Build Your Own Author Website—Step 7: Administration Panel

Before we get to the fun part of decorating your new cyber home, let’s take care of some general housekeeping tasks via the navigation menu on the left side of your WordPress Administration panel.

Hover your mouse over the Settings menu at the very bottom of the vertical menu below your Dashboard and a submenu pops out to the side that contains the following links:

• General
• Writing
• Reading
• Discussion
• Media
• Permalinks

The only settings we will concern ourselves with for now are: General and Permalinks.

Administration Panel General Settings

The General Settings page is where you give your site a title and description, set your contact e-mail, and identify yourself as author.

• Click the General link
• Enter the name of your website in the Site Title text box. I strongly advise that you use your author name as the title of your website. Remember, your name is your platform. As I explained in an earlier post, I’ve made many detours (mistakes) while finding the best path to take in setting up my author website. If I’d known, for instance, what I know now, I would have used my name instead of the name of my series (Enter the Between) when I created my first website.
• In the Tagline text box, enter a short phrase that describes your site. Be sure to use a phrase that will hook a user into clicking your link if they see this description in search engine results.
• In the WordPress Address text box and Site Address text box, I kept things simple by entering my domain name (http://www.margaretduarte.com) in each.
• Enter your e-mail address in the E-Mail Address text box.
• Select a Membership option. Since this is my personal website, I decided to leave this box unchecked.
• From the New User Default Role drop-down menu, I choose the default role Subscriber for new users.
• Set your UTC time from the drop-down menu in the Timezone section and the Date Format you prefer displayed in your site. Then choose your Time Format.
• Lastly, select the day the week starts in your calender from the drop-down menu.
• Don’t forget to SAVE your changes at the bottom of the page.

For a more lengthy video overview of WordPress’s General Settings, CLICK HERE.

Administration Panel Permalink Settings

Now, let’s head to the Permalink Settings page.

Permalink is a tech name for a web address. WordPress’s default permalink’s format isn’t one search engines like much. Your site will rank higher if it uses real words in its permalinks instead of numbers and weird characters.

So, let’s change your permalink settings now.

• Go to Settings>Permalinks.
• Select Post Name under Common Settings.
• Click Save Changes.

How’s that for easy?

This way, whenever you write a post, your post title will show up in your permalink. Much more search engine friendly.

Instead of: http://www.yoursite.com/?p=123, your permalink will look like this: http://www.yoursite.com/your-post-title/.

Administration Panel: Deleting Sample Post and Page

As our last housekeeping task, we need to delete the sample post and page that came with your WordPress install.

• To delete the sample post called “Hello, World!”, go to Posts>All Posts.
• Hover your mouse over the “Hello, World!” title and you’ll find several links that appear under it.
• Click Trash.
• Done.
• To delete the sample page, go to Pages>All Pages. Hover your mouse over the title and click Trash.
• Done.

Administration Panel: Writing, Reading, Discussion, and Media

I skipped taking you through the Writing, Reading, Discussion, and Media pages because:

1. I chose the default setting in most of the options presented there.
2. I didn’t want you to make choices that the WordPress theme you choose for your site later may decide for you.

However, if you’d like to familiarize yourself with the sub-menu items we skipped, click HERE.

With that out of the way, let’s take a break from all the serious stuff and move on to something fun: Playing with Plugins.