Post Install To-Do List – 20 Things You Ought To Do

One of the wonderful things about WordPress is the ease you could set it up or transfer from Blogger to WordPress with just a few clicks. Everything works right out of the box but what comes next after the installation is the subject of today’s article.

With that in mind, here are a couple of to-do things to consider right after the installation for the benefit of those who are done with WordPress Install or Migration.

It may not be the Ultimate To-Do List but it’s my own personal checklist of things to do to get the most out of WordPress.

#1 Change Your Blog Title & Tagline

Setting > General: Your blog title is what you say about your blog to your visitor right at the gate and the tagline is a one-line description of your blog. Change “Just another WordPress weblog” to whatever you think it’s best to describe your blog. As the rule of thumb, you should optimize your tagline with your keywords.

#2 Update Ping Services

Setting > Writing: Well, the majority of us don’t bother to check and update which pings services WordPress ping (aka notify) automatically. Ping notifies the ping engines every time you post a new article on your blog to get the search engines to visit your site more often.

Below are the list of ping services that I use

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2/

http://pingqueue.com/rpc/

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://www.bloglines.com/ping

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

If you are hungry for more, here’s A Complete List of Ping Services for your reference.

#3 Use Full RSS Feed

Setting > Reading: There are two different school of thoughts on the use of full feed or summary (partial) feed. From a reader’s perspective, a full feed is preferable than a partial feed while the argument of using the less popular partial feed is that it forces your readers to click to your site, increase page views and ultimately gain more from advertising clicks.

Whatever your belief is, for god’s sake, don’t use summary feed. It’s a selfish act of robbing the precious time of your readers. After all, it’s a known fact that your subscribers are those who are less likely to click on your CPC ads.

#4 Edit Comment Setting

Setting > Discussion: Tick “An administrator must always approve the comment“. As a matter of practice, I’m putting every effort to reply to each and every legit comment the best I can, as such I’ve set the option for me to approve and moderate every incoming comment, lest it goes unnoticed right in front of my eyes.

#5 Update Your Profile

User > Your Profile: Personalize your nickname with your own and choose to display it in place of “admin”. Why hide it when you can flaunt it? I don’t know if it does make any difference at all but hiding behind your blog certainly lower your credibility as a blogger.

#6 Change Your Permalink

Setting > Permalinks > Custom Structure: One of the most important yet overlooked thing you should must do right after the installation is to change optimize your url structure once and for all or you’ll otherwise regret it for the rest of your blogging career.

I’d recommend the use of only /%postname%/ for its readability and SEO benefits. In case you’ve missed it, here’s 15 SEO Tips for Beginners for your reading pleasure.

#7 Pick a Theme

Design > Theme: With thousands of WordPress themes readily available, why settle for the WordPress default? Choose one that suits your niche and your personality. Google for “the best WordPress themes“. Once you find the one you like, download, unzipped and upload it to your /wp-admin/themes/ directory to install. It couldn’t be much easier than that.

#8 Delete Test Post

Manage > Post: WordPress comes with a default test post that reads something like this

Hello World!
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

For whatever reason it is there, just say “Hello” and delete it.

#9 Delete Meta Info

The META section on your sidebar includes some admin links like “Login” or “XHTML Valid” and some other links which offer no value at all to your reader and are safe to remove.

Design > Theme Editor: At the right section of it, look for sidebar.php, click on it. Next, scroll somewhere at the bottom and comment out the meta section of code. See the screenshot.

Update: Alternatively, just go to Design > Widgets > Sidebar and open the Meta Widget and click “Remove”. [Thanks, Rhys]

#10 Edit Your Blogroll

Manage > Link: Your blogroll is where you list any sites worthy of your attention. The unwritten rule in the blogging world is that if a blogger puts a link to your blog in his or her blogroll, you should reciprocate the same in your own blogroll. However, it only applies to those who links to you first and not vice versa. Does it actually makes sense to you?

