n this article I will look at the 7 settings I adjust as soon as I install a new WordPress blog.

1. Setup blog title and tagline

(In Settings - General)

• You don’t want your blog to be branded as “just another WordPress weblog”
• Write your blog title and explain why your blog is unique in the blog tagline

2. Change permalinks

(In Settings - Permalinks)

• You don’t want your blog articles to be called something like:

http://www.yourdomain.com/?p=123

• You want to make your URL’s unique, keyword-rich, SEO and user friendly
• On HowToMakeMyBlog.com I use the custom option field like this:

/%category%/%postname%/

• By doing this my blog permalinks look like this:

http://www.howtomakemyblog.com/category/postname/

3. Change the admin nickname

(In Users - Your Profile)

• You don’t want “Admin” to be the name of the author of the blog posts you write
• Change admin nickname to your own name and have it displayed alongside each post

4. Clean up

• Delete Hello World! generic post (In Posts)
• Delete the generic About page (In Pages)
• Delete generic blogroll (In Links)
• Delete Hello Dolly plugin (In Plugins)

5. Activate comment spam filter

(In Plugins)

• Akismet is the best comment spam filter and it comes with your WordPress
• You just need to get the free WordPress API key to be able to activate it

6. Make it visible to search engines

(In Settings - Privacy)

• Make sure your blog is visible to everyone, including search engines

7. Get own blog theme

(In Appearance - Themes)

• You don’t want WordPress Default to be your blog theme
• Read why I use Thesis Theme on my blog
• Find the theme you like and download it
• Upload the theme onto your server (/wp-content/themes/)
• Activate

These were the adjustments I always do on my WordPress blogs before I start working with plugins. I would recommend you to spend some time and browse the WordPress platform, get familiar with it and adjust some settings that you find relevant.