WordPress’ General Settings
The General setting menu is where you manage the core settings for your site. Many of the setting in this area were configured during the initial installation. If you used your web host’s automated WordPress install system, some of them may be set to a default state, otherwise they should look vaguely familiar. You will most likely only configure most of these settings once, but you may have reason to change them in the future. It is important to remember to update them as necessary as your the situation changes with your site.
The first setting in the General setting menu are the Site Title and the Tagline. Although Site Title or the name of the site does not have to match the domain name, it usually does. If they are different, it may impact how search engines crawl and rank your site and confuse your readers. The tagline is your slogan or a quick blurb to help people understand what your site is about. This can be especially important if your website has a typical web name with dropped vowels, extra consonants or replacements or something “catchy” that has no relation to the content of your site.
Next up is the WordPress Address (URL). This is your domain name. Use caution when editing this, because it can render your site unaccessible if you change it improperly. This is followed by Site address (URL) which can be very useful if you know what you are doing. Making a change in this field will tell WordPress that you want your homepage to be different from where the rest of the WordPress files are located. This can be done as a security provision or if you are integrating a WordPress blog into a larger site. Use caution here as well. There is a useful tutorial on this subject if you want to explore it further.
The E-Mail Address is the primary administrative email address for the WordPress installation. This is where email is sent through an automated process to inform the site administrator of a status change, a new user, etc. It can be used by other plugins, but it is not displayed on the site unless the theme you are using specifically uses it (very rare). Each user is required to have their own unique email address.
The next two options, Membership and New User Default Role manage how people interact with the site. These two little settings can have a big impact on your site visitors and whether they are just passing by or involved members of the site. It seems that they should have more weight placed on their interface to signify their importance.
The little Membership checkbox controls whether site visitor can become members of your website. This tiny little box regulates whether your site functions like an online brochure or whether it allows visitors to become invested in the content and even the creation of content for your site. If you want people to just read what you have written or just view your pictures and not allow them to become more involved in your site, then make sure this box is disabled. However, if you would like people to become subscribers or even contribute to the content of the blog as Contributors, Authors or Editors then check this box.
If the box is checked, the pull-down New User Default Roll option configures what permissions new members of the site get automatically. I will have a future post on permissions soon, but until then it is important to know that a site user’s Role determines what access level they have to your site. A Subscriber is the recommended role for all new members. This limits their access to just reading your content and managing their profile. Further plugins can expand and alter that access, but this is the default base level role. If you were to set the Default Role to any other level, you give any new members the ability to create and/or modify new content and even the base configurations of your site. This is a high risk issue for anyone wishing to maintain some level of control of their site.
The final five options manage how the site deals with time, dates and days of the week. You can set your Timezone, how you would like the date formatting to appear with the Date Format option, how you would like the Time Format to appear and finally what day the week starts on with the Week Starts On option. These have varying degrees of impact on your site and are largely influenced by the theme you are using. The Week Starts On option can influence how calendars are displayed and may have an impact on some plugins.
Finished
After you have configured your site General settings, you must save those changes by clicking the button on the bottom of the screen that says “Save Changes”. If you navigate away from this page before saving changes, the changes will be lost. If you Save Changes after mistakenly altering the WordPress Address (URL) or the Site Address (URL), you may have just rendered you site inaccessible to both your visitors and the administrative side. Recovery from this issue will be outlined in a future article.
Congratulations! You are well on your way to getting your WordPress set up and prepared for your visitors.
A veteran of the Dot Com era, Dave has a wealth of experience in the web and marketing. A WordPress user since version 1.2.5, he has spent the past six years falling in love with WordPress and sharing that passion with the world. WordPressConfig.com is the latest escalation of that effort.