One of the most popular Content Management System is WordPress. More than 25% sites on the web are made by WordPress. If you have already installed WordPress on your server, you have done a very good job. But do not think that everything is done. Installing WordPress on your server is just the starting, you have to do few more tasks after the installation of WordPress. In this blog post, we are going to focus on 9 things to do after installing WordPress. 

 

Whenever we start a new WordPress blog site, we have to follow a few important checklists as mentioned in the first paragraph. This checklist contains almost everything to give a very strong foundation to a WordPress blog site. OK, let’s read out the 9 things to do after installing WordPress and make a checklist to check if your site already followed those or not!

Things To Do After Installing WordPress

1. Configure Essential Settings

Before taking steps, you have to perfectly configure some basic settings from your WordPress dashboard.

Here are those things.

1. Activate the Akismet Plugin.
2. Delete the Sample Contents that are unnecessary.
3. Set suitable Title, Tagline, and Timezone.
4. Choose WWW or Non-WWW Version of your site.
5. Change your website’s Permalink Structure.
6. Update the Ping List.
7. Configure the Discussion & Comment Settings of your website.
8. Set Default Gravatar for your WordPress site.
9. Change the website’s Admin Username.

These settings will surely optimize your blog site for better performance and better structure as well.

2. Install an Awesome Theme

After installing WordPress, you will be given or assigned with one of the default themes. Those are not so bad for starting a personal blog. But if you are really serious about blogging or you want to create a business site, you have to change your WordPress theme from default.

Starting from tech blog to eCommerce site, WordPress has themes for almost every kind of blog site or websites. You can also get yourself started with a free or premium theme. Free themes are good as well as preferable just because they are free. If you want to build a professional looking WordPress blog site or website, you have to invest some amount of money to buy a premium theme.

There are many premium WordPress theme providers. I guess if you are looking for handpicked design focused on real people, not just a template designed without keeping the regular non-tech user’s experience in mind, you can check our themes(Theme Rally Themes). 

After getting the right WordPress theme for your WordPress blog site, it’s now time to change your default theme by your newly purchased theme. It is very easy. All you need to do is, just install the new theme. Anyway, if you have purchased from us, you will have all help you need to set it up on your website. We even set up a theme with demo data for free! 

3. Add Favicon and Logo

A favicon is a small icon on the browser tab or bookmark. And a logo is the small design that represents your website or blog site around the web. It’s very important to have a unique favicon and a logo to increase your brand’s awareness.

You can easily create a favicon by using Photoshop, Illustrator or other tools as well. If you don’t have skills on designing, you can also use online tools like Favicon.cc or X-Icon Editor.

Once you have prepared the favicon for your website or blog site, go to your WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Customize > Site Identity > Site Icon. And then upload your icon.

When it comes to design a logo, you can do it by yourself if you have graphics designing skills. Otherwise, you need to hire someone who can create logo to create a logo for you.

Fiverr is one of the best sites for hiring excellent and talented graphic designers. You can also hire a designer from TechnoCrews Pro Talents as well as from Upwork and Freelancer as well.

However, you can use online tools to create a logo as well.

4. Install Essential Plugins

A very good and interesting thing about WordPress is, you can do almost everything in WordPress by simply using a simple plugin.

There are so many free and premium WordPress plugins almost everywhere. Some of them are common and very essential for every kind of WordPress websites. Here are some important plugins you should install or at least try.

• Yoast SEO: WordPress is not SEO optimized by default. You need to use an SEO plugin to make your WordPress blog site or WordPress website SEO friendly. I will strongly recommend Yoast SEO for WordPress SEO.
• Jetpack: Jetpack is a very good and innovative WordPress plugin by Automattic. It can easily secure your site, increase performance & traffic, and simplify managing your website.
• W3 Total Cache: W3 Total Cache is a WordPress cache plugin. This plugin improves the user experience of your site by increasing your website speed. It is a very important plugin for every WordPress site.
• VaultPress: VaultPress is a premium backup service that will offer you automatic backups. It has easy restore functions. It’s is the best backup solution for WordPress users who are using blog sites and websites.
• Easy Social Share Buttons for WordPress: This plugin will allow you to add social sharing buttons and social media widget to your WordPress blog site or website for faster sharing.

5. Update Your User Profile

Having biographical informations as well as profile picture helps your readers in a great deal to know more about you as well as to connect with you.

To update your user profile or customize your information, go to WordPress Dashboard > Users > Your Profile. Then simply enter your name, contact info, biographical info, and so on. You have to create Gravatar account to show your profile picture.

You can also use several author box plugin like Fancier Author Box or Fanciest Author Box to make your admin profile more attractive as well.

6. Connect Your Site With Google Analytics and Search Console

Google Analytics and Search Console are the most effective and important must-have tools for site owners. Google Analytics helps you by tracking your visitors and Search Console helps you to notice your website performance in Google Search engine. The good thing is both are free.

You just have to connect your website with Google Analytics and the Search Console to track your website performance.

7. Add Widgets to Sidebar

Almost all of the WordPress themes are integrated with a widget-ready sidebar. It is usually placed on the right side or left-hand side of the website page. You can also add Social Media widget, Recent Posts widget, Facebook Like Box widget, Alexa Ranking Widget and so on, on your sidebar.

WordPress has several built-in widgets. And the maximum of the premium WordPress themes also adds additional widgets to your WordPress website.

To add a widget to your sidebar, simply go to WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets. Then drag a widget (that you want to add to your site) from “Available Widgets” to “Sidebar.” Click on widget and configure the widget settings.

You can simply install more of the widgets from WordPress Plugin Directory or CodeCanyon.

8. Add New Categories

While you can simply add a new category when you are writing a post, I will strongly recommend you to add all categories before publishing posts. It will help you in a great way to plan your posts properly.

To add these categories, simply go to WordPress Dashboard > Posts > Categories. Then enter your category name, slug (URL) and description. And then click on “Add New Category”.

9. Create Essential Pages

Like every other website, WordPress sites need some important pages. You should build up these types pages before publishing any kind of posts. These pages vary from niche to niche or post to post.

There are three important pages that you should keep immediately.

• About
• Contact
• Privacy Policy

Over to You

So these are the major tasks that you should do after installing WordPress.

If you have faced any problem with these things, no worries. Please let us know your problem or questions via comment. We will try our best to answer your queries. We are a team of WP Lovers who earn their bread and butter through it. So help is on the way for sure.

If this article seems useful to you, Please share.