WordPress is the most widely used and excellent platform to create a new blog. In this guide, we’ll discuss what to do after installing WordPress. No matter what topics you are going to publish or your strategy, WordPress offers everything you need to create a professional blog, with a great design, plugins to expand the capacity and functionalities, and all kinds of options to make the blog it is.
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How Can I Get Started With WordPress?
Creating a blog has many benefits (it can even help you find a job), and with WordPress, you will have all the capabilities and technical tools to meet your goals and have everything you need for your blog posts.
To get started, you may already know what the two main requirements are:
- A domain name (If you don’t have then register your domain now)
- A web hosting Plan (Shared Hosting Plan that is more suitable for beginners)
The domain is the address that will identify the blog on the Internet (such as the name), and the web hosting plan refers to the servers that will host all the information, images, files, and databases of the blog.
Getting started is very simple because you don’t need to learn any programming language to develop your blog.
First, you will register a more suitable domain name that matches the goals and purposes of the blog with a .COM TLD. However, you can also use any other top-level domain as per your own choices, but .com is most preferred.
The next step is to get a web hosting plan as per the required storage and computing resources. Many web hosting providers offer their services, but TEMOK is the first choice for beginners due to the lowest-priced shared hosting plans.
Once you have these two components, they are configured to work together, and WordPress can be installed on the domain.
The exact process is not explained here, but there are many tutorials where you can review it. It can take a few hours to finish everything and have WordPress already installed and ready to go.
If you get any errors while installing WordPress, Temok technical support is always available to help you.
Having the platform installed is a big step. Very important and indispensable. But what’s next after this?
What To Do After Installing WordPress?
There are so many things that can be done that many times we can feel overwhelmed or have no idea what steps to follow once we already have WordPress on our domain.
I am going to review the following list of tasks and actions that you can take after installing WordPress:
Delete The User “Admin”
In many WordPress installations, the user that is created by default is called admin. Although it may not be very relevant, it is much easier for hackers to enter a WordPress when there is an “admin” user in the installation.
For security reasons, create a new one with another name having an administrator role and delete this user named Admin. This is done by visiting Users> Add New from the WordPress dashboard.
Enter the username and email or other optional information and generate a strong password as you can see in the given picture:
Please select the user role very carefully and don’t create a user other than you with administrator roles. You have the given options for the user Role:
Now, navigate to all users and delete the user named Admin:
Create a Strong Password
Undeniable right?
The truth is that many WordPress users continue to use the same password as always, with predictable sequences and patterns or even with the name of the website or domain included. However, you may also need to consider Ultimate WordPress security tips.
Easy passwords equate to potential security issues.
It is best to choose a complicated password to guess, with capital letters, symbols, and numbers. You have the option to generate a complex password while creating a new user. So, try to use an auto-generated complex password:
Configuration of Permanent Links
As with the “admin” user, in many new installations, the permalinks or URLs are configured as follows:
http://www. any domain name .com/?p=123
This does not help the SEO, branding, or functionality of the website. To be correctly configured, go to Settings> Permanent Links select the Entry Name custom, and add any word that will be added before your category. In this way, the URLs will include your newly added custom keyword. If you need, you can also have a date in the URL such as year, month, and day.
Make The Basic Setup
In your main WordPress dashboard, navigate to the Settings part, where you can configure the following:
- general
- Writing
- Reading
- Comments
- Media
All these options are essential to have your blog working well from the beginning, so update all these sections very carefully.
Update Your Profile
In addition to having a username, your WordPress profile can include many other things such as email, website, Twitter, Facebook, a bio, and a different color scheme from the main desktop.
All this can be modified in Users> Your Profile.
Add New Users (if necessary)
Will other users be going to edit the site or add content? No problem; With WordPress, you can add all the necessary users.
It is essential to know that there are different types of users with different roles and capabilities. Here are presented as they are described on the official WordPress page:
- Administrator – Who has access to all the administration features of a particular site.
- Editor – Who can publish and edit posts, their own and those of other users?
- Author – Who can publish and edit their posts?
- Contributor – Who can write and edit their posts but not publish them
- Subscriber – Who can only edit their profile?
If you want to be the only one who can make modifications to the design, install plugins, and other vital WordPress functions, do not add more administrators; they better be editors, authors, and collaborators. 🙂
To add new users, go to Users> Add New.
Delete The Post And Default Pages
When we install WordPress, a demo page and post are included by default. The page is called Sample Page, and the post Hello Word!
Are they suitable for anything? I do not believe it.
It is best to remove this content from the blog from day one.
Delete default pages:
Delete default posts:
Add Categories To Your Blog
No matter what topic you are going to blog about, you will surely need to classify all that content, which helps give order and structure to all your publications.
In addition to this, they allow readers to find content more efficiently based on their interests or needs.
