Basic WordPress Settings
Having registered your domain name, organised hosting, installed WordPress and chosen a theme, it’s time to configure the basic WordPress settings for your site. These include the site title, a tagline and how you’d like your page and post URLs to display in the address bar of browsers.
1. On the left hand side of the screen in your WordPress Dashboard, hover over the ‘Settings’ option. In the sub-menu that appears, click ‘General’.
2. On the next page, most of the settings can be left as they are. You just need to check that your site title is correct, enter a tagline for your site and check the email address (this is where any notifications from WordPress will go, like when a visitor leaves a comment on your blog).
The tagline should explain in a few words what your site is about. It is used to convey the essence of the site. For Daren Redman’s site, the tagline is simply ‘Textile Artist’.
3. Once you’ve entered the tagline, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click ‘Save Changes’.
4. Next click on ‘Permalinks’ in the left-hand navigation.
Permalink settings determine how URLs to posts on your site are generated. The default option produces an ugly web address like this:
http://darenredman.com/?p=123
A better option is to use the name of the page or post, so tick the option for ‘Post Name’. The URLs for your posts will now display as:
http://darenredman.com/sample-post/
(‘sample-post’ will be replaced with whatever you name a page or blog post).
So, go ahead a check the option labelled ‘Post Name’.
5. Next scroll down and click ‘Save changes’.
Next stages
You may want to dig deeper later on when exploring search engine optimisation or customising the functionality of your site, but for now, they are the only changes you need to make in Settings.
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NOTE: From this point onwards we’ll be working specifically with the Klasik WordPress theme from ThemeForest.net, to create a site that looks similar to DarenRedman.com. If you are concerned about your site being generic, remember that you can choose different colours and fonts to match your taste and your artwork. The site will also be inherently different, as it will be your work that is displayed not Daren’s!
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