How to Set Up a WordPress Site
In last week’s video I showed you how to purchase hosting, install WordPress and install your first WordPress theme in 9 minutes or less. All this was a smash hit with a lot of users. It’s now time to show you how to set up the rest of your site. When you set up a WordPress site, doesn’t just start with good content. You have to install a good theme and set it up properly. The rule of thumb with WordPress is to try to use as few plug-ins as possible. While this is the ultimate goal, there are some plug-ins that you just can’t live without. In the video below I’m going to show you how to set up a WordPress site.
You want to set up a WordPress site with some essential plug-ins. The first plug-in that you should install is Akismet. The reason is because spammers like to target new websites with spam comments. WordPress installs a basic post by default. Spambots look for this through comments on the site. This is despite the fact that there’s no real content on the site yet, they will still put spam comments on the post. Akismet is free, and all you have to do is install it and sign up for an API key. Once this is set up you should no longer receive any spam comments. You should also install Jetpack. This is by the wordpress developers and it helps your site by adding useful features. While this isn’t required, it’s still nice to have. Personally, I use the stats feature to show me the traffic that is going to my site. It is a quick way to access my traffic stats from the WordPress dashboard. Other people use Google Analytics, which I do too for more advanced analytical features.
The next plug-in that I install is WordPress SEO by Yoast. This is the best plug-in in my opinion for search engine optimization for any WordPress website. I have a separate video about setting up Yoast for your WordPress site. You can view it here. Yoast is useful for adding keywords and meta-descriptions to your posts. There is also a feature for exporting a site map of your website which you can upload to Webmaster Tools and submit your site map to Google which is also important for SEO. This plug-in allows you to set up basic SEO properties for your website, as well as setting up SEO on each post. You can view the statistics at the bottom of each post. Yoast will show you everything that you need to do to score well for good SEO. It also helps you not to forget anything important, such as alt tags on your images, or using your keyword in one of the main head tags of the page.
I also install a certain Mailchimp plug-in, which allows me to collect Mailchimp sign-ups for my newsletter. I use this plug-in mainly because I use Mailchimp as my email service. If you use another service, then you will have to find a plug-in that works well for your email service. This plug-in not only allows me to put a sign up form to subscribe to my newsletter in posts or in the sidebar of my WordPress site, but it also sets it up to where anyone who comments on your website can opt in to your newsletter as well. This essentially kills two birds with one stone.
Were you able to successfully begin to set up a WordPress site? Where you able to install these necessary plug-ins without any problems? This should get our WordPress site up and running easily. If you have any questions about these plug-ins, or how to set them up on your WordPress site feel free to leave your thoughts or questions in the comments section below.