We have talked a lot about WordPress, about plugins, themes, tips, but there is one very important thing.
This is nothing more than knowing what to do right after installing WordPress and starting to use it.
We have to take into account that WordPress comes with its own configuration, but in 99% of cases, it will not work for us.
We are going to apply our own configuration and do a few steps before we start publishing anything.
Some actions that we must take before starting to use our WordPress are important, and will define our site.
Change Site Title And Tagline
The first thing we are going to do is change the title and tagline that WordPress sets by default in the installation.
This can be done right at the time of installation, but if we have not done it we can change it later.
The tagline that WordPress puts by default is “Just another WordPress site”, so we have to change it.
It is as easy as going to the administration panel and going to the Settings → General menu, there we will find the title and the tagline.
The title is simply the title of our website, and the tagline is a brief description of our site. You have to be very brief.
The tagline will appear next to the title bar of the browser, in some themes it also appears in the header or footer of the page.
If we scroll down within that page, we can also change the time zone. In the time zone we will choose the one that corresponds to us.
Here we can also change things as important as the site’s language, date format, time format or administration email address.
Change The Permalink Structure
This point is one of the most important, the permalinks are the permanent URLs to your individual pages and blog posts, as well as the category and tag files.
The default structure of the permalinks are something like this “yourdomain.com/?p123”, so it will not be explanatory, in relation to the post or page, and the search engines will not pay any attention to it, with what SEO will be non-existent.
We will select a better structure, that is more descriptive and more friendly for search engines and consequently, SEO.
To make this change, you just have to go to the Settings → Permalinks menu, and we will choose “Post Name”.
Delete Default Content
When we install our WordPress, by default, fictitious content is added, such as post and pages.
In the WordPress administration menu we go to the Post and Pages menu, and we will delete the default content.
We are going to create our own content, so what comes by default in the installation does not work for us.
Delete Default Plugins
In addition to the content, WordPress usually adds plugins that we may not use when installing.
We always defend from Market WP Themes that the fewer plugins, the better, many plugins slow down our site.
Setup WordPress SEO
With the permalink changed, we have already started the work with SEO, but there is still a lot to do.
WordPress SEO plugins are a great help to make our content more search engine friendly.
We recommend the one we use on our own page, and the one most used in general, we are talking of Yoast SEO of course.
Install Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a very interesting option to obtain information about who visits our site.
We will first register with Google, we will obtain a code that we must add to our site, although there are plugins that can help us.
In this case, Google Analytics for WordPress will make this task easier for us.
Favicon
Favicon or Site Icon is the small image that appears next to the title of your website in the browser.
It is a great help to identify our website and increases brand recognition among your most frequent visitors.
WordPress by default uses a generic favicon, so we have to change it to differentiate ourselves from the rest.
To add a Favicon, we will have to go in the administration panel to the menu Appearance> Customize> Site Identity and there you will see the Site Icon.
Automated Backup
We invest a lot of time and effort in our content, and we don’t want to lose it under any circumstances.
This is where backups help us, we will be calmer and we will keep our work safe.
There are several free and paid backup plugins for WordPress, and quite easy to use.
In our post Best WordPress Backup Plugins we can find more information.
Some of the best plugins to back up our site are UpdraftPlus or BackWPup.
WordPress Security
WordPress is already a fairly secure platform, but even so we must strengthen the security of our site.
We can start by applying good practices such as keeping WordPress, themes and plugins updated, and using strong passwords.
But for more effective security we are going to need more help, and this is where plugins come into play.
In this case, the most used, the best known, the one with the most active downloads and installations is Wordfence Security.
We already have all the guidelines for, once WordPress is installed, do a very important initial configuration so that everything goes well.
If you have not created your website yet, you may be interested Create Your Website With WordPress.
References:
wpbeaveraddons.com
winningwp.com
artisanthemes.io
wpmyweb.com
wpbeginner.com
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