Another common use of blogroll is to provide a simple navigation to your inner pages i.e. ‘About Me’ Page, Advertise Page or whatsoever. The rule of thumb is to keep the list as short as possible.

#11 Add Categories

Manage > Categories: By default, WordPress has a category called “Uncategorized“, depending on the niche you are in, it’s a good practice to change it to a more meaningful category name to ease your readers’ navigation. I suggest that you add more categories to allow grouping of your post topic prior to writing your first post.

In the spirit of sharing, here’s an interesting article on How to Choose the Right Category Name for Better SEO.

#12 Write “About Me” Page

Write > Pages: Anonymity is the privilege and the fun part of blogging. But your readers deserves the right to know who is talking to them and whom they will be talking to. In such an impersonal world of blogging, a little introduction about you makes it more personal and improve your credibility as a blogger. What you want to reveal is really up to you but just don’t hide behind the mask of your blog. (See #5)

#13 Create a Favicon

With tab-browsing becoming more and more popular, a favicon (short for “favorites icon”), also known as a page icon, is commonly used to identify and brand your site. It is an icon that is associated with your site and help to differentiate it from the pack.

You can easily create a favicon using one of online favicon generator and once you are done, follow the instruction here on how to install favicon in WordPress blog.

#14 Get Your Own Gravatar

While favicon is what represents your blog, Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatars) is a visual representation of you in the blogging community. Think of it as your virtual identity card. Each time you make a comment on other blogs, your avatar will appear beside your name, thus creating your unique identity.

Sign up to get your own gravatar. All you need is your email address!

#15 Setup A Contact Form

A contact form is no longer optional. It’s a necessary part of your blog and a medium of communication that connects you with your readers. Keep in mind that in certain situation your readers might need an easy way to contact you and how else you’d expect them to reach you easier than using a contact form?

For its simplicity and enhanced security with captcha images, I’d recommend Secure Contact Form.

#16 Create a robots.txt file

Basically the purpose of creating a robots.txt file is to improve site indexation by telling search engine crawler to only index your content pages and to ignore other pages (i.e. monthly archives, categories folders or your admin files) that you do not want them to appear on the search index lest it leads to the problem of duplicate content. In layman term, it means that you can’t have two or more pages with the same content words for words.

#17 Get Your WordPress API

Sad but it’s true. You can no longer run your blog without a proper anti-spam protection nowadays. Though not the first of its kind, Akismet is regarded as one of the best and it comes with the package. To activate it, you need WordPress API key. Once activated, your blog will be protected from spam the same way every blog on WordPress.com is.

How do you get your API key? When you sign up for a WordPress.com account, you’ll be provided with an API key via email. If you already have a WordPress.com account, your API key is listed on your profile page.

#18 Create Google Webmasters Tool Account

Using Google Webmaster Tools, you can submit the structure of your site (aka sitemap) to improve search engine crawls, learn which search queries drive traffic to your site and track who you link to and who links to you. It’s one of the most essential Search Engine Optimization tool for any blogmaster.

Just go to Google Webmasters Tools and log in using your existing Google account, or create an account if you don’t have one.

#19 Create a Feedburner Feed

What is FeedBurner? It is the 3rd party application designed to easily manage your RSS subscription and more. With FeedBurner, [1] it will redirect your WordPress default feed into a single interface and [2] re-distribute it to all your subscribers in one single standardized format. [3] It has options to add more cool features to your RSS contents. [4] More importantly, it helps to simplify the process of subscribing with just “one easy click”.

In short, FeedBurner makes subscription a whole lot easier for the non-tech savvy readers. Here’s how to create your FeedBurner account.

#20 Install Plugins

With the vast availability of plugins, it’s best to decide early which plugins you can do without (or install later) and which are indeed necessary. In the next article, I’ll touch on the subject of the essential basic plugins you must have right after the installation so stay tuned and stay subscribed.

Last but certainly not the least, don’t forget to check on 10 WordPress Hacks To Make Your Life Easy when you are done. Start posting and happy blogging.

Comments and thoughts are most welcomed!

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