WordPress Settings Tutorial: 3 Essential Settings for Beginners
Before you start adding pages and posts to your WordPress site, there are a few key settings you need to configure. Here's a quick guide to the general, reading, and permalink settings that matter most.
General Settings: Site Name, Tagline, and Time Zone
When you first install WordPress, it's tempting to jump straight into creating pages and posts. But before you do any of that, there are a handful of settings worth configuring so everything runs smoothly from the start.
Head over to **Settings → General** in your WordPress sidebar. This is where you can update your site name and add a tagline — that tagline will appear in the browser tab alongside your site name if there's enough room. Most of the other options on this page can safely stay at their defaults.
The one exception is your **time zone**. Setting this correctly ensures that any posts you publish display the right timestamp, and it also matters for scheduled emails and other time-sensitive features. It's a small detail, but it's worth getting right from day one.
Reading Settings: Choose Your Homepage Display
Next up is **Settings → Reading**. This screen controls what visitors see when they land on your root URL — essentially, what your homepage looks like.
WordPress gives you two choices: display your latest blog posts, or set a **static page** as your homepage. If you're building a business site or portfolio, a static homepage is almost always the better option. You can always create a separate blog page and assign it here as well.
There's also a checkbox that says **"Discourage search engines from indexing this site."** This is handy if your site is still under construction and you don't want Google or Bing surfacing half-finished pages in search results. Just remember to uncheck it once you're ready to go live — it's easy to forget.
Permalinks: The Most Important Setting You'll Change
Permalinks define the URL structure for every page and post on your site. Getting this right matters more than you might think, because clean, readable URLs are a genuine ranking factor for search engines.
By default, WordPress uses a URL structure that isn't particularly human-friendly — something like `?p=123`. The fix is simple: go to **Settings → Permalinks** and select the **"Post name"** option. This gives you URLs like `yoursite.com/my-blog-post` instead of a string of numbers. Click **Save Changes** at the bottom and you're done.
It's a bit odd that WordPress doesn't default to this setting, but it's a quick change that makes a real difference for both SEO and usability.
Editing Slugs for Cleaner URLs
Once you've switched to the post name permalink structure, you can fine-tune individual URLs by editing the **slug** — the part of the URL that comes after your domain name.
To do this, open any post in the editor and click on the post title. A small **Permalink** box will appear where you can customize the slug to whatever you like. The best practice is to keep it short, descriptive, and free of filler words like "the," "and," or "a." For example, instead of `the-best-way-to-set-up-wordpress`, something like `wordpress-setup-guide` is cleaner and easier for both users and search engines to parse.
These few settings take less than five minutes to configure, but they lay the groundwork for a well-organized WordPress site. With your general settings, reading preferences, and permalinks sorted, you're ready to move on to choosing a theme and building out your content.
Watch the Full Video
Prefer watching to reading? Check out the full video on YouTube for a complete walkthrough with live demos and commentary.
