Settings & Configuration in WordPress

Welcome to the final video in the WordPress 101 tutorial series. In this video, we'll talk about how to configure your settings to optimize and get the most out of your WordPress site. We're going to cover a lot of ground in this video, so,if you're ready, let's dig in. The General Settings panel controls the most basic configuration settings for your site, like your site's Title, Tagline, and web Address. The admin Email Address is where WordPress will send automated email notifications for things like new user registration notices. Choose whether or not you want your site open to registration. And if you do choose to enable open registrations, then specify the Default Role for these new members. It's a good idea to set this to Subscriber, since Subscribers can read but not publish or edit content on your blog. Next, select your Timezone, the format in which dates and times will be displayed throughout your site, and set your preference for the week starting day. And finally, you can choose a different language for your site, which will translate the entire administration area into the language you prefer. Be sure to Save your changes. The Writing sub-panel controls the edit interface you use to write new Posts and Pages. Choose a default category for new Posts when no other category is selected and a Default Post Format.

You can also post directly to your WordPress site via email. Simply enter the email account details here, and WordPress will periodically check for new messages sent to this address. The subject line of your email will become the post title, and the body, your actual post content. It's a good idea to make this a fairly secure email address, since any messages received at this address will become new posts on your site. WordPress even generates a few random strings you can use for more secure email addresses. You can specify a different default category for any posts that are submitted via email. And last, when you publish a new post, WordPress automatically sends out a notification to a site update service, which in turn, alerts search engines to your new content. This helps ensure your new content gets indexed more quickly.

You can add additional notification services here, if you like. There are only a few settings in the Reading sub-panel, but they're very important. You can decide whether you'd like your front page to display your latest blog posts, or one of your static pages instead. And we covered this in depth in an earlier video, but if you select a static page, then you're able to pick which of your pages you want to serve as the homepage, and then which one you wish to serve as your blog page. You can also choose how many posts will appear on your blog pages at one time and how many posts will show in your RSS feed. You can choose to show the complete text of your articles in your RSS feed or just a summary, which requires folks to visit your site to read the rest of the article. And last, choose whether or not you'd like your site to be visible to search engines like Google, Bing, and others. You'll remember that we covered the Discussion sub-panel in detail in the earlier video on Managing Comments. So, for now, we'll move on to the Media sub-panel, which allows you to set the maximum dimensions in pixels that WordPress will use when creating the various versions of images you upload, including the Thumbnail, Medium sized image, and Large image.

I typically choose to organize my uploads into month- and year-based folders, which makes it easier to find images that I've previously uploaded. And finally, let's talk about Permalinks. Now, this can be a confusing topic. But basically, Permalink Settings simply determine the format of the URL or web addresses for your pages and posts. By default, WordPress creates a URL that contains a question mark, followed by the page or post ID number. But you can and should use more friendly URLs that are also better-optimized for search engines. Most SEO experts agree that the best format is simply the Post name, by itself. But if you want more detailed information about Permalinks, you might check out the dedicated video tutorial we created on just this topic. The default values for Category and Tag base are usually fine in most cases, but feel free to experiment, looking at how these values change the URLs for your categories and tag archive pages. (upbeat music) So, we've now covered all the major functions and features of WordPress, and you should be fairly comfortable creating and managing your own blog or website. So, this wraps up the WordPress 101 tutorial series. But for more screencasts and training videos, stay tuned to uisumo.com. And good luck with your new WordPress website.