New WordPress Site Launch – Part 2 Tasks Onsite / WordPress

Launching a New WordPress Website involved in a variety of tasks. The first part of this article looked at off-site duties you need to do things outside of the WordPress dashboard, such as hosting, FTP connection, search engine registration, etc. In this second part we will take a look. on-site duty you need to complete from the admin panel of your WordPress site.

On-site duties mainly related to configure WordPress settings and install plugins and themes. There are other tasks developers may want to perform, such as adding custom functions, but I won’t discuss these in this article.

You need to do all these tasks from your WordPress admin area but you can login at http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin URL with the username and password you created when you installed WordPress.

1. Install security plugin

WordPress sites are hacked like crazy, so the first thing you should do after logging into your new WordPress site is install security plugin.

There are many security plugins you can choose from, however use only one at the same time, as features frequent overlapand it can cause problems if two plugins try to do the same thing like login security or IP blacklisting.

If you want Comment by owner or there is a contact form you will also need a anti-spam plugin for security reasons. You can choose one separate anti-spam plugin such as Akismet, however some security plugins, such as BulletProof Security, also provides anti-spam features.

2. Configure your settings

In the WordPress admin, there are a bunch of settings you need to configure. You can find them under Cài đặt menu in the left sidebar. Go through them one by one. The WordPress admin has a good UX, so most of the settings are self-explanatory. Here, I just mentioned two things you should not forget.

If you use an SSL certificate on your website, please note that WordPress Address (URL) and Website address (URL) option in General Settings use the HTTPS version of your URL.

WordPress comes with a default permalink structure you can find on Cài đặt> Permalinks Admin page. The default structure does not include the name of the post, just an ID (e.g., http://yoursite.com/?p=12). This permalink structure is not search engine friendlyalways change it to one of the other choices.

According to Yoast, the most SEO-friendly URL structure is article structure name. Think about which permalink structure is best for you prior to you launch the website because it can be difficult to change later (because search engines will point to the old URL).

3. Create User

Before launching your website, you should think about how you want it Manage your users. WordPress is different user role (admin, editor, author, contributor, subscriber). Never give the user a higher role than they really need. For instance, a subscriber (a reader who follows your blog) cannot write or edit posts.

Even if your site will only have one user, you should still create one separate non-admin user Who is the author of the article that is public. This way it will be harder to find out the username of the admin user. As a rule of thumb, use the admin user For site configuration and management only.

You can create new user below the Người dùng> Thêm mới menu in the left sidebar.

4. Install SEO plugin

To perform well in search engines, you need a SEO plug in on your website. It is best to install and configure the SEO plugin before you start creating contentbecause of it add additional fields to “Add New Post” and “Add New Page” admin page. (On the screenshot below, you can see some of the extra fields that the All in One SEO Pack plugin adds below the post editor.)

The two most popular SEO plugins are All in one SEO package and Fast SEO. Both are great, choose whichever you prefer (or the third if you want to experiment). WP Begin has a great (and refreshing) Yoast SEO article compared to the All in One SEO Pack article, it’s worth checking out.

Both All-in-One SEO and Yoast SEO allow you link your Google & Bing Webmaster Tools account to your WordPress site.

5. Create your content

You will also need some content on your website. The basic WordPress installation allows you to create two types of page-level content: posts and pages. The article is dated therefore excellent for a blogwhile the pages come without a date so that’s great for permanent content such as About page, Contact page and legal documents.

Also pay attention to classify: tags and categories, as they greatly affect how users perceive your site. You can manage your tags and categories below the Bài> Danh mục and Đăng> Thẻ menus in the left sidebar.

6. Add social buttons

There are two types of social buttons you can add to your website: share and follow buttons. Share buttons go before or after each post (or page) and they allow the user share that particular post on different social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.

Follow buttons usually go to the header or footer (sometimes to the sidebar) and they allow the user to follow your social media accounts. You need a private account on each social media to connect it to your WordPress site.

Have many free social media plugins in the WordPress repo. You may need Various plugins for the follow and share buttons however, there are some, for example the AddtoAny Share Button plugin, which are perform both tasks.

7. Activate and customize a theme

In addition to plugins, your WordPress site will also need a theme. Your default WordPress installation comes with WordPress annual default theme (Twenty seventeen, twenty sixteen, twenty fifteen, etc.) or with one theme authored by hosting provider.

There are several free and commercial (paid) WordPress themes, choose one match your website’s goals. For instance, there are portfolio themes, business themes, multipurpose themes, church themes, ready to go themes and many more.

You can browse official (reviewed by Theme Review Team) WordPress themes in WordPress Theme Directory or in your WordPress admin areabelow the Giao diện> Chủ đề> Thêm mới menu.

After Activate the themeyou can adjust ituse the theme customizer by Ngoại hình> Tùy chỉnh menu.

You can do most of the theme customizations using the theme customizer, but it’s necessary create your own menu(s). You can do it on Ngoại hình> Menu> Chỉnh sửa Menu Admin page.

Note that some topics have more than one menu location (header menu, footer menu, sidebar menu, etc.). You need to create a Separate menu for each location. You can assign a menu to a menu location above Ngoại hình> Menu> Quản lý vị trí Admin page.

8. Connect your website to Google Analytics

Arrive connect your WordPress site to your Google Analytics accountyou need a plugin Yes many free Google Analytics plugins in the WordPress plugin repo, their features often overlap, so use only one simultaneous.

The main goal of the Google Analytics plugin is add JavaScript code that belongs to your site and to connect your Google Analytics account to ithowever it may have other extra features also. You have to add your Google Analytics ID on the plugin’s admin page.

WPMUDev has a great article comparing different Google Analytics plugins. I personally use Jeff Starr’s GA Google Analytics, as it takes about two minutes to set up and does a good job, however regarding your own site don’t listen to anyone and decide based on your own needs. For example, support for Force SSL is very important to me, which is one of the reasons I use the aforementioned plugin, however you may have different needs.

9. Install the hosting plugin

Your WordPress site will also need a caching pluginas cache High performance improvement (your site will load faster). Basically, caching means that web documents, such as HTML pages, and static assets, such as images and scripts, do not change as often as loaded from a temporary storage (cache memory).

Make the installation of the cache the last thing you do before launching the websitebecause when caching is enabled, you don’t always see the results of your changes immediately unless you clear cache.

There are many caching plugins available in the WP repo, however the two most popular ones are Super WP Cache and Total W3 . Cache. WP Super Cache is easier to set up, so it’s a better choice for beginners or for websites that want a reliable caching solution with quick setup. W3 Total Cache comes with more options but is harder to configure. Choose according to your needs.

10. Check out the website

Final, don’t forget to check if everything works as exception. Test all posts and pages, if you have contact form test if its working properly try social buttons & all other features you have on your site.

Don’t forget to check the website from different browser and from Various mobile devices also. You can also use external toolssuch as Pingdom Website Speed ​​Test or Google’s Mobile Friendly Testing Tool, to analyze performance and uncover potential issues.