A Guide to WordPress Settings

When you first start using WordPress, you’ll typically want to jump right into creating posts. However, before you get too far along, you’ll want to configure the basic WordPress settings because they create the foundation for how your site functions.

WordPress Settings And How Do They Affect Your Site?

The Settings area of your WordPress dashboard acts as a central location for the tools you need to define, customize, and control the various sections of your site. There are seven defaults pages to traverse, although some plugins will often add further options.

When you open the settings tab, you’ll see seven basic settings categories. If you have other plugins and features installed, you may see more.

1. General Settings

The first section is for general settings, which set up basic features and functions of your website. The most important ones are outlined below.

Site Title and Tag Line, the WordPress Address and Site Address, the administrator’s email address, and the date and time format, among other things.

The WordPress Address (URL) is the location of your main WordPress core files. The Site Address (URL) is the address you want to use for your site homepage. Usually, these two URL’s are the same but they can be different if, for example, you have your WordPress files stored in a subdirectory.

When you install WordPress, you get the option to select the language that you’d like to use within the Dashboard. After installation, if you’d like to change the language, you can select this using the Site Language dropdown at the bottom of the page.

2. Writing Settings

As the name suggests, the next set of WordPress settings is all about writing blog posts. There are only a few options here:

It configures various options with regard to your site content. Settings include defining the Default Post Category, Default Post Format (if supported by your Theme) and if the Link Manager plugin is installed, the Default Link Category.

3. Reading Settings

These settings determine how your posts appear to readers.

First of all, you can set your homepage. By default, your homepage is a list of your most recent blog posts, which is useful for blogs or news sites. However, it’s less ideal for businesses, online stores, and so on. For those kinds of sites, you’ll generally want to choose A static page instead.

you can customize how many posts show up on your blog page, as well as in any feeds you have set up. You can also decide whether you want feeds to display the full text of each post or just a summary. This will determine how people who subscribe to your RSS feed will see your content

Last but not least, the Search Engine Visibility option is the most important setting on this page. Checking it tells search engines like Google to ignore your site while leaving it unchecked means they will index it as normal.

4. Discussion

This section of the WordPress settings is all about comments on your site. You can configure Pingbacks and Trackbacks, whether readers can post comments or not, and if so, how those Comments are moderated and displayed on your site.

Check out our blog post on how to Stop Comment Spam on Your WordPress Website for Good Reputation. https://tinyurl.com/y3o8aa77

You can configure Pingbacks and Trackbacks, whether readers can post comments or not, and if so, how those Comments are moderated and displayed on your site.

This screen also lets you configure whether the Post Author should be emailed whenever someone posts a comment on your site. If you are receiving emails whenever someone posts a comment, simply uncheck the box next to Anyone posts a comment within the E-mail me whenever section on this screen and then save your changes.

If you would like to be notified whenever a comment is held for moderation, it can be configured on this screen as well within the E-mail me whenever section. The email notification is sent to the email address listed in the Settings > General page.

5. Media

This section is much simpler compared to the others. In short, here you’ll define the sizes of your images once you upload them to your site. You’ll notice these are selectable when uploading images, and you can also create your own custom sizes, although you’ll need a bit of coding experience.

The default sizes are Thumbnail, Medium, and Large, although you’ll be able to type in a custom size by editing an image on a post or page.

The final setting for this screen is a checkbox for uploading files. By selecting it you can tell WordPress to organize your media based on the month and year.

6. Permalink Settings

The Permalink settings enable you to configure the URL format that is displayed in the web browser when someone browses your site.

The default option when installing WordPress is Plain. This appends a string of numbers to your URL, relating to its database ID. In our opinion (and many others), it looks ugly. What’s more, it’s not good for SEO.

To change the way your site URL is displayed simply select one of the radio button options within the Common Settings section on this screen. Next to each option is an example of how the URL would be displayed.

Although you could set a custom permalink structure, there’s no need to unless you’ve got a very specific reason for doing so. The options provided by WordPress should cover the needs of most sites.

7. Privacy

This is the newest of the WordPress settings screens, introduced in Version 4.9.6. As the name suggests, it helps you create a privacy policy for your site. This is something that’s been in the news a lot lately, with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) creating new requirements for site owners when it comes to transparency and privacy.

It’s also recommended that you add a link to your Privacy Policy on every page of your website. If you have a footer section on your site, this is a great place to add it.

Conclusion:

Although WordPress is a beginner-friendly platform, new users can become overwhelmed by its many options. Even long-time users may not have explored everything the WordPress settings have to offer.

With this WordPress settings tutorial, you should now be able to optimize and set up your WordPress website to best meet your needs.

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