The first step to building your website after installing WordPress is to set up a few basic WordPress settings before moving on.

Your WordPress dashboard should appear something like this when you first log in:

To ensure the success of your WordPress site, you should first set up a few fundamental settings. We’ll discuss customizing your site’s functionality and style in the upcoming sections.

Once you go through these settings, you won’t really need to think about them again because they are all one-time options.

The URL structure of your WordPress content is determined by your WordPress permalink settings.

A blog post may be found at yoursite.com/2/8/cool-blog-post (with the day/month included in the URL) or at just yoursite.com/cool-blog-post, for instance, depending on the permalink settings.

Go to Settings → Permalinks on your dashboard to configure your permalinks.

We recommend using the Post name option for the majority of WordPress sites as it creates a clear, uncomplicated structure.

Unless you are starting a news site that exclusively posts breaking news that needs to be viewed immediately, we advise against using dates in URLs.

Ensure the Public Can Access our Site

Make sure your website is accessible to everyone if you want other people to be able to locate it in search engines like Google.

Although it should be the default, it’s always a good idea to double-check because this is such a crucial setting!

To accomplish this, make sure the “Discourage search engines…” box is not ticked by going to Settings → Reading.

Pick a Website Time Zone

Make sure your website’s timezone is configured correctly because it will impact scheduling, the publication dates of blog posts, and other things.

Here are two methods that you can choose from based on which one suits you the best:

Make use of your own time zone.
Make use of the audience’s primary time zone.
Go to Settings → General and select your chosen timezone using the Timezone dropdown.

If necessary, you can also change the date and time formats below that.

Configure Comments for Your Blog Posts

WordPress by default lets anyone leave comments on blog entries on your website.

You can go to Settings → Discussion to change this behavior. Unchecking the “Allow people to post comments…” option will deactivate comments.

It is also advised to remove the checkbox labeled “Allow link notifications from other blogs,” since spammers may take advantage of this feature. We refer to these as pingbacks.

Since you have more sophisticated control over the comment areas on your site, you might also wish explore the other settings.

Build a Static Homepage VS. Blog Posts Landing Page

WordPress will automatically display a list of your most recent blog entries on the home page of your website. Nonetheless, many webmasters would rather make a specific homepage and then put the blog entries on an other page, like yoursite.com/blog.

You can go to Settings → Reading to manage which page is your blog page and which is your homepage.

How Do I Build a Website?

Step 1: Get Web Hosting

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