- How To Setup A WordPress Blog Part One
- How To Setup A WordPress Blog Part Two
- How To Setup A WordPress Blog Part Three
This is the third and final part of my How To Setup A WordPress Blog series. In How To Setup A WordPress Blog Part One, I covered why you should consider using WordPress if you are considering starting a blog for professional reasons or if you thinking about switching blog platforms. Then in Part Two, I talked about how you need a hosting plan and domain name before you setup a WordPress blog. I also covered the steps you have to take to install WordPress using the Fantastico program which most hosting companies offer.
Now I’m going to go over some of the steps you should take in order to setup your newly installed WordPress blog. The instructions here in this part apply to WordPress 2.9.2. If you have an earlier version, then some of these instructions may not coincide with the WordPress version you have. These steps will help make your WordPress blog easier for you to manage and maintain along with making your blog more SEO friendly which is vital if you plan on blogging for professional or business reasons. I’ll end this last part with some plugins which I heartily recommend you to try. There’s a lot to this last part so let’s get started!
Setting Up Your WordPress Blog’s Dashboard
In How To Setup A WordPress Blog Part 2, I went over the installation of WordPress using Fantastico. The last step of the installation displays a login URL for your new WordPress blog. I hope you either wrote down the URL or bookmarked it as I asked because we need to login to your WordPress blog now. If you don’t have the login page of your new blog loaded into your browser, go ahead and do it now.
On the login page, you have to enter your username and password. After you enter both, click inside the box next to Remember Me so that you don’t have to enter your login information every time you want to access your blog’s dashboard, and then click the Login button. You will then be taken to the first page of what is commonly known as the Dashboard. This is where you can, essentially, control what your blog does.
Now I’m going to go over the most important changes / additions you need to make to your new WordPress installation to help make it more manageable and SEO-friendly.
Settings
On the Settings page (click on the Settings link found on the right side), you will see a number of links, such as General, Writing, Reading, Discussion, and so on. For now, we are just going to deal with the settings for General, Writing, and Permalinks.
General page
On the General page, you will see your Blog Title, Tagline (which is the description you entered for your blog when you were installing it using Fantastico), and such. If you want to make any changes to your Tagline, you can do it here. Just ensure that it is short and contains some keywords which pertain to your blog for SEO reasons. Don’t stuff it full of keywords because it won’t help you in regards to SEO- it may backfire!
WordPress typically installs in the root directory of the hosting space provided by your hosting company. However, if you will using another homepage for your blog instead of your blog’s default homepage, then you will need to enter the URL for it for the Blog Address URL.
You will also want to enter an email address towards the bottom of the page to receive any emails which originate from your blog.
The rest of this page is pretty much self explanatory. So let’s move on to the Writing Page.
Writing page
At the top of this page, you are given the option of setting how many lines you want your post box to be. I have mine set to 10. My advice would be to try 10 and see how it works. I use the MORE coding to tell WordPress when to signal the end of each post’s teaser text on my blog’s front page. In case I forget to enter it, then only 10 lines will display.
If you plan on posting to your blog remotely from your iPhone or by using another program on your computer besides WordPress, then go to the Remote Publishing section and check off each one of those boxes. This will enable your iPhone or desktop blogging application to “communicate” with your Wordpress installation.
You also might want to consider setting up the Post Via Email option directly below the Remote Publishing section. I’ve never posted to a blog via email so I can’t say if it’s worth the trouble or not. My advice would be to try it out first.
At the bottom of the page is where you can enter ping URLs belonging to different update services on the web. Update services are sites which let other people know you’ve updated your blog, such as Technorati, Google, etc. Here are some ping URLs you can copy and paste underneath http://rpc.pingomatic.com/ which is already there:
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping
http://rpc.twingly.com/
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.bloglines.com/ping
http://www.octora.com/add_rss.php
http://www.wasalive.com/ping/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/knapps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogbot.dk/io/xml-rpc.php
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://mod-pubsub.org/knapps/blogchatt
http://ping.amagle.com
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://thingamablog.sourceforge.net/ping.php
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping
http://www.blogoon.net/ping
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogroots.com/tbpopuli.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
Reading page
Here you can set which page you want your front page to be. You can either set it to the default which is Your Latest Posts or you can set it to a static page. If you decide to set it to a static page, then you can choose which static page to use from the drop-down menus displayed there.
