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If you haven’t set up WordPress before, you will no doubt wonder what to do. If you have set up WordPress before, but haven’t set up very many, this will serve as a guide. Let’s go behind the scenes to the Dashboard.
Settings
The Settings > General page is where you specify the Site Title and Description.
The Settings > Writing page is where you can set the default blog category. The default is uncategorized and will definitely want to come back to this once you add categories for your blog.
The Settings > Reading page is where, for now, you can check a box to discourage search engines from indexing your site while you are working on it. Once you’re ready to reveal your site to the world, come back and uncheck this box.
The Settings > Permalinks pages is where you set the the permanent URLs to your individual weblog posts. A permalink is what another weblogger will use to link to your article (or section), or how you might send a link to your story in an e-mail message. The URL to each post should be permanent, and never change — hence permalink.
My preference is to select Postname. This adds the name of your post to the end of your domain name, like this:
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Plugins
There are some basic plugins that every site should have. There are others that are unique to the site. Here are the basics:
- A Backup Plugin. I use BackuBuddy (premium) but BackWPup (free) is good as well. It’s important to back up your site on a regular basis. You’d be surprised when it might come in handy.
- An SEO Plugin. WordPress SEO by Yoast is hands down the best and easiest. When you get a moment, read Five Ways to Screw Up Your WordPress SEO
- A Contact Form Plugin. Jetpack comes with WordPress and includes a contact form. If you need a more robust contact form, I recommend Gravity Forms.
- A Spam Plugin. Akismet. If you have comments enabled on your site, spam is inevitable. It comes with WordPress and is free for personal use.
- A Coming Soon or Maintenance Mode Plugin. Ultimate Coming Soon Page. This keeps your site 100% safe from prying eyes (or robots).
Pages
Create a few blank pages just to start. You’ll most like need an About page and a Contact page, so create those as a start. Give it a title and save it. You can add content later. If that drives you nuts, pick up some dummy text from Lorem Ipsum.
Menu
Thank goodness you set up some dummy pages because now you can create a menu and display those pages! Go to Appearance > Menus, enter a title for the menu (Navigation or Main Menu work well) and create.
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In the Theme Locations box, select a location to display the menu (probably Primary Navigation Menu at this point) select the menu you just created and click Save. A menu will not show up unless you select a location for it to appear.
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Select the pages from the Theme Locations that you made earlier and click Add to Menu.
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