10 Settings to Change After Installing WordPress

1. Site title and tagline

In Settings › General, set the site title to your business or site name and write a short tagline, or clear it. Block themes show these in the header and footer through the Site Title and Site Tagline blocks, and search engines may use them.

2. Administration email address

Also in Settings › General. WordPress sends important messages here, including the email you'll need if a plugin ever breaks your site (see fixing common errors). Use an address you check.

3. Time zone, date and time format

Choose London as the time zone (not a UTC offset, which won't change for British Summer Time), and a UK date format such as j F Y (1 November 2026).

4. Permalinks

In Settings › Permalinks, choose Post name. Your addresses become readable, like /how-to-start-a-blog/, which helps visitors and search engines. Change this before publishing: changing it later breaks existing links unless you add redirects.

5. Search engine visibility

In Settings › Reading, the box "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" is useful while you build, but it must be unticked when you launch. WordPress has had built-in XML sitemaps since version 5.5, at /wp-sitemap.xml, and they're switched off while this box is ticked.

6. Your home page

With a block theme, your home page design comes from the theme's front page template, which you edit in Appearance › Editor. With a classic theme, choose between your latest posts or a static page in Settings › Reading.

7. Comments

If you don't want comments, untick "Allow people to submit comments on new posts" in Settings › Discussion. If you do, consider holding first-time comments for approval to keep spam off the site.

8. Privacy policy page

WordPress creates a draft privacy policy. Find it in Settings › Privacy, edit it to describe what your site actually collects, publish it and link to it in your footer. If you use analytics or advertising cookies, the ICO's cookie guidance explains when you need consent.

9. Users and roles

Give everyone their own login with the lowest role they need (Editor or Author rather than Administrator). Delete the default "Hello world!" post and sample page too.

10. Security basics

Use a strong, unique password and switch on two-step login. WordPress's hardening guide also suggests turning off the built-in theme and plugin file editor by adding define( 'DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true ); to wp-config.php. More in WordPress security basics.

Where to go next

Now install your theme, or download our launch checklist to tick these off as you go.