We are often asked by consumers about what to do after starting a site? As soon as you have installed WordPress, there are still a few things you have to do to set up and launch your site correctly. In this article, we’ll share the most important things that you will immediately want to perform after installing WordPress.
1. Add a Contact Form
All sites on the internet require a contact type. It allows your site visitors to quickly contact you by filling out a form in your site.
By default, WordPress doesn’t arrive with a built-in contact type.
It is the finest WordPress contact form plugin and allows you to easily create beautiful contact forms for your site.
They also have a WinForms free variant that you can download from WordPress.org plugin.
See our step-by-step guide on how to create a contact form from WordPress.
2. Change Website Name, Tagline, and Timezone
Next, you will need to change the site name, tagline, and timezone preferences. Only head to Settings” General page and change these settings.
3. Installation WordPress SEO
WordPress is reasonably SEO friendly outside of the box. But, there is a lot more that you can do to maximize your SEO and gain more traffic to your site.
The ideal time to establish your own site’s SEO is shortly after installing WordPress.
We advocate utilizing the Yoast SEO plugin.
For complete step-by-step directions, visit our ultimate WordPress SEO guide for novices.
4. Setup Google Analytics
As a site owner, you have to understand your audience, what they are searching for, and how you can help them locate it. These tips help you make smarter decisions to cultivate your company.
This is where you require Google Analytics. It shows you just how many people visit your site, where they came from, and what they did on your site.
The easiest way to install Google Analytics is using MonsterInsights. It is the finest Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and shows beautiful analytics reports directly inside WordPress.
For the entire installation, visit our beginner’s guide on how to easily install Google Analytics from WordPress.
5. Install Caching Plugins
As a site owner, you have to make sure that your site is fast and performs well even under high traffic.
This is where caching comes from. It allows your site to rapidly serve cached copies of your pages to customers instead of generating them on the fly. This reduces server load in your site and enhances your page load rate.
There are a whole lot of caching plugins available for WordPress. However we advocate using the WP Super Cache plugin. See our guide on how to install and installation WP Super Cache plugin to get detailed directions.
Caching alone can significantly enhance your site’s speed. See our comprehensive guide on the way to strengthen WordPress rate & performance.
6. Setup Backups
You can also store your backups securely on remote storage services like Google Drive, Amazone S3, Dropbox, and more.
For step by step instructions see our step by step tutorial on how to backup and restore WordPress using UpdraftPlus
7. Setup WordPress Security
WordPress is quite secure out of the box. However, you still need to follow security best practices to keep your website safe.
Some of these best practices are quite easy to do on your own like using strong passwords, securing WordPress admin area, and installing updates.
For other things, you will need a plugin. There are some great WordPress security plugins that you can use.
We recommend using Sucuri. They are the industry leader in website security, vulnerability scanning, and malware protection.
The best part about using Sucuri, is that they offer the best WordPress firewall plugin. A website firewall blocks suspicious traffic from ever reaching your website.
For complete instructions, follow the steps in our ultimate WordPress security guide for beginners.
8. Setup Spam Protection
Spam comments can be quite problematic. Most of them contain links to malicious websites known for distributing malware. Spam comments can affect your search rankings and your website’s reputation.
You can enable comment moderation in WordPress to prevent any comment appearing without approval. However, as the quantity of spam grows you will be spending considerable time moderating comments.
To fix this, you need to install and activate the Akismet plugin. It is a WordPress anti-spam plugin and one of the only two plugins that come pre-installed on every WordPress website.
To learn more, see our guide on how to setup Akismet anti-spam plugin in WordPress.
9. Delete Unused WordPress Themes
Most WordPress users will install and test a few themes before deciding on one that’s a keeper. Instead of leaving those unused themes installed, be sure to delete them. The reason for that is because even inactive themes will need updates.
We do recommend keeping at least one default theme installed. This theme will act as a fallback in case you have to switch themes when troubleshooting errors.
Go to Appearance” Themes page and click on an unused theme that you want to delete. This may bring up a popup showing theme details. From the bottom-right corner of the popup, you will understand the hyperlink to delete the theme.
Repeat the procedure to delete all unused themes.
10. Installation WordPress Comments
Opinions play an important function on many websites. They are a fantastic indicator of consumer engagement and allow you to create a community around your web site.
Simply go to Settings ” Discussion page to setup comments. From here you can enable or disable comments, setup comment notifications, and enable comment moderation.
11. Delete Default Content
WordPress comes with some default content to be used as the placeholder items. This includes a blog post titled ‘Hello World,’ a sample comment, and a sample page.
Simply go to Posts” All Articles page. Take your mouse into the’Hello World’ article and then click the trash’ link.
Then visit Pages” All Pages page and then delete’Sample Page.
Lastly, visit the Remarks page and then delete the default remark.
12. Installation a Default Category
WordPress articles are required to be submitted under at least one category. By default, WordPress uses the ‘Uncategorized’ category as the default category. If you do not change the category when composing a blog post, then it’ll automatically be submitted under the default category.
To change the default category, to begin with, you have to visit the Articles” Categories page to create a new category. This will be used as your new default category.
After that, go to Settings” Composing page. Here you will find the default category choice; you can go ahead and pick the new category you created earlier.
Finally, you can visit the Articles” Categories page and delete the’Uncategorized’ category.
To learn more, see our guide on how to change the default Uncategorized category in WordPress.
13. Setup Front and Blog Pages
By default, WordPress displays your blog posts on the homepage. However, if you are making a small business website, then you would want to use a static page as your homepage.
Even most blogs want to use a static front page as their homepage. This allows them to create custom layouts for their homepage.
To set up these pages, you can go to Settings” Reading page and pick the pages you want to utilize as your front page and site page.
For more details, visit our article on the way best to add a separate page for site posts in WordPress.
14. Upload Your Gravatar
WordPress utilizes Gravatar to display user photos in author bios and WordPress remarks. Gravatar is a profile image hosting service that allows users to utilize the same photo as their profile image across tens of thousands of web site.
Simply go to the Gravatar’s site and create an account with the email address you have used on your WordPress account.
After that, you can use this email address to remark on tens of thousands of sites utilizing Gravatar, for example, your website.
For more details, visit our article on the best way to utilize Gravatar from WordPress.
15. Finish Your User Profile
Next, you would want to finish your WordPress profile. Merely head to Users” Your Profile page to update your profile information.
By default, WordPress will use your username next to your blog posts and comments. You would want to replace it with your full name or nickname. See our article on how to add or change your full name in WordPress.
You would also want to provide your website link. Other plugins may also add their custom fields to your user profile like social media links.
Lastly, enter a short bio of yourself. This would give your users a quick introduction and help them learn more about the author behind the articles.
16. Upload Favicon and Site Icon
Favicon or Site Icon is the tiny image that appears next to your website title in the browser. It helps your users identify your website and increases brand recognition among your most frequent visitors.
First, you will need to create an image of exactly 512×512 pixels in dimensions and save it in png, jpeg, or gif format.
After that, you need to visit Appearance” Customize and click the’Site Identity’ tab. Beneath the’Site Icon’ section click the’Select File’ button to upload your favicon.
For more details, visit our article on the way best to add favicon and website icon at WordPress for step by step instructions.
17. Change WordPress Email Address
Most users add their email address when installing WordPress. This means their very first consumer profile and their site’s email address are the same.
To change this, you can visit Preferences” General page and enter the new email address you would like to use for the web site.
Make certain that the new email address is active, as WordPress will send a confirmation email to that address.
You can use any email address here. But it would be best to use an email address that shows that this address is for automated emails delivered from your site.
If you want to utilize email accounts with your domain name, then please visit our guide on the way best to create a completely free business email address to your WordPress site.
18. Setup Your WordPress Theme
The next step is to set up your WordPress theme. Most WordPress themes include various features and customization choices. But, there are some basic configurations that are the same in all WordPress themes. In fact, they are typical among most sites on the planet.
Let us start by establishing navigation menus. It is the links menu that usually appears in the header segment. It contains links to various areas of your site.
For detailed instructions, visit our newcomer’s guide on setting up navigation menus from WordPress.
Next you would want to add widgets for your WordPress. Widgets allow you to add unique blocks to your site’s sidebar or widget ready areas.
By default, WordPress will display a couple of default widgets into your primary sidebar. You would want to rearrange them add other widgets. Your theme may also include its customized widgets for social media and other features that you would want to utilize.
For detailed instructions, visit our newcomer’s guide on how to add and use plugins in WordPress
Your theme may also incorporate loads of other choices like color schemes, layout options, header designs, and much more. Explore these choices and put them up for your liking.
We hope this article helped you learn things you will immediately want to perform after installing WordPress. You may also want to find these actionable suggestions to drive traffic to your WordPress website.