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43 Blogger Tips – What you should do after installing WordPress

43 Blogger Tips – What you should do after installing WordPress

by on March 15, 2010 · 295 comments

After installing WordPress these are the best blogger tips I can share. I am assuming as you have installed WordPress you have already carried out your keyword research, so this blog post doesn’t cover the crucial stage of keyword research.

If you want more visitors, more natural traffic, a more ‘sticky’ (i.e. visitors stay longer) site and quickly indexed by Google, then check out this useful list.

(Please note there are many alternatives to the plugins mentioned – I just mention the ones I use).

Tidy up/Design

1. Adjust your time zone under ‘general’ settings.

2. Change “Other comment settings” and check the “Enable threaded (nested) comments 5 levels deep”, in ‘Discussion’ settings. This helps highlight any replies to any comments and is easier for the visitor to read.

3. Get yourself a Gravatar that will be displayed whenever you comment. Having a Gravatar helps promote you and your brand across the internet.

4. Get and install a personally designed header banner. Personally designed header banners make your blog stand out.

5. Change the “Display name publicly as” field to your name – under the “Users” menu tab. Doing this will display your name as the author of the blog posts you publish.

6. Delete the default “Blogroll links” and “Mr WordPress comment” – Under the “Blogroll” and “Comments” menu tabs.

7. Set up and install Google Analytics. The best free tool around to monitor your traffic stats.

8. Create an About Me page. You want to share a little about you and what you can do for your visitors.

9. Create a Contact page, so visitors can easily make contact with you.

10. Have a Favicon designed and installed – it’s all about your personal branding.

11. Delete the “hello world” default blog post.

12. Add a Privacy page. This is the page where you tell your visitor what you do with any data they give you.

13. Add a Disclaimer page. You also need to add a ‘Disclaimer’ page. This is the page that stipulates what you mention on your blog may not suit everyone and not everyone will get the same results.

14. Add an Affiliate Disclosure page. I believe in being totally open and honest with my visitors. If I am going to make some income from someone clicking on a link on my site, I like to tell them and so should you. This page should tell your visitors that you make an income using affiliate links on your blog.

15. Move to a premium theme. Those free WordPress themes are very ‘clunky’ – hard to change, difficult to maintain and restrictive in their design. For the best premium themes check out this post: Premium WordPress Themes

SEO

16. Add a blog title and tagline that includes your primary keyword phrase in the ‘General’ settings.

17. Change the ‘permalinks’ (‘permalinks’ under ‘settings’) structure to a custom structure: /%post_id%/%postname%/ This structure is deemed the best for SEO purposes.

18. Set up your categories using your keyword phrases. Again this helps with SEO.

19. By using the Google Webmaster tools, you can quickly get your blog indexed. Verifying ownership of your Blog via the Google Webmaster Tools.

Traffic

21. Change the ‘Update Service’ under the ‘Writing settings’ to include the following sites:

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.twingly.com/

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.bloglines.com/ping

http://ping.feedburner.com/

http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/

http://www.octora.com/add_rss.php

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://www.wasalive.com/ping/

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://ping.myblog.jp

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://bblog.com/ping.php

All the above sites will be updated when you publish a blog post.

22. Add a FeedBurner RSS Feed so visitors can be automatically informed when you add a blog post.

23. Also allow subscription to your blog via email.

24. RSS Directories. Performing this will make your blog index quicker in the search engines and can provide a steady stream of organic traffic. RSS Directories hold millions of links to websites and blogs and are some of the most visited websites on the internet.

By adding your blog’s RSS feed to the RSS Directories, every future blog post you add to your blog, will automatically be added to the RSS Directory. And that means it could potentially be seen by thousands of visitors and your blog will receive a powerful backlink from the RSS Directory.

You only have to add your blog’s RSS feed to the RSS directory once and everything is set up to work automatically.

One of the best RSS Directories for rankings is: http://feedagg.com

25. Start building your list by giving something of quality, away.

26. Start adding valuable comments on other blogs – get your name out there.

27. Add unique blog posts as least 3 times a week to your blog.

Security

28. If you have used FTP to upload WordPress – store/remember your ftp login details. You can waste hours looking for access details.

29. Change the password of your WordPress Admin login. Some hosting sites provide the password when you first install WordPress – change it – you just never know who has also seen it.

30. Change the WordPress admin username – most hackers know that ‘admin’ is the username and then they only have to guess the password. Make it twice as hard and change the admin username to something other than ‘admin’

31. Keep WordPress and your plugins up to date. Often WordPress and plugins are updated due to security reasons. Keep your site updated on the latest versions. Make sure you backup before you upgrade and test after your upgrade.

Must Have Plugins

32. Add the Akismet and WP-SpamFree Anti-Spam plugins to reduce the amount of spam comments you receive.

33. Install the ‘Subscribe to comments’ plugin so visitors return and can reply to other commenters.

34. Show some Google Link Luv by installing the CommentLuv, KeywordLuv and DoFollow plugins.

35. Install the All-In-One-SEO plugin and include your primary keyword phrase in the ‘Home Title, ‘Home Description’ and ‘Home Keywords’.

36. Install the Google XML Sitemap plugin and manually build your sitemap. It helps get your site indexed.

37. Add the WP-DBManager plugin and schedule backups to be created everyday.

38. Make Better Use of the 404 Pageautomatically redirect the reader to a list of your best posts or you can present them your entire post archives. The  404 SEO plugin will help.

39. Improve the security of your blog by installing Login Lockdown.

40. Install a caching plugin like WP-Super-Cache to make your blog load faster.

41. Install SexyBookMarks plugin so visitors can easily socially bookmark your blog posts.

42. Install the “SEO Friendly Images” plugin. SEO Friendly Images is a WordPress optimization plugin which automatically updates all images with extra search engine optimization functionality.

43. By installing the “MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer” plugin, when you create a new blog post, your blog will ping and notify all the ping services that it has been updated. This encourages search engines and different blog directories/services to index your updated blog properly.

So there you have 43 blogger tips which will help your blog receive more visitors, more natural traffic, be a more ‘sticky’ (i.e. visitors stay longer) site and quickly indexed by Google.

What are your views? What have I missed? Share your views in the comments below.

This post is part of our Guest Blogging contest, if you like it then why not sharing it with your friends by retweeting it? this will give credits to the author and a better chance to win one of our awesome prizes.  By the way.. you also can participate in our contest, it’s not late!

Image credit: Peregrino

Article by Andrew Rondeau

Andrew is a full-time Internet Marketing Specialist and blogger from the UK. At his blog he shares all his knowledge and experience on how to make a blog .

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{ 260 comments… read them below or add one }

TriNi from Make Money Online December 20, 2011 at 11:01 am

Yikes, my apologies for the triple post! It kept telling me error, my comment didn’t go through. Feel free to delete two of those! :) sorry again.

Reply

TriNi from Make Money Online December 20, 2011 at 10:57 am

I recently moved to Wordpress too from Blogger… Earlier this year actually, and even though I had done most of these things already, I learned a few new tricks to improve my blog.

Thanks! Really appreciate it… Bookmarked too.. for future reference.. :)
TriNi recently posted..Ways To Make Money Online Free!My Profile

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TriNi from Make Money Online December 20, 2011 at 10:53 am

I recently moved to Wordpress too from Blogger, and even though I had done most of these things already, I learned a few new tricks to improve my blog. Thanks! Really appreciate it… Bookmarked too.. for future reference.. :)

Reply

Nathan November 5, 2011 at 7:26 am

Thank’s for this. I am going to transfer a blog from the Blogspot platform to WP as an SEO ‘experiment’. I have transferred from one blogging platform to another quite a few times but always skip and forget some of the steps you mentioned. The great thing about this post is that I can use it as a walk-through and tick/cross-off areas that I have done as a reminder. Thanks Andrew!

Reply

Andrew from Blogging Guide
Twitter:
November 6, 2011 at 8:42 am

Nathan

Good luck in the move and thanks for your kind words.

Andrew

Reply

Priya October 31, 2011 at 12:03 am

Nice article. I shifted to wp from blogspot last month. but I lost entire organic traffic. all redirections happening perfectly. still old blogspot site(source site) still showing 200OK when checked in php header tool. It should show 301. any solution to this pls?

Reply

Andrew
Twitter:
November 6, 2011 at 8:41 am

Priya

I think you are going to have to share some more info – I don’t understand your issue.

Andrew

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Saikrishna October 27, 2011 at 10:24 am

Planning to shift from blogger to Wp..Thanks for sharing some of this tips :)
Saikrishna recently posted..How To Appear Top In Google Search ResultsMy Profile

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Andrew from Blogging Guide
Twitter:
November 6, 2011 at 8:37 am

Saikrishna

Good luck with the move!

Andrew

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samrat kafle October 24, 2011 at 10:22 am

Thank you Andrew for awesome post really very much helped a lot after installing wordpress.
samrat kafle recently posted..Are you frustrated and tired of blogging?My Profile

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Andrew from Blogging Guide
Twitter:
November 6, 2011 at 8:36 am

Samrat

You are welcome and I hope it makes a difference.

Andrew

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Sam
Twitter:
October 18, 2011 at 6:20 pm

Thanks so much for the valuable info, Andrew. Tip #21—Do you recommend doing this for a Website as opposed to a Blog? I don’t Blog (as of yet) on my website so I’m wondering if this will still encourage more traffic. I do add Posts frequently. Thanks, Andrew!

Sam

Reply

Andrew
Twitter:
October 19, 2011 at 4:59 am

Sam,

You don’t blog but you add posts? What’s the difference?

If you are using your own WordPress hosting site then, yes, point 21 is relevant.

Andrew
Andrew recently posted..Internet Marketing Is Easy When You Use This TechniqueMy Profile

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Sam
Twitter:
October 19, 2011 at 10:11 am

I meant that I don’t have a blog in the traditional sense…I have a fairly static website (for the most part). Anyway, thanks again for the wonderful tips. Much appreciated!

Sam
Sam recently posted..Lamb’s BreadMy Profile

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Saket Jajodia from SJbn.Co
Twitter:
October 9, 2011 at 10:00 am

Delete Uncategorized category..
Change your permalink..
For SEO I will suggest Yoast, using it from long time and it have many features..

I didn’t knew about the point No.21, just now updated it.. really gr88 post, thanks.. :)
Saket Jajodia recently posted..Should We Use Dash (-) Or Underscore (_) As Words Separator In URLMy Profile

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Andrew
Twitter:
October 11, 2011 at 4:17 am

Saket

I did mention about ‘change your permalink’.

Nice shout about “Delete Uncategorized category..” and Yoast’s SEO plugin.

I do intend to move over to using it soon.

Andrew
Andrew recently posted..Successful Corporate Blogs: The Ten Steps NeededMy Profile

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Saket Jajodia from SJbn.Co
Twitter:
October 11, 2011 at 11:59 pm

Opss..!! My fault I seems have missed that point..
Saket Jajodia recently posted..How To Clean Up (ReplyToCom From) Your WordPress Blog URLMy Profile

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Louise October 1, 2011 at 11:26 am

I found Woo themes brilliant. I’m working on the Canvas theme right now:)
Louise recently posted..Living the the UKMy Profile

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Andrew
Twitter:
October 2, 2011 at 2:36 am

Louise

I’ve often used that theme for cllients – great theme.

Andrew
Andrew recently posted..What Happens When Someone Works With Me?My Profile

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Louise October 1, 2011 at 11:23 am

Privacy, Disclaimer and Affiliate can you recommend templates you can get?
Louise recently posted..Living the the UKMy Profile

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Andrew
Twitter:
October 2, 2011 at 2:36 am

Louise

You can use the ones I have on my onw blog, if you wish.

Andrew
Andrew recently posted..Staying Power: How To Stick With Your BlogMy Profile

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mark September 30, 2011 at 2:26 am

This list of tips would be invaluable to a WordPress novice; in fact, after installing WordPress, going through this list should be the very next step. It would also serve as a useful check list for the more experienced. Just one suggestion, I use a plugin called StatPress which tracks and organises visitor stats and I’ve found it very useful.

Reply

Andrew
Twitter:
September 30, 2011 at 9:12 am

Mark,

Thanks for the share about StatPress.

Andrew
Andrew recently posted..Staying Power: How To Stick With Your BlogMy Profile

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Louise September 27, 2011 at 7:02 am

Brilliant I shall work my way through this lot! Sometimes you need to be reminded what needs to be done and lots of tips I was unaware of! Thanks

Reply

Andrew
Twitter:
September 28, 2011 at 3:11 am

Louise

You are welcome and I hope they make a difference.

Andrew
Andrew recently posted..What Happens When Someone Works With Me?My Profile

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Azubuike Ikedionu
Twitter:
September 27, 2011 at 3:07 am

Please blogger and wordpress which one is much easier to manage, more attractive, generate more revenues etc?

Reply

Andrew
Twitter:
September 27, 2011 at 8:22 am

Azubuike

If you are serious about blogging…it has to be WordPress.org.

Andrew
Andrew recently posted..What Happens When Someone Works With Me?My Profile

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