6 Crucial Blog Configurations Before You Start Blogging

Last updated on August 1st, 2018 at 07:03 pm

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Starting a brand new blog is like buying a car. (without the new car smell). Think of the possibilities of where your blog can take you if you’re able to capture the right audience. You can literally create the lifestyle you desire and become your own boss if you create a successful blog.

However, in order to start a successful blog there are certain configurations you should make on every blog installation. If you try building your blog without making these configurations, it will make your job a lot harder.

Let’s discuss the 6 crucial WordPress blog configurations we need to take a look at.

Let’s get started.

6 Crucial WordPress Blog Configurations

You will need to log into the back office of your WordPress dashboard. These configurations are not written in any particular order of importance.

Follow along and let’s make sure that you’re blog is configured correctly.

1. Set up WordPress General Settings

Log into your WordPress dashboard,  and navigate to settings >> general.

I am going to run you through all the settings on your blog. This will ensure that you don’t miss any of the settings.

Site Title: This is where you enter the site title of your blog.

It’s important to make sure you choose a site title that will let people know what your blog is about. You can see that my blog title is “Learn The Techie Side of Blogging.”

Taking A Closer Look At Tag Lines

It’s important to use keywords that are related to your niche to help you get found on Google. Let’s say you have a new blog on pug puppies.

Your tagline could be:  “Pug Puppy Whisperer” or “We Heart Pug Puppies.

If your blog is about family vacations.

You could use something like “Family Vacation In Houston Hotspots To See” or “Fun Attactions That Will Make Your Family Vacation Memorable”

All of these site titles let your visitors know what your blog is about. An important thing to notice is that I stuck the keyword in the tagline. If you need more help with your page titles, read this.

Tag Line: We’ve all heard of the elevator pitch. You know that 30-60 second business pitch that tells someone what you’re all about.

Your blog’s tag line does that for you. It informs your visitors what your blog is about and based on your tag line they can decide if your blog can help them.

Don’t worry about getting these wrong and don’t let them prevent you from publishing your first post. If you get it wrong the first time, you can always change it.

Chances are as you start growing your blog, you will change both. Don’t lose sleep if you can’t come up with a catchy tagline or site title.

• Use keywords in your title tag and tagline if possible
• Make sure you add something in both of these text boxes

WordPress Address & Site Address: Your URL should be correct, do not change it.

Email Address: Enter a valid email that you want to be use as the administrative email. This is the email that will be used for all admin purposes.

If you ever lose your password, you can reset it with the admin email. If you lose your admin email, read this tutorial on how to reset your password via PHP myAdmin.

Membership: Leave this unchecked, you don’t want to allow just anyone to register. By leaving this unchecked, it will help stop automated spammers from leaving bad links on your blog.

This isn’t going to completely stop spammers, that’s why it’s important to take some type of step to prevent spam comments on your blog. I’ve written a tutorial on the spam plugin I use here.

3. Change Your Permalink Settings

Go to Settings >> Permalinks

Related: 7 Of My Favorite Plugins

It’s extremely important to make sure you are using SEO friendly permalinks. If you set them up correctly from the start, it will help your search engine rankings.

This is how I have mine set up on my blog.

The main take away is to choose a permalink structure you want to live with. Yes, you can change it later on, but it’s going to be a headache and a lot of unnecessary extra work.

4. User Profile Settings Page

Go to Users >> Profile

Your author profile page is extremely important. This is where you will be setting up your display name, author bio box and your contact info. These blog configurations are extremely important because you want people to see you as an expert in your niche.

So let’s run through these settings and make sure you get them set up the right way from the get go.

Display public name publicly: This is the name that you want associated with the content that is written on your blog posts. If you’re the only author or user, then your name will go here.

Contact Info: Enter the information of all your social networks here.

About Yourself: The biographical info also known as the author box is where you let people know what your expertise in your niche is. This will show up at the bottom of all your blog posts once you enable it. I’ve written a tutorial on how to add the author box to the Genesis theme.

Don’t forget about creating an awesome about page that lets people know what you do and who you are.

Change Your Password: When you installed WordPress, you may not have chosen a very strong password. If your current password is not very secure, you are leaving your site vulnerable to hackers.

Take this time to choose a strong password for your blog. A strong password consists of more than 10 digits, which includes uppercase, lowercase, special characters and numbers. I use Roboform to help me create extremely strong passwords for my passwords and databases.

Example of a weak password: [email protected]

Example of a strong password: OR7n0^KNAv9j9$Cfm4luBA

5. Configure Your Discussion Settings

Go to Settings >> discussion

This is the page that allows you determine how you want your comments to appear on your blog. You can choose to not allow comments or close comments after a certain number of days.

You have full control over how long you allow comments on your blog. Follow along and let’s get your comment settings setup properly.

Other Comment Settings: We unchecked this in the general settings. If it’s checked, be sure you uncheck it. This prevents anyone from just registering and leaving a comment in your blog.

Before Comment Appears: If this is checked, all comments will need to be approved by the administrator.

It’s important to manually approve all comments on your blog. You don’t want spammers littering your blog with tons of spam. I’ve written a tutorial that will help you install a plugin that helps combat spam.

6. Install Basic WordPress Plugins

If you’re new to WordPress, it can be confusing as to which plugins you should get started with. Here are a list of the basic plugins you should consider installing on a brand new WordPress blog.

• Anti Spam
• Contact Form
• Social Sharing
• Related Posts Plugin
• Email List Builder
• SEO Plugin
• WordPress Security Plugin
• Automated Backup

As your blog starts to grow and you need to add a functionality to your blog, you can always add more.

If you don’t know how to work with plugins, read this tutorial. It’ll teach you everything you need to know about working with plugins.

Always look for plugins that are well-coded and offer some type of support. If a plugin is not supported by the developer you won’t be able to update it to keep your site protected.

Final Take Away

Blogging is hard work. These 6 blog configurations will help make your job a little bit easier. Before you publish your first blog post, make sure you’ve configured your blog correctly.

Once you’re done making these configurations, you can create your blogging schedule and start publishing content on a regular basis. I would love to visit your blog and see what you’ve accomplished on your journey.