This tutorial shows you how to configure the basic settings of your WordPress website. This tutorial assumes you are already logged in to WordPress.
After a successful WordPress admin login, there are several settings to configure in WordPress.
You will also want to read:
Automatic Update in WordPress
Changing your WordPress website location
7 Security Tips for a WordPress Website
How to Backup Your WordPress Website Automaticaly Using Backup Plugins
How to Fix a Hacked WordPress Website
General Settings
This page has general settings that you can change, like the blog title, tagline, and URL.
1) Change the blog’s Tagline.
2) Choose who can register.
3) Scroll down.
4) Select the Date Format.
5) Choose the Time Format.
6) Select what day the Week Starts On.
7) Click Save Changes when you are done.
The settings have been saved.
8) Scroll down. Go to the Writing settings.
On this page, you can edit the settings related to writing posts.
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How to Install and Setup Your Premium WordPress Theme
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How to Manage 403 Forbidden Error in WordPress
How to Optimize and Speed Up Your WordPress Website
How to Secure a WordPress Website
9) Enter a size for the post box.
10) Scroll down the page. Here, you can set up email posting.
11) Scroll down. Click Save Changes.
The settings have been saved.
12) Scroll down. Click to change the Reading settings.
13) Set how many blog pages to show.
14) Select whether to show the full text or just the summary for each article in a feed.
Also read:
How to create a simple portfolio website with WordPress
How to create and manage a page in WordPress
How to safely disable the WordPress automatic update feature
How to update your WordPress installation
15) Scroll down. Click Save Changes.
The settings have been saved.
16) Scroll down. Click to change the Discussion settings.
On this page, you can change settings that relate to comments and avatars.
You can check this box to force users to log in to comment.
17) Scroll down.
18) Check this box to disallow unapproved comments.
19) Scroll down.
You can change the Maximum Rating allowed.
Also read: How to Fix WordPress Fatal error Problem
20) Select a Default Avatar for users.
21) Click Save Changes.
The settings have been saved.
22) Scroll down. Go to Media settings.
Here, you can change settings like the maximum allowed image dimensions and image alignment.
23) Scroll down. Go to Privacy settings.
You can choose whether or not to allow bots and search engines to access your blog.
24)Scroll down. Go to Permalinks.
Here, you can choose what type of URL structure is used.
This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to configure your settings in WordPress.
Where to log in to admin area
Once you have your Wordpress blog installed, you will need to log in to the WordPress administration area from where you can write posts and articles, manage comments, change your theme, install desired components, plugins, modules and add functionality to your Wordpress website. To log in the WP admin panel, navigate to the WP login page or directly type the URL in your browser:
You will replace yourdomainname with your actual website
yourdomainname.com/wp-admin/ you can add the www. or http:// before your domain name
Remember to replace yourdomainname with your actual website
Age verification in WordPress
Age Verification in WordPress. This is useful to have visitors verify their age before being allowed access to the entire site. The WordPress Age Verify plugin can be used for this.
Installing the Plugin
Login to the WordPress dashboard.
From the left-hand navigation menu in WordPress:
Click >Plugins.
Click > Add New.
Search for Age Verify.
Click > Install Now.
After Installation
From the left-hand navigation menu in WordPress:
Click > Settings.
Click > Age Verify to adjust the plugin settings.
Click > Save Changes.
How to configure your WordPress site to use a Temporary URL
If you have not yet setup your WordPress, it is recommended that you use the final domain you wish to have the site under during the setup process. From there, you will make a few temporary changes to allow you to work on your site before pointing to your actual domain.
1) Setup WordPress
2) Login to SiteAdmin or cPanel (we are using SiteAdmin in this article)
3) Proceed to the File Manager by clicking the File Manager link found in the Website Tools section of the left menu.
4) Navigate to the location where your WordPress in installed. In this article, our WordPress is setup to work with a sub-domain.
5) Locate the wp-config.php file and open it using the code editor.
6) Add the following lines near the top of the file (after the < ?php tag). once done, click save changes.
define('WP_HOME','yourtempdomain.com');
define('WP_SITEURL','yourtempdomain.com');
Make sure you replace “yourtempdomain.com” with either a domain you can use, or the server hostname (http://[servername].com/~[username]).
If you are using a domain, add the domain using either the Parked Domain function (if its in the root of your web folder) or addon domain. You can also use a subdomain if you would like. If you are using a subdomain or an addon domain, you will need to change the web root of the domain after adding it to point to the correct folder that your WordPress site resides in.
How to configure text message notifications in WordPress
This process involves two major steps:
1. Installing the WP SMS Notifications plugin
First, log into your WordPress admin dashboard.
Once within your WordPress admin dashboard, hover over Plugins on the left side navigation menu and click on Add New.
On this page, enter WP SMS Notifications into the search field and click on Search Plugins.
You will now be presented with your search results. As you searched for the exact name of the plugin, it should be the first result. To install it, click on Install Now.
WordPress will now automatically handle the download and installation of the WP SMS Notifications plugin for you. Once complete, be sure to click on Activate Plugin to ensure that it becomes active.
2. Configuring text message notifications
After installing the WP SMS Notifications plugin, you will notice that there is now a new menu item within your WordPress dashboard named WP SMS Notifications. Clicking on this menu item will take you to the plugin configuration settings.
First, you will need to configure your phone number. Within the field labeled Phone number, enter your full phone number, including the area code.
Next, you will need to configure your cell carrier. Simply use the dropdown box labeled Cell carrier to select your service provider.
After your phone number and carrier are selected, simply select each item that you want to receive notifications for by clicking on the checkbox beside it.
Once all of your changes have been made, click the Save Changes button.
Congratulations! You will now automatically receive text message notifications for things that occur within the WordPress admin dashboard.
How to change your WordPress site url from phpMyAdmin
You can change your WordPress address directly in the Database. You can diretly modify your WordPress URL settings in the WordPress database using the phpMyAdmin tool.
- Backup your database in cPanel prior to making changes.
- Use phpMyAdmin to manage your WordPress database.
- Select your WordPress database from the left.
- Then select your wp_options table.
Your wp_ prefix may differ depending on your install settings.
Click Edit beside either the siteurl or home entries.
Enter in your new value in the option_valuie field, then click Go
That is it. You now know how to edit your WordPress site url from phpMyAdmin
How to change your WordPress header.
1) Click Appearance.
2) Click Header. Here we can see a preview of our current header.
3) Scroll down. Click Browse to upload your own image.
4) Or select one from the list to use.
5) Use these buttons to Remove Header Image or Restore Original Header Image. Click Save Changes.
The new header has been saved.
Great! You now know how to change the header in WordPress.
How to Create Permalinks with Multiple url in WordPress
Creating complex URLs has always been an issue with WordPress CMS. Infact, there had been recommendations to exclude categories in WordPress URLs because of performance issues.
There had now been significant improvement on this, and now it's possible to include not just one, but multiple categories inside a URL.
This tutorial will sow you how to do that:
Step 1. Organize your categories
Go to Posts > Categories
Set up your categories so that they are organized in a hierarchy like in the image below. You do this using the "Parent" option for each category.
Step 2. Permalink structure
Go to Settings > Permalinks.
Add the category to your Permalinks. You can do that by using this set up: /%category%/%postname%/
Step 3. Add only one category
Go go to a post and look for the Categories block.
Choose one and only one category. The reason, WordPress will stop creating the URL as soon as it finds a category in the hierarchy hierarchy.
For example, choose category 3 ...
And you get this URL with all of the categories, including 3:
However, if you choose both 2 and 3 ...
Then WordPress stops creating the URL after 2
How to edit your profile in WordPress.
1) Click to expand the Users options in the left sidebar.
2) Click Your Profile. On this screen, you can edit options relating to the visual editor and color scheme.
3) Scroll down.
4) Enter your First Name.
5) Enter your Last Name.
6) Enter a new Nickname.
7) Scroll down.
8) Enter some Biographical Info. Click Update Profile.
Your profile has been updated.
How to replace WordPress cron job with a real cron job
How to Replace WordPress Cron with a Real Cron Job: This article will be particularly useful to you if you have had the issue of your scheduled posts in WordPress missing. Though WordPress has its own cron feature that dictates the scheduling of your blog's posts and events, WP-cron is not a literal cron job.
Real Cron Job vs. WP-Cron
Real cron jobs can be controlled by the user, making certain that the items constrained by schedule are run appropriately. Also, for a high-traffic WordPress site, a real cron job can assist with reducing the chances of downtime by lowering the bandwidth on the server, thus using less server resources.
WP-cron is a virtual cron that only works when the page is loaded. WP-cron is first loaded by WordPress when a page is requested on the front or backend of a site at which point WP-cron displays the necessary page to the site visitor. Though convenient, it is known to fail for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to the following:
Conflict of plugins
DNS-related issues
WordPress bugs
Use of caching plugins
Large server load
How to Replace WP-Cron with a Real Cron Job
The best way optimize the efficiency of your WordPress cron jobs is to disable WP-cron and set up a normal cron job through cPanel which will run every hour.
1. Disable wp-cron.php
You can disable WP-cron by modifying the wp-config.php (located in the folder where WordPress is installed). Open the wp-config.php file and add the following line to the top of the page:
define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);
2. Set Up a Real Cron
Warning: It is important that you familiarize yourself with how cron jobs work. You need to have a working knowledge of Linux commands before you can use cron jobs effectively.
To set up a real cron job:
Log into your cPanel.
In the Advanced section, click Cron jobs.
Under Add New Cron Job, select the time interval. HostGator recommends that you do not set the interval lower than 15 minutes.
Set the cron command to the following, replacing yourwebsite.com with your actual domain name:
wget -q -O - http://yourwebsite.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron >/dev/null 2>&1
The above command tells the Linux server to run wp-cron via wget, which will trigger the wp-cron.php script to do it's job on your schedule instead of on each page view. This will lessen the amount of processes on the server.
Click Add New Cron Job to set the cron.
In order to test out the new cron, simply wait for the elapsed time period for the cron to run. In the event that the cron does not run, please review the steps listed above to ensure that you have completed all steps correctly.
How to Increase the Size of Maximum File Upload in WordPress
It does not matter the web hosting company or package you select, you will find some kind of limit to the maximum file upload on your Media Uploader page in WordPress. On Todhost, it is 4MB which is normal for the upload of media files (audio / video).
If you use the shared web hosting on Todhost, you will not be able to alter your limit to media file upload. Most pictures are under 2MB, so it is fine for just pictures. In this article, we will show you how to increase the maximum file upload size in WordPress.
Media File Size Limit
1: Theme Functions File
There are cases where just by adding the following code in the theme function’s file, you can increase the upload size:
1 @ini_set( 'upload_max_size' , '64M' );
2 @ini_set( 'post_max_size', '64M');
3 @ini_set( 'max_execution_time', '300' );
2. Create or Edit an existing PHP.INI file
In some cases, if you are on a shared host, you will not see a php.ini file in your directory. If you do not see one, then create a file called php.ini and upload it in the root folder. In that file add the following code:
1 upload_max_filesize = 64M
2 post_max_size = 64M
3 max_execution_time = 300
This method is reported to work for many users. Remember if 64 doesn’t work. Try 10MB (sometimes that work).
3. htaccess Method
You can also try modify using the htaccess method where by modifying the .htaccess file in the root directory, you can increase the maximum upload size in WordPress. Open or create the .htaccess file in the root folder and add the following code:
1 php_value upload_max_filesize 64M
2 php_value post_max_size 64M
3 php_value max_execution_time 300
4 php_value max_input_time 300
How to UseCustom Re-Write Rules in WordPress
How to use custom re-write rules in WordPress: We do our best to offer as much support as possible but there are some issues that fall beyond our scope of support. One of these is custom coding, web design and third party script design.
If you are using custom coding, please contact your web developer for further assistance.
You may notice that any custom rewrite rules you make for specific folder paths under your site's domain will simply produce 404 errors on your WordPress blog.
To fix this, try the following:
Open your .htaccess file. The code for WordPress will look like this:
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress
List paths which should not obey WordPress rewrites in the RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(path1|path2|path3) [NC]. Here is the fix in action:
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(abc|xxx|events/go-to-town) [NC]
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
RewriteRule ^abc/$ "http://wordpress.com/" [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^xxx/$ "http://support.todhost.com/" [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^events/go-to-town/$ "http://secure.todhost.com/~affiliat/cgi-bin/affiliates/clickthru.cgi?id=whatever" [R=301,L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress
Note: This code works for WordPress blogs hosted on their own domain (primary, addon, subdomain); however, the code must be changed to work with a blog installed in a subfolder without its own domain.
To make this work with a www.mydomain.com/blog type address, you just need to tweak one line:
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(blog/abc|blog/xxx|blog/events/go-to-town) [NC]
The rewrite rules remain the same.
Then you can add your custom rewrite rules above the </IfModule>.
Warning! Each line of code in the .htaccess file must have its own new line in the file. Do not allow a long line to break and continue on a new line or your code will have unexpected behavior. For example:
RewriteRule ^events/go-to-town$ "http://secure.todhost.com/~affiliat/cgi-bin/affiliates/clickthru.cgi?id=whatever" [R=301,L]
Checking WordPress Versions
Ok, now "How do I know the versions of ALL my wordpress installs?"
• Default cPanel configurations:
o find /home/*/public_html/ -type f -iwholename "*/wp-includes/version.php" -exec grep -H "\$wp_version =" {} \;
This shows the location of the WordPress installation. /home/<CPANELUSER>/public_html/path and the version that's installed in that location.
How to Manually Overwrite Your WordPress Files
Before you overwrite files please take note of the following:
• Delete the images folder so that all your image overwrite are retained. Except you have used custom image titles/names, you are most likely to loose the changes you made in your image folder after an override.
• Do not overwrite the logo. You can do this by deleting the logo file before you overwrite anything.
• Check to protect any customizations you made to your files before you overwrite because you could loose all of them.
Final Advice: Always Maintain a Healthy Backup
