WordPress Checklist and Housekeeping

This WordPress Checklist is to cover some of the other WordPress things you will want to take care off at some stage.  We all tend to add a plugin here, a widget there, an avatar, etc.  – all done as it occurs to us and over some period of time.  It can get a bit messy and one tends to forget some things.  This is especially true if you happen to set up more than one WordPress site.

Use this WordPress Checklist as your trigger and reminder for a better WordPress Housekeeping.

This WordPress Checklist is not complete by any means.  It can never be, when all of us have such different needs and settings.  Refer to the Reference section below for other tips and articles on WordPress Checklists.  I will cover as much of the general WordPress Checklist as I can.

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Recap: WordPress “Essential” Steps

At this stage, I assume you have covered the domain and initial WordPress installation and essential plugins setup.  For a summary you can refer to WordPress Walk-through and Summary which was part of our Blog Monetization Experiment. (You should be able to see the Monetization Experiment in sequential order in the left column.)

Here is a quick recap of the WordPress Essential Steps thus far:

DOMAIN NAME

1. Find your passion/interest
   – see “What is The First Question to Ask Yourself When Choosing a Niche” by Yaro Starak.  Very down to earth and sensible advice.
2. Keyword Research
3. Find niche for domain
4. Register your Domain Name
5. Set Preferred Domain

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WORDPRESS ESSENTIALS

1. Install WordPress (self-hosted)
2. Get Theme (I chose Genesis 2 Aug 2013)
3. Configure WP Settings Link Structure – WordPress Postname for better SEO
4. Essential WP Plugins
5. Configure Settings for Plugins
   – Akismet
   – WordPress SEO
   – WP Super Cache
   – Jetpack by WordPress.com

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Next let’s do some WordPress housekeeping with our WordPress Checklist.

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WordPress Checklist and Housekeeping

None of these are “must dos” however they are very beneficial.  Also, some of the plugins I list are tied to the Genesis Framework and specific child themes I am using.  If you are not using Genesis, then you might want to find other complementary plugins to accomplish the achieve the same benefits.

SEO BASICS

• Add your site and Verify (to Google Webmaster Tools, Bing Webmaster Tools, Alexa)
• Set 301 Redirect (to Preferred Domain) in WordPress
• Analytics – add analytics code to just before ending </head> tag
• Google+ Authorship – add to your WP site

 

WordPress Configurations

• Set Timezone (WP Admin >> Settings >> General)
• Disable new user registration (if not taking registrations)
• WP Nickname (Users >> Your Profile)
• Contact Info including Google+, Twitter username, Facebook profile URL (Users >> Your Profile)
• About Yourself >> Bio Info
• Enable Automatic updates (Genesis >> Theme Settings)
• Custom Feeds and Redirect feed (Genesis >> Theme Settings) Note: if using Feedbuner, set that up first.
• Site’s Logo
• Favicon – How to change Genesis Favicon
• Gravatar/Avatar
• Delete  /wp-admin/install.php & /readme.html (WP root) – security risk from hackers.  Not needed after WP installation
• Delete unused plugins and themes.  Aim to have as little executable code on your site as possible
• Site’s Logo
• Create own custom stylesheet.  Include “Visual cues for hyperlinks”
• Make author link open in new window (see: “Comment Author link to Open in New Window“)

 

Additional Plugins & Extras

• Ad Injection
• Bootstrap
• RSS (e.g. Feedburner)
• Mailing List/AutoResponders (e.g. AWeber, GetResponse, MailChimp)
• OnlyWire for WordPress (and I also recommend getting the paid version of OnlyWire)
• Easy Fancy Box (by RavanH)
• additional Post Formats & Post Format icons (e.g. Aside, Quote …)
• Genesis Prose Extras
• Genesis Widgetized Footer
• Genesis Toolbar Extras
• Genesis Simple Hooks

 

External Services

• AWeber
• Bloglovin (free)
• RSS FeedBurner (free)
• OnlyWire

 

General Site Important Housekeeping

• Contact Us form (If have Jetpack plugin, then create Contact form using plugin)
• Pages –  Contact Us, Terms & Condition, Privacy Policy pages
• Email Subscribe form in sidebar (via AWeber)
• Email Subscribe form at bottom of ever post (I used “Prose Extras” plugin to do this or can use “Genesis Simple Hooks” plugin)
• Add Reader button/link for users to follow – e.g. Bloglovin
• Social Media integration (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+)

 

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