WordPress Help, After the Install

Tags: after install, blogs, guide, help, plugins, tips, WordPress

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It isn’t a big secret that I love WordPress and feel like it could be used for just about any project out there, blog or not. There are a lot of guides out there on how to install WordPress, but not many tell you what to do after you get it on the server. Now everybody has their own methods after a WordPress install of how to configure things but this is what I do.

Configure the Basic Options

First, login to your WordPress admin interface and click on Options > General and setup the General Options. Need to check and make sure your blog title and your addresses are correct. Next go to Options > Discussions and edit your comment and trackback settings. I like to make sure I get e-mailed when anybody leaves a comments, and I like for comments to be filtered through me before they get posted. With the plugins I’ll give you in a few hopefully we will get rid of the need for you to moderate too many.

Grab Your “Must Have” WordPress Plugins

Here are the WordPress plugins I like to use on the basic install of any WordPress powered site:

Update Your Permalinks for SEO Friendliness

Now you need to go back into Options > Permalinks and choose the Date and name based option then hit the Update Permalink Structure button. If your .htaccess file is set to be writable, then it should update it automatically. If not, then you can copy and paste the permalink code from WordPress into your .htaccess file.

Past this point, you may want to go check the rest of your settings, add a blogroll and configure your theme. I think I have gotten most of the important steps out of the way. If you stumble into any problems always remember to go check WordPress.org. They have tons of information on installs, backing up, upgrading and more.

Filed Under: Web Development on February 25, 2008 at 9:00 am

Reader's Comments

from Bob | permalink

Thanks for this. Very handy tips to have.
from Ellie | permalink

I have quite a few “must have” plugins installed on my WP powered site.

Probably the best ones are:

Full Text Feed by Ronald Heft, Jr. — Prevents WordPress 2.1+ from adding a more link to your website’s feed.

Link A Dink by Dax “The Hammer” Herrera — Replace strings with links or other words.

See a complete list at my site.