WordPress is not hard to configure. While there are quite a few settings pages, each has a few very specific options. The general settings page allows you to change the name of your website, its tagline, URL address settings, and the website's admin email.
The first part of the page consists of basic configuration options,
WordPress provides a simple user account system. Think about your favorite newspaper or online magazine, you're often required to login to make a comment. On the general settings page you can enable or disable user registration and what role the user becomes. More details on user roles and profile can be found in the WordPress Users chapter [linked when written.] It is strongly recommended to keep the New User Default Role at Subscriber.
WordPress allows you to manage how dates and times are displayed on your website, like blog posts, news posts, or referenced by plugins used to extend your websites functionality.
The first part of the page consists of basic configuration options,
- Site Title is the name of your website and will appear on the web page title and possibility on your theme. The site title is like your company or organization's name - the websites identity.
- The Tagline is a short description of your website. Themes may place these near the site title, and the tagline is often used in the web page title. Here is an example of how my personal WordPress site looks from a Google result using my site title and tagline.
Example of a Google result with data from the site title and tagline - WordPress Address and Site Address will 90% of the time be the normal URL to your website. Do not change these settings unless you have read the codex article and edited the proper file.
- E-mail Address field allows you to tell WordPress where to send website notifications, plugins you install will often reference this email as well. If you add a new user, or allow users to register, you will receive an admin notification alerting you of the new user. Whenever a comment is added to the website, if enabled, you will be notified at the email address.
WordPress provides a simple user account system. Think about your favorite newspaper or online magazine, you're often required to login to make a comment. On the general settings page you can enable or disable user registration and what role the user becomes. More details on user roles and profile can be found in the WordPress Users chapter [linked when written.] It is strongly recommended to keep the New User Default Role at Subscriber.
WordPress allows you to manage how dates and times are displayed on your website, like blog posts, news posts, or referenced by plugins used to extend your websites functionality.
- Timezone refers to the global offset from the GMT. The drop down provides a long list of cities to choose from, grouped by continent. For example, most sites have you choose Chicago for the Central Time Zone. Another option is to reach the bottom of the list and manually set your timezone offset. For example, the Central Time Zone is UTC-6 (minus six hours.)
- Date Format and Time Format a very simple, pick your preferred option. Be wary of using a custom option as that dives into using the date function of the programming language WordPress uses (PHP). If you feel daring, click on the documentation link for date and time formatting. The codex does a good job at simplifying how to change the format.
- Week Starts On allows you to change the starting day of the week for the WordPress calendar (used for displaying when posts were made.) This option is also referenced by calendar plugins that you can use with your WordPress website.