Lesson 3, Topic 3
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Step 3. Configure Basic Website Settings

Jacob February 16, 2021
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Now that we have a few pages to work with, let’s get down to the nitty gritty of setting up your website.

Personally, I prefer to start near the bottom of the side menu in the WordPress dashboard and work my way up, but you can go about changing these settings in any way you like.

Review Your Account

At the bottom of the left menu in your site’s dashboard you’ll find a tab labeled “Account.”

This tab includes some basic information you need to know about your Blue Market account, such as your current subscription plan, your custom domain address, your billing history, and a list of all your websites.

Please confirm that this information is all correct before proceeding with your website setup.

If you find any incorrect or incomplete information, please reach out to one of our customer service representatives and we’ll help you get everything sorted out.

Settings -> General

A screenshot of the WordPress general settings page.
A screenshot of the WordPress general settings page.

Under the Settings tab you can find several subpages relating to your website’s core settings.

These pages largely contain information about exactly how your website works, and generally change settings relating to your WordPress installation.

To begin, please navigate to the “General” tab and review the information presented on this page:

  • Site Title – Make sure your site’s title is correct (i.e. “Bill’s Fishing Emporium”).
  • Tagline – Write a tagline that describes the purpose of your business or website (i.e. “We sell high-quality fishing equipment to last you a lifetime”).
  • Administration Email Address – Confirm your site has the correct administrative email address (this is the email that your website will send automated messages and other important information to).
  • Site Language – Set your site’s language.
  • Timezone – Set your site’s timezone.
  • Date Format – Set your preferred date format (this is how dates will display on your website when they’re auto-generated).
  • Time Format – Choose your preferred time format (this is how times will display on your website when they’re auto-generated).
  • Week Starts On – Choose a day to start your week on (usually either Monday or Saturday).
  • Usage Tracking – Most Blue Market websites come pre-installed with the Astra theme, one of the most-used WordPress themes in the world. This theme is developed by a company called Brainstorm Force. The final setting on this page, then, is whether or not you’d like to send tracking data to this theme developer to help them create better themes in the future.

Settings -> Reading

A screenshot of the WordPress reading settings page.
A screenshot of the WordPress reading settings page.

The Reading page under the Settings tab largely governs what displays on your theme’s default homepage and posts page:

  • Your Homepage Displays – In most cases (for small businesses at least) you’ll want to click “a static page” and then select your homepage from the following dropdown menu. You can also set a default posts page here if you’d like, though it’s not required.
  • Blog Posts Show at Most – This shows how many posts will display on the posts page you selected above. You can leave it as the default.
  • Syndication Feeds Show the Most Recent – This shows how many posts your website will send out at once via your RSS feed. Generally, any number between 10 and 30 is fine.
  • For Each Post in a Feed Include – Choose how your theme displays post content to browsers when posts are organized into a feed (such as on your posts page).
  • Search Engine Visibility – Please confirm that this checkbox is not checked. If you check this box, search engines such as Google may not display your website it all in search results.

Settings -> Discussion

A screenshot of the WordPress discussion settings page.
A screenshot of the WordPress discussion settings page.

The Discussion page under the Settings tab largely governs how your website deals with user-generated comments:

  • Default Post Settings – Most business websites should turn off all three of these settings to help prevent spam. The first two settings relate to pingbacks and trackbacks, an outdated notification system that bots use to flood websites with spam. The final setting allows people to comment on your posts, which is unneeded for most businesses.
  • Other Comment Settings – You can leave these as the default whether you turn comments on or off.
  • Email Me Whenever – Set whether your website will send a message to your administrative email whenever someone leaves a comment.
  • Before a Comment Appears – You can leave these as the default whether you turn comments on or off.
  • Comment Moderation – You can leave these as the default whether you turn comments on or off.
  • Disallowed Comment Keys – You can leave these as the default whether you turn comments on or off.
  • Avatars – You can leave all of these settings as the default whether you turn comments on or off.

Settings -> Permalinks

A screenshot of the WordPress permalinks settings page.
A screenshot of the WordPress permalinks settings page.

The Permalinks page under the Settings tab governs the default URL structure of your website.

Note that it’s very important for you to choose a URL structure you’re happy with at this time, as it’s risky to change your website’s structure at a later point.

Most professionals recommend that you use a basic, SEO optimized URL structure that adds additional meaning to your permalinks and archives.

We recommend that you chose a custom structure, and then use /%category%/%postname%/.

This will organize your blog posts and archives to show the category first followed by the name of the post (i.e. “examplepage.com/category/post-name”).

However, please remember that the final decision is ultimately up to you and how you think you can best organize the content on your website.