Hosting accounts can be so different I am not going to go through actually installing a WordPress blog, but I have some tips for you during the installation and initial setup process.
1. VERY IMPORTANT: When you are creating your blog, DO NOT use ADMIN as the name and PASS as the password. Your blog will be hacked if you do this. Choose a unique username and a strong password and WRITE IT DOWN. You will forget it if you do not.
You can use http://passwordgenerator.net/ to generate a strong password.
2. If you are using the WordPress blog as your main website, make sure you install it to your domain name, not a folder on the domain.
3. When you enter your email address, make sure it is one you use regularly.
4. Don’t forget to delete the sample post, page and comments.
Basic WordPress Settings
Users
Go to Users in the dashboard, select your entry and make some updates:
Enter an email address that you will be using when you comment on other peoples blogs and sites.
Use a Gravatar and associate it with this email address. Gravatars follow you around the web and automatically appear when you post a comment on a WordPress site. This way, people will get to know your gravatar and you easier as you will be more recognizable using the same image everywhere. This helps with your branding.
Enter a short bio
Make sure you save your changes.
Settings
There are many many things you can set on your WordPress blog but here are the initial ones you should change before you start posting.
General settings – we recommend that you change your time zone. Don’t forget to save your changes.
Reading settings – we recommend that you show no more than 5 posts when your site loads to speed up loading.
Discussion settings – Most of these are fine for starting out. Just make sure that beside “Before a Comment Appears” you do NOT select ‘Comment must be manually approved’
Permalink settings – Make sure this is set to post name.
Essential Plugins
WordPress blogs come with two plugins already installed. The first thing I suggest is get rid of Hello Dolly by clicking on delete. After that, there are some things that you should take care of before getting too far in to creating your blog.
When you select Plugins, Add New from the dashboard, the following screen appears. There is a search bar at the top right to help you find the plugins you are interested in. You can search for the name or function.
Security
I use and recommend the Wordfence Security plugin. You can find it in the WordPress collections of plugins. The free version works just fine. Make sure you follow all the instructions (they are well done and fairly easy to follow). You can leave most of the defaults in place just to get started.
Spam Filter
Akismet is installed by default. While I still use it on some sites without abovious issue, some folks that I trust have done a lot of testing and don’t recommend it.
On other sites I use WP-Spamshield. It is a paid plugin and works very well.
If you are looking for a free option, try Antispam Bee. It is not perfect but seems to do a fair job for a free plugin.
Backup
There are several free options available for backup. Make sure you read the notes on each to see what they actually backup, where you can backup to and if can you schedule your backups.
Some of the free options are BackWPUp, Updraft Plus and Backup Buddy.
Contact Form
To look like a real business, you must have a way for people to contact you THAT YOU ACTUALLY MONITOR. Using a form manager allows you to have a customizable form while preventing others scraping your email address etc from your site pages.
For my Contact Me page I always use Contact Form 7. It is very easy to use and I have had no issues with it in all the years I have been using it.
Install a Theme
Your WordPress blog will be your face to the digital world so you want it to represent the best you. WordPress comes with many themes that change the look and feel of your blog.
There are many many free themes available from within the dashboard of your blog. Find themes that match the purpose and niche of your blog. Then look at the information for each theme to make sure you can do what you need before installing it.
There are many paid themes available as well, either from 3rd party vendors or as an upgrade to a free theme on the WP site. You can always try the free version and if you like it, upgrade to the paid version later.
Well, that’s enough for this time.