To get started, go to Posts> Categories and start adding the main ones. I recommend adding a maximum of 10 categories, and if necessary, you can also have subcategories.
Just make sure there aren’t too many.
Make The Internal SEO Settings
We all want to rank on the first page of Google and get maximum traffic from potential customers.
It is free and gives us great authority to be ranked in the first place of the largest search engine in the world.
Although SEO is not something immediate and happens overnight, it is essential to do an excellent internal configuration of our blog to be well-ranked in the coming weeks and months. Moreover, you also need to follow these realistic SEO techniques.
For this, I recommend the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin, which offers all the tools and functions to get WordPress ready for Internal SEO (On-Page SEO).
Navigate to the Plugins > Add New Search Yoast Plugin and click on the install button.
After successful installation, activate the plugin and set the general information as per your own choices:
To do all this configuration, check the following tutorial: How to position your WordPress blog in Google.
Install The Essential Plugins
Plugins are one of the main advantages of using WordPress. With these tools, the possibilities become practically unlimited, and we can create, modify, and add anything to our blog.
There are essential plugins that every WordPress blog should include, while other more specific ones are adapted to the user’s unique needs. So, navigate to the Add New under Plugins and start installing all required plugins:
If you want to check which are the best WordPress plugins, check the following link:
Here you will find everything you need to install and find the plugins you need.
Define The Theme You Are Going To Use
The design and Appearance are one of the most important pillars of your new WordPress blog and the results you are going to obtain.
You can install default WordPress themes or upload any premium theme by clicking on the Upload Theme:
Great design allows new users to stay on your site and browse all of your content. Remember that the decision to stay or close the tab of your blog is made in a few seconds; that is why having a friendly site with a great appearance is a priority.
What will be the theme that you are going to use for your blog?
There are endless providers of free and paid (premium) templates. I recommend the most to choose a premium that offers the design you are looking for and suitable options to customize it to your liking.
So, you can try different themes provided by WordPress; otherwise, you can buy a paid theme from ThemeForest and upload it.
Create The Essential Pages
In addition to posting posts on your blog, you will need to create some essential pages. Some examples are:
- About (or About the Author)
- Privacy policies
- Contact
- Frequent questions
- Resources
- And so on!
Depending on your blog and topic, you may have other important pages that you need to add.
All this can be done from the part of Pages> Add New.
Write an attractive heading, and blog content by inserting valuable images, videos, or other available formatting options:
Add Your First Post
So that your blog does not look empty with that great design that you already chose, why not add your first post?
Write and publish a post. You can include the content or topic that you want, even just a welcome message. The important thing is to click on the “Publish” button and start working on all the machinery 😉
Configure The Widgets
Widgets are an essential part of WordPress and your blog design. Most likely, your blog includes a sidebar on the right side where you can add different Widgets such as Recent Posts, a Facebook caption, a subscription form, essential links, advertising banners, and much more.
Besides this, you may also have other sidebars and areas where you can add Widgets (depending on your theme).
Enter Appearance> Widgets to get started.
Remember also that some plugins work through Widgets.
Set Your Goals
Leaving aside the technical WordPress themes a bit, let’s move on to the goals you have with your blog.
Yes, I know it is a topic that is talked about a lot. But it is essential always to have goals and understand what you want to achieve with a new project, in this case, a new blog.
Create a list of 5 to 10 goals that you want to achieve in 1 year. They can be financial goals, Web traffic, ranking, posts, or other things you want to achieve through the platform.
For example:
- I earn $2,000 per month with my blog annually
- I have two books published on Amazon thanks to my blog
- I have three video courses that I offer to my readers
- My blog has 1000 visits a day
Write down your goals in the present tense as if you were already achieving them. This helps your mind hold on to them and act every day as if they were already a reality, which will get you closer to achieving them faster.
Create Your Web Traffic Plan
A blog without web traffic does not exist. It is like a store without visitors.
Most of the new bloggers abandon ship due to lack of visits. That is why we must create a specific plan that we can follow with order and structure.
The usual thing is that you do not have many visits at the beginning because your blog is new, nobody knows you, and it takes time to gain momentum. Do not give up or lose motivation; follow the web traffic plan that you have created, which includes:
- Traffic sources
- Daily actions
- Specific goals
- Detailed steps to follow
A web traffic plan adapts to what you need and contains the traffic sources that work best for your model and what you want to achieve.
Now, you already have a list of 16 tasks to perform once you have WordPress installed on your domain.
When you finish each of them, you will take essential steps in your blogging goals and plan.
Remember to be very patient in the beginning and be very persistent.
Not everything is achieved overnight. You have to make an effort and have a long-term vision.
What other important task do you think we should do after installing WordPress?
Share your opinion in the comments. 🙂