Setting up a blog: WordPress settings

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Overview You can just start using a standard WordPress installation as it is – but just by making a few changes to the settings, adding and amending the layout, (theme), and adding a number of enhancements, (plugins), you can greatly improve the professional look of your website. This post shows you the most useful changes you can make to the WordPress settings menu. Setting the WordPress Settings One of the first things you should be doing is to make some adjustments on the WordPress settings: Customise Permalinks Make your post headings easier to read by both humans and search engines.  The default WordPress heading is something like blogbasics.com/?p=13  whereas setting up the Permalinks this is automatically changed to a representation of the post title blogbasics.com/what-is-a-blog General Settings Adjust the tag line of your blog. Check default email Set data and time format Media Settings This allows you to set the default sizes of images uploaded into your post and you can select whether to have your images are stored in the same place, which I recommend, or leave the default storage of images in year and month order. Check Privacy Settings Make sure your blog is visible to Google and other search engines.  Some WordPress installations set the default to not visible.  You may want to leave your site not visible while setting up – I advise you not to do this. Enable Windows Live Writer If you want Continue Reading

What is a blog?

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Introduction So you've heard the term "blog" and you want to know what blogs are all about. Well you've come to the right place. In this series of articles we will take you from asking what a blog is to having all the knowledge you need to start a blog of your own. Over the months and years you will be able to share your thoughts with hundreds or thousands of readers, promote yourself, your business or your cause and you may even earn a full time living from your blog. So what is a blog? Let's begin with some definitions. A bit dry, we realize, but this is a necessary evil. First we'll define the word this whole site is based around - blog. A blog is a frequently updated online personal journal or diary. It is a place to express yourself to the world. A place to share your thoughts and your passions. Really, it's anything you want it to be. For our purposes we'll say that a blog is your own website that you are going to update on an ongoing basis. Blog is a short form for the word weblog and the two words are used interchangeably. Here are a couple of other definitions: "...the first journalistic model that actually harnesses rather than merely exploits the true democratic nature of the web. It's a new medium finally finding a unique voice."--Andrew Sullivan "[a] collection of posts...short, informal, sometimes controversial, and sometimes deeply personal...with the freshest information at the top."--Meg Hourihan Terminology As so often happens in the English Continue Reading