7 Configure WordPress
Setting up WordPress can be a bit daunting the first time you do it, but it helps to know that even the worst mistakes you make can be easily fixed simply by deleting the old file and uploading a new one.
After you’ve logged in, you’re at the WordPress Dashboard. Near the top right corner it says “Settings - Plugins - Users.” Start by clicking Plugins.
Plugins
The Plugin Management page will list all the plugins you uploaded plus one called Hello Dolly and possibly Akismet. You can ignore them, but click “Activate” for all the others. You may get a message saying a newer version of a plugin is now available. This is optional. If you’re having trouble with a plugin and there’s an update available, then you should download and install it.
With all the plugins activated, click “Settings” up near the top right corner.
Settings
Once at the General Settings page, you can enter your website’s name and tagline. Not all themes display taglines, and you won’t be able to see yours until after you activate your new theme, which you’ll do later. Most of the other settings on this page are pretty self-explanatory. “Membership” is a bit confusing. This sets the rules for who can leave comments, if you decide to allow comments. Aside from allowing you to interact with your visitors, comments are valuable in that they can be a way of continually updating your pages, and search engines like that.
Settings - Writing
Down at the bottom of the page is a box for Update Services. This lists the various sites that are pinged each time you publish a new post. Copy the list below and paste it in…
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
Don’t forget to click on “Save Changes.”
You may get an error message about your .htaccess file. If you do, you need to download this file , FTP it into your root directory (public_html/yourdomain/), and then rename it from “htaccess.txt” to “.htaccess” without the quotes.
Settings - Reading
If you leave these settings unchanged, your home page will show up to the last 10 entries you have posted. Some people feel this is too many, and that a smaller number — even as low as one — might serve their purposes better. It’s a matter of how the page looks when it all comes together. This can easily be changed at any time, so don’t worry about it now.
Setttings - Discussion
Here you can decide how to regulate comments. Again, you can leave it for now and not worry.
Settings - Privacy
This lets search engines find you or not, so unless you don’t want any traffic, make sure the box is checked that says “
Settings - Permalinks
This one is important. Set properly, it will name each of your posts with the name you give each article, rather than the WordPress default of simply giving each one a number.
Check the “Custom” box down at the bottom of “Common Settings” and in the text box put: /%postname% That’s foreward slash, percent sign, postname, percent sign (without the commas). I’ll paste it below so you can copy it:
/%postname%
Now, as long as you remember to write keyword-rich titles for every article, your URL will also be keyword-rich. Don’t forget to click “Save Changes” before you move on.
Settings - Miscellaneous
Nothing to concern yourself about there.
Settings - All in One SEO
Take your time and do this one right, as it will put keywords on your home page and everything else you post. Just fill in the first three boxes, or at least the first two, using up all the different keywords you did during your research phase.
Title: Can be 60 - 100 characters long. Description: Can have 25 to 30 words and up to 160 characters. When you’re done, click “Update Options” at the bottom. As with all of these settings, they can be changed tomorrow if you think up something better.
Settings - Subscribe Me
The way I usually configure this plugin is to check everything, including Show as a drop-down button. In the box, I write: Add my RSS feed to your…
Save by clicking “Update Options.”
This plug-in won’t necessarily appear until you add it with widgets, which we’ll do soon.
Settings - Smart Update Pinger
This should now be displaying the ping list you added from the “Writing” tab. If not, put them in now. You do not have to have “Enable pinging” checked now, but make sure it is checked before you post your first article.
You may see an error message about your log file. If so, it’s easy to fix. Open any plain text editor, such as Notepad or WordPad (but not Word) and save an empty page as “smart-update-pinger.log” (without the quotes). Then, FTP it up to your wp-content directory (/public_html/yourdomain/wp-content). That should do the trick.
Settings - XML Sitemap
As I said before, Google and the other search engines love it when you make it easy for them by automatically updating your sitemap each time you post a new article, and that’s what this plugin does. If you scroll way down to near the bottom, you may want to set Change Frequencies to reflect how often you plan on posting: daily, weekly or monthly.
The really important box is the 4th from the top - “Status.” Click to build your sitemap for the first time. You will probably get an error message about not being able to find sitemap log files. Not to worry. Here is what to do…
Open up a text editor, such as WordPad or Notepad (not Word) and save a blank file as “sitemap.xml” and another one as “sitemap.xml.gz” (both without the quotes). Save them to your desktop or anywhere handy. Then, FTP them up to your root directory (public_html/yourdomain/).
Manage - Posts
Delete “Hello World.” If you only edit it, its title will remain in the name of this post, no matter how many keywords you plug in when you re-title it. Don’t bother. Delete it now and start fresh later. You don’t want the search engines to think your site is about “yourdomain.com/hello-world.” You want them to know it’s about “yourdomain.com/lots-of-keywords.”
Manage - Pages
Delete “About” for the same reason.
Manage - Links
Delete all the WordPress links. If you check the top box, it will automatically select them all, so you only need to press “Delete” once.
Design - Themes
WordPress starts you set up with the Default theme, which looks pretty boring. Just click the name of your new theme to install it. You can “visit site” now if you want, but it will look a bit strange until you have written your first post.
Design - Widgets
Widgets are great. They let you add components and move them around with a great deal of flexibility even if you are not a whiz at writing html code. I like the text wizard because into it you can simply copy, for example, the coding for a Google AdSense ad or the html code for a banner graphic from an affiliate program, and paste it in. You start by selecting the area where you want the widgets to go. Different themes have different areas, such as header, left sidebar and right sidebar.
In the right column you’ll see “Current Widgets.” Click the pull-down menu button right below it to see how many choices you have of where widgets may go. Select one and click “Show.”
In the left column, locate the widgets you want to add to that area and click “Add.”
If you have added more than one widget, you can click on them and drag them up or down into position.
Note that each widget may be edited by clicking on “Edit.” The default title for the “Pages” widget is “Pages” but, for this website, all I did was edit the widget and wrote in “Web Building Steps” in the title box.
If you’ve installed the Subscribe Me plugin, it will appear as a widget. I usually put it toward the bottom of the left sidebar. Don’t forget to click on “Save Changes” after you’ve moved everything into place.
Design - Theme Editor
This one is not for those who are easily frightened. I was scared stiff the first time I deleted or added coding from one of the theme pages. But if you make a mistake and you can’t correct it, simply re-FTP up a fresh copy of the file you “broke” and all will be like new again, ready for you to change more carefully next time.
On this particular website, in the Blue Zinfandel theme, the names of the pages automatically appeared in the horizontal menu bar below the main title and subtitle. But I deleted them, and instead installed the Pages widget onto the left toolbar, renaming it Web Building Steps. In the empty space in the header where the pages used to be, I inserted a Google Ad Link bar. The file where I made the changes is “header.php”.
Before you can edit any of the theme components, you will need to change their permissions via FTP so they are writable.
Over the next few weeks I will be writing posts that describe in greater detail, with illustrations, how to edit theme pages and change permissions.
Users
The “Users” tab on the far right menu bar is only useful if you want to add or change a name that is credited with having published posts. This is another opportunity for you to add another keyword to your pages. If you signed in as “Admin” that is the name that will be tagged onto every post you make. Why not change the author’s name to “travel writer” or “Your Name” or “another useful keyword phrase?” You can do that through the “Users” tab.