Getting Settled in Your WordPress Blog
You signed up to blog or installed WordPress at your host and you want to be on the fast track. Here are five things to do today to remove that newbie look from your blog.
Edit your Blog title and Tagline
When your new blog is created, the Blog title is defaulted to your URL and your Tagline is something like “Just another WordPress blog” which is the same as every blog when they first enter the blogosphere.
You can change them in your WordPress dashboard under the Settings menu tab. Select the General link. Add spaces to your title, or create a title that reflects what your blog is about more than the URL does. Don’t get too wordy, that’s what the tagline is for, to extend the description of what your blog is about if the title doesn’t say it all. Use a keyword or key phase in either the Blog title or Tagline as your first exercise in search engine optimization (SEO).
Delete the standard system sample page, post and comment
When your blog is created a standard WordPress “Sample Page”, “Hello world!” post and post comment from Mr WordPress are generated. Sometimes they get overlooked and stick out like a sore thumb. To remove them, visit your dashboard and select the Posts tab. Select the Trash link under the post title to move the post to the trash bin. The comment is deleted with the post.
Delete the standard system blogroll
A blogroll is automatically created with links to both WordPress.com and WordPress.org. This is handy for you perhaps but not relevant to your readers unless your blog topic is WordPress. To delete them select the Links tab in your blog dashboard and Manage Blogroll. Check the boxes to the left of each and then bulk remove by selecting Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-drown above the list of links. Then select the Apply button to the right of the drop-down.
Change your custom theme header and theme colors
Personalize your blog with a header relevant to your topic. You don’t need a lot of experience in this regard. Choose a theme that allows a custom header. You can upload a photo and the system will help you crop it if it is too big for the header area or it will crop it and enlarge it to scale for smaller photos.
Assign a default category to your posts
Never have an uncategorized post. Select the Categories link under the Posts tab in your blog dashboard. Add a category relevant to your topic that can be applied to all your posts (you can deselect it later when you add other categories to a post, if you are prepared add about ten logical categories related to your topic now so you don’t have to think about it later). Under the Settings tab select the Writing link and in the area to select a default category, select the new category you created from the drop-down menu and save.
After settling in, it is time to publish your own welcome post and begin blogging.
Share the blogthusiasm!
Edit your Blog title and Tagline
When your new blog is created, the Blog title is defaulted to your URL and your Tagline is something like “Just another WordPress blog” which is the same as every blog when they first enter the blogosphere.
You can change them in your WordPress dashboard under the Settings menu tab. Select the General link. Add spaces to your title, or create a title that reflects what your blog is about more than the URL does. Don’t get too wordy, that’s what the tagline is for, to extend the description of what your blog is about if the title doesn’t say it all. Use a keyword or key phase in either the Blog title or Tagline as your first exercise in search engine optimization (SEO).
Delete the standard system sample page, post and comment
When your blog is created a standard WordPress “Sample Page”, “Hello world!” post and post comment from Mr WordPress are generated. Sometimes they get overlooked and stick out like a sore thumb. To remove them, visit your dashboard and select the Posts tab. Select the Trash link under the post title to move the post to the trash bin. The comment is deleted with the post.
Delete the standard system blogroll
A blogroll is automatically created with links to both WordPress.com and WordPress.org. This is handy for you perhaps but not relevant to your readers unless your blog topic is WordPress. To delete them select the Links tab in your blog dashboard and Manage Blogroll. Check the boxes to the left of each and then bulk remove by selecting Delete from the Bulk Actions drop-drown above the list of links. Then select the Apply button to the right of the drop-down.
Change your custom theme header and theme colors
Personalize your blog with a header relevant to your topic. You don’t need a lot of experience in this regard. Choose a theme that allows a custom header. You can upload a photo and the system will help you crop it if it is too big for the header area or it will crop it and enlarge it to scale for smaller photos.
Assign a default category to your posts
Never have an uncategorized post. Select the Categories link under the Posts tab in your blog dashboard. Add a category relevant to your topic that can be applied to all your posts (you can deselect it later when you add other categories to a post, if you are prepared add about ten logical categories related to your topic now so you don’t have to think about it later). Under the Settings tab select the Writing link and in the area to select a default category, select the new category you created from the drop-down menu and save.
After settling in, it is time to publish your own welcome post and begin blogging.
Share the blogthusiasm!
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This content was written by Violette DeSantis. If you wish to use this content in any manner, you need written permission. Contact Deborah Crawford for details.
