How To Set the WordPress Settings on Your Website

WordPress itself has a ton of different settings that can affect the SEO, appearance, and functionality of your site and the plugins you are utilizing. Setting these up the right way can help you make sure it is running just as you intend. We are here to help you save time and effort and focus on the settings that matter!

To start, log in with your WordPress admin information and go to Settings > General and update the following fields:

• Site Title: [Name of Company]

• Tagline: [Client Tagline]

• Email Address: [Client Email Address] (Note: this is the email address that will receive wordpress notifications of new comments, orders, etc)

• Timezone: [Client timezone] (Note: do not use UTC +/- zones because the time will not automatically update based on daylight savings time, etc)

• Date Format: [Local Standard] If the client is in the United States the default time format is fine, if the client is overseas and their date format is DD-MM-YY you may use that format.

• Time Format: [Local Standard] Typically HH:MM am/pm will be fine unless client requests otherwise.

• Week Starts On: [Local Standard] In the United States the week starts on Sunday, in other parts of the country the week starts on Monday.

Now, click Save Changes and go to Settings > Reading and update the following fields:

• Homepage Displays: Typically a static page is used as the homepage and posts page. You may need to come back to this particular setting once pages have been created. In the meantime you can select Sample Page as the default Homepage

*(If you are working in a currently created website, Select HOMEPAGE)

• Search Engine Visibility: Check off “Discourage search engines from indexing this site.” This will prevent Google and other search engines from indexing the website while under development. Just prior to launch this will be deselected.

*(If you are working in a currently created website, DO NOT CHECK THIS BOX!) Leave it indexed.

Now click Save Changes.

Now go to Settings > Permalinks and update the following fields:

Select Custom Structure and use the available tags /%category%/%postname%/

Click Save Changes.

Go to Settings > Privacy and update the following fields:

Click “Use This Page”

If you do not have a privacy policy yet, there are plenty of places you can get one for free online.

Once clicked you should see the following at the top of your screen indicating that the settings have taken effect:

And you’re all set!