You’ve installed WordPress — now what?

If you’re wondering what to do after installing WordPress on your website, you’re in the right place. Before you start customizing pages and uploading content, there are a few important settings and tasks you should take care of first.

To help you get started the right way, we’ve put together a list of the 10 essential things to do after installing WordPress on your website. These simple steps will help improve security, SEO, performance, and overall site organization from the very beginning.

1 | Change your admin username, nickname & password

One of the first things you should do is update your admin profile and login details.

Many WordPress installations still use generic usernames or display names like “Admin”, which can look unprofessional and may even create unnecessary security risks.

Go to Users → Profile and:
1. Change your display nickname to your name or brand name.
2. Update your password to a strong, secure one.
3. Double-check your email address.

PRO TIP: Avoid using “admin” as your username.

2 | Check your search engine visibility settings

This is one of the most overlooked WordPress settings — and it can seriously affect your website traffic.

Sometimes, WordPress accidentally blocks search engines from indexing your site, especially if the installation was set up in development mode.

Go to Settings → Reading and make sure the option Discourage search engines from indexing this site is unchecked.

If this setting is enabled, your website may not appