So now you officially started a blog. Yay! It might take few minutes to create a blog, but you are not anywhere near the final stage. If you miss the previous post about how to set up your blog, you can read it here. Let’s go ahead and see what you have to do now. First, you have to understand your WordPress dashboard and familiarize with it.
Go to
yourdomain.com/wp-admin/
Login to your WordPress dashboard by using the username and password you selected previously. Remember this is not BlueHost login, this is the username password you created in step 8 in the previous post.
Will first take a look at your WordPress dashboard.
It is not too complicated, but I’m not going to lie you have to do some learning around here. And I promise you; you can start blogging in no time.
WordPress Dashboard
You can see a menu on your left-hand side. Once you click an item, the content will load on the right-hand side.
For now, there are several menu items which are most important.
Those are Posts, Pages, Appearance, Plugin, Users, Tools, Settings.
Let’s go one by one.
POSTS
Go to the posts tab
On top, you can see a button called add new. By clicking that you can compose your first blog post.
One of the most important thing you have to before you start your first blog post is, delete the sample hello world post. Once you select the post, you can see there are several links appear at the bottom of the title of the post. Those are edit, quick edit, trash, and view. Trash that sample blog post.
Then click add new button, and you can write the first blog post or you can finish all the other settings and come back and write a one.
Categories
create a new category
Categories are a great way to organize your blog post. It will be really helpful for website visitors to navigate through your posts. You can create blog post categories, subcategories or edit and delete existing categories here.
Assign categories to your blog posts
Whenever you create a new post, you can find the categories on your right-hand side. Select the relevant categories from the list.
MEDIA
Under the media, you can see a list of all the uploaded images and videos.
PAGES
Then there is tab called pages, there you create static pages like about me, contact me, disclosure or privacy policy. It is the same as creating a blog post.
There is a button on top of the page called add new. You can add new page Title it as contact me and in the description, you can write the content of that page. You can save the page as a draft for later, or you can publish it now.
Pages tab is to create static pages like About me or Contact me. You can create pages like About me, contact me, Privacy Policy and Disclosure Policy Here and place them in a menu bar.
COMMENTS
In comments, you can see all the comments posted to your blog posts. You can also moderate your comments here.
APPEARANCE
Appearance is other most important things. You can find and activate beautifully designed themes here. The theme is the design you choose for your blog. You don’t have to pay and buy a theme; there are thousands of free themes available for you to choose.
You can set up a navigation menu on Menu section. It is located under the Appearance section
You can add categories and static pages you created like contact me to a menu.
Click the category you would like to appear on your menu. Once you’ve added it to the menu, arrange where you would like it to be displayed on the menu.
Click the pages you would like to appear on your menu. Once you’ve added it to the menu, arrange where you would like it to be displayed on the menu.
If you want to edit your sidebar, you have to go to Widgets. It is under the Appearance.
PLUGINS
In plugins, you can install plugins to enhance your WordPress site. Plugins give certain functionality to your blog. There are thousands of free and paid plugins available for your need.
Plugins. This is my favorite tab. You can find thousands of free and paid plugins. You can use them to improve your site and add functionality to your blog.
One thing you have to do first is to delete the Hello Dolly plugin. Adding unnecessary plugins will slow your website.
USERS
In users, you can edit your profile and add other users.
TOOLS
You can import your other blogs using tools. I will write another post to show you how to import a Blogger blog to WordPress.
SETTINGS
Fill your blog title and tagline.
Go to Settings -> General
Make your site visible to search engines.
Go to Settings
Reading -> search engine visibility. If the check box is selected, deselect that.
Normally your site is visible to the search engines, but above checkbox is checked it is not visible. Make your site visible to search engines. Only click the last button if you want your blog to be private.
Media Setting
In media, you can also adjust the image size you want. I have a higher resolution for medium size because when converting from Blogger to WordPress, you have to enter a right size for medium images in order them to appear quality.
Permalinks
next is Permalink settings.
https://www.crystalandstars.com/2016/12/stocking-stuffers.html
in the above link 2016/12/stocking-stuffers.html was the permalink.
You can change the appearance of your permalink as you want. By default, it is set as
www.crystalandstars.com/?p=123
Changing the permalink is making your URLs more readable and hence increase SEO.
You can set it to display date/title.html
Such as https://www.crystalandstars.com/2016/12/stocking-stuffers.html
or
title.html
https://www.crystalandstars.com/stocking-stuffers.html
This is a simple overview of your WordPress dashboard and some basic setting you must have.
Next, let’s take a look at how to change admin user from your account.
Change WordPress admin user
Go to Users- click add new
Make this new user an administrator.
Log out.
Log back in as the new user you just created
Delete the original “admin.”
WordPress will ask if you want to delete that user’s content or re-assign it to a different user. Choose to reassign all content to your new user to avoid losing anything during this process.
At the same time, you can create social media accounts like Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter for your blog.
In summary, before you publish your first post,
- Choose a theme that matches your preferences and also offers mobile responsiveness.
- Create categories and static pages like contact me.
- Setup the navigation menu.
- Arrange your sidebar and add widgets to it.
- Delete sample post and the sample page.
- Change the permalink
- Make sure that your site is visible to search engines
- Change admin user
- create social media accounts like Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter for your blog.
Those are the main basic things you should do before you publish your first post.
In the next two posts, we will discuss important plugins you should install.
Hope now you have a clear understanding of your WordPress dashboard. If you miss my post about step by step guide to set up a blog, you can find it here.
More WordPress Tutorials