Your Guide to Setting Up WordPress The Right Way

WordPress is a very straight forward blogging platform. Truth be told, there is not a huge amount that they can do to improve the platform apart from copy wordpress versions from the past, and add a few new features to it, as it really is just a platform that evolves from the emmense community support that it has.

This is a huge opportunity for you. In all essence, there is not much that you can not do with WordPress. it is a framework that is highly customizable, but before we get into that, lets give you a quick overview of some basic settings.

Basic WordPress Settings

Your permalinks will be the first thing that you want to change, not just becuase this makes your URL’s look mich nicer and more professional, but because of the added search engine optimization benefits of having your chosen keywords in the URL. You should always include the post title, or even the keyword on its own on the domain at bare minimum. You can also opt to use categories too, which has its added SEO benefits.

I will generally change the URL in my general settings so that it includes the WWW. Although there is no real benefit of doing this from an SEO stand point, through testing, I believe that this ensues more trust from your visitors when they see this in the search engines.

You must always fill in your profile information. A good bio, an accurate user name, and display name will suffice. As some themes actually make use of this information, it is essential to be able to display this information if required.

Its Plugin Time!

This is the part that I have the most fun with. I love messing around with plugins, and cant get enough of them. This is where the real usability of your blog comes from, but for the moment, I am going to offer the basics only.

All In One SEO will allow you to add the right title tags and descriptions, which of course has its SEO benefits. If you want to appear as relevant in the search engines, then this is a vital plugin to install.

You have probably heard many people talk about Google Analytics too. I know I did back in my early days, but it was not until I actually used it myself that I realized its true benefit. You can install Google Analytics using a plugin such as Google Analyticator, and monitor traffic using the plugin from the admin area in your WordPress blog.

Its Time To Theme Up!

There are so many theme makers that are always going to compete for your attention, but most of these come at a cost. Remember, there is a large directory of free themes available via your appearance tab if you dont want to invest in themes just yet, all of which can be installed with a click of the mouse without having to mess around with FTP settings and the such. This is a great way to make your blog unique compared to the rest of the crowd.

I have only just started to scratch the surface. The WordPress platform is a very unique and easy to mould platform that really makes blogging and website creation simple. Most people including myself actually made a copy wordpress file so that they can deploy their favourite installation across multiple domains, but that is just me. The first step is installing the blog.

Ready to learn exactly how to copy WordPress blogs to a new URL or server? To learn more, visit http://www.copywordpress.com right now.