you’ll find the spammy site titles get even wor se than
that.
Update the Timezone
Much like setting the time and date on your phone, you’ll want to make out the
same within WordPress. Plugins, scheduled posts, and integrated apps will all
rely on the fact that your time zone is properly set up.
Add a Favicon to your web page
It’s a little matter (rather literally in fact), but almost all well-established
sites have a favicon. It’s the small little logo or graphic that shows up in
your brUser tab and it appends the l ast routine of professional polish to your
internet site. It is besides the icon used in your list of favorites on your
browser, hence, “favorites icon”.
Typically 16px by 16px, you can make a favicon in any popular drawing program.
Some theme’s like elegantthemes
Install Goo gle Analytics and Webmaster Tools
Install Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools from the outset
With a new site and zero traffic you might be capable to give a sound parameter
for passing over this step, simply don’t. Setting up Google Analytics and
setting up GWT (Google Webmaster Tools) only requires a few minutes.
GWT, in particular, will permit you to consider how Google is processing the
significance of your content keywords. Addition, it will provide you with data
on impressions, clicks, and average keyword position.
Change Your Permalink Structure
By default, WordPress delivers a pretty ugly permalink structure. Out of the
box, any page or post that you publish will have a URL that works well for computers,
but poorly for humans and search engines (http://yourwebsite.com/?p=123). Liken
that to a URL which contains a proper claim and appropriate keywords and it’s
easy to understand why you necessitate to alter your permalink structure.
In most instances, the “Post name” structure (http://yourwebsite.com/sample-post/)
is the best choice unless of course you’ll be posting similar titles that are
dated or time sensitive. Utilizing this social organization will make it more
easygoing for the lecturer to visualize what a post or page is roughly before
they arrive at your website. It also makes it easier for search engines to
analyze and rate your content.
Edit the Default Content
Thither are a few pieces of dummy content installed with WordPress that you’ll
desire to edit.
Some hosting companies that use auto-installers, also provide additional
content above and beyond what comes with WordPress. For example, Site Ground
and other providers often have pages and text widgets pre-established that
promote their services.
Make certain you mark off pages, posts, commentaries, and widgets for anything
not pertained to your job.
Fill out Your User Profile
Take two minutes to satisfy out your profile page. It incorporates various
areas that should be filled out including your name, social profile and contact
info.
In that respect is also a
drop-down field that allows you to change your publicly displayed name. Arrange
it to either your first name, last name, moniker or whatever combination of the
two. The solitary thing you want to avoid using is your username which
represents 50% of your required login details.
Set-up Your Gravatar
Use the free Gravatar service to display
a profile photo on your site and elsewhere
Signing up with Gravatar is also an easygoing direction to guarantee that your
profile picture is displayed alongside all of the posts you publish on your web
log.
Wrap Up
There you have it for now. A beginner’s guide almost everything you should act
right away after setting up WordPress.
I’ve put the more mission critical tasks near the pinnacle of the list and it
makes sense to tackle those first. In particular the relief and security
related tasks.
Of course, this doesn’t cover absolutely everything. Merely, if you manage to
go through this list over the course of an afternoon, you’ll be miles ahead of
most other sites.