You can also set how many posts you want to have displayed on your front page. My advice would be to start with 10. If you find this many makes your home page too long or cluttered, then change the number till you are satisfied.
On this page, you can set how many recent posts are sent in your RSS feed. A good choice would be between three and five. If you have more than five, then you run the chance of the reader not reading simply because it is too much.
This leads to the next setting: either use full text or summary for your RSS feed. Depending on who you listen to, some pro bloggers say you should give your RSS subscribers full text instead of just a summary of your posts. My suggestion would be to try it out. Set it so full text is displayed for a couple of months and check your stats to see how many people are coming to your site via your RSS feed and go from there. I have mine setup to Summary simply because that’s how I like to read other people’s RSS feeds. Plus, part of the reason of having a RSS feed is to bring people to your blog. If you provide a full text RSS feed, then they wouldn’t have a reason to, would they?
Permalinks page
Here on the Permalinks page is where you can vastly improve your post’s SEO! By default, your blog is set to display the title of each of your posts as http://www.yourblog.com/?p=somenumber where ’somenumber’ is a numerical figure assigned by WordPress to your post. This URL structure doesn’t tell search engines anything. For example, say you have a blog post entitled ‘Ten Must Have Plugins For WordPress’, if someone does a search for ‘plugins’ and ‘WordPress’, the chances of your post being found anywhere in the results are nil because instead of search engines ’seeing’ the title of your post (the Ten Must Have Plugins For WordPress title) they will see http://www.yourblog.com/?p=12.
To fix these, change the setting from Default to Custom. In the Custom box enter the following: /%postname%/. This will put the name of every post before the site’s name in title field of the browser which is great for SEO. Now when search engines search your blog, they will read the actual title of your post which is what you want!
What WordPress Plugins Are And Why You Need Them
WordPress is pretty limited in what it can do as it is when you first install it. You can still write and update your blog just like with any other blogging platform or software but the real magic comes from using WordPress plugins. The easiest way to explain what a plug-in is to think of it as a little program which gives your blog another feature. There are plugins for just about any feature you would need for your WordPress blog. The majority of them are free and easy to install.
If you go to the menu on the left side of your Dashboard, you will see a section for Plugins. You can view the plugins which come with every WordPress installation by clicking on the Plugins heading. You can review the plugins which came with your installation and decide whether to install them or not. But to find plugins to upload and install on your blog, you’ll have to do some looking around. Some places to start are listed below:
10 Must-Have WordPress Plugins
WordPress’ Plugin Directory
WordPress Plugin Database
Just be sure to do two things when installing plugins: read the instructions before you install, and to test your blog after each plugin is installed. Most plugins only require you to upload and activate them via the Plugins page of your dashboard. Others may require you to tinker with some settings. This is why you need to read the instructions before activating it. And the reason why you need to test your blog after installing a new plugin is two-fold: one is to make sure the plugin didn’t mess a blog setting up, making your blog a mess; and the second reason is to make sure the new plugin is not conflicting with a plugin already in use.
If you activate a new blog and find your blog inoperable, chances are it’s due to plugins conflicting with each other. To fix this, simply go back to your Plugins page and deactivate the last plugin you activated and then check your blog. If it’s back to normal, then you found your problem. If it isn’t normal, then you may have to deactivate every plugin then activate each one and test your blog after each new activation.
In order to install plugins, you’ll need a FTP program to connect to your hosting space so you can upload the plugin files to be activated. I would suggest trying Filezilla if you don’t have a FTP program. It’s free, stable, and easy to setup. You can also use the Control Panel for your hosting space. It should have a FTP program which will allow you to do the same thing as Filezilla.
Wrapping Things Up
So there you have it, folks. I didn`t expect this part to go so long but I wanted to make sure I covered everything I felt you would need to know about in order to get your new WordPress blog off to a good start. I will be releasing a free eBook very soon which has more details and information. So if you found this series of tutorials helpful, then you’ll want to download the eBook once it’s available.
As always, feel free to let me and everyone else know in the Comment section below what you thought of this series and if you have any plugin recommendations. Also feel free to post a link to your new blog in the comment section below as well.
Cheers and have fun with your new blog!
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