In this article i am going to point out the ten basic things that you should do as soon as you install fresh WordPress on your domain. These will help you to flow in an organized way along with minimum loss of time and data. (This article does not explain how to install wordpress, please refer to respective article for how to install wordpress).
1. Change your password:
First step as soon as you install your wordpress blog is to change the password. When you login to the admin panel it gives you an aleart to change the password on the top. Either click on it to goto user profile page and change the password, or simply go to the users->yourprofile to change your password on the end of the profile page. Change the password to a hard but easy for you to remember password.
2. Delete the Hello World post:
Goto the posts -> edit and delete the first post that is already present there. It is important to delete it, and not just edit it to your own first post because when you make new post of yours and publish it , it will be fresh in the rss and google, rather than being considered a edited post.
3. Make new categories:
After deleting the default hello world post, donot jump directly to making your new posts, instead first goto posts->categories and add a few nice categories which you will be having on your site. Please note that you should not change / delete these categories later, or their structure n nesting, otherwise it might affect your google ranking in future. So be careful and prepared when you are creating and nesting the categories.
4. Deciding the permalink structure:
Still before jumping to making a post on your blog, you first need to make a proper permalink for your site. Goto settings-> permalink and there select the permalink you want to use for url to make them search engine and userfriendly.
5. Make new post(s):
Now its time to make one or couple of new posts on your new blog. Goto posts -> add new and make the post. Select the category for the post and add relavant tags, and then publish the post.
6. Add / Edit about page:
Goto Pages-> edit and edit the about page to your own data and info. Do not get too specific on the about page if not needed.
7. Choosing a theme:
First thing to be done on a WordPress blog is to chose a theme for your blog. There are many free themes available for wordpress along with many nice premium ones. If you are not sure which theme you are to go with, its better to select a good looking free theme. For chosing a theme, goto wordpress admin panel and from left navigation select: Appearence-> Add New theme. It will give you options to select themes available.
8. Plugins:
One can find many plugins suitable for their need in wordpress directory. But the one that i will recommend as a must need is a “wordpress.com stats” search for this in plugins-> add new and install, you need to enter your apn. To get apn, goto wordpress.com, register there, and on your profile page, at the bottom, it shows you your apn.
9. Contact us page:
Create a contact us page/ contact us form for your site. You can contact me or any other developer if you need service for creating a form for contact.
10. Backup:
Last but the most important of all, backup! backup your blog. First of all goto tools->export and then export your blog data. And other than that , if you know how to manually backup files and database, then make it a regular habit to back it up! daily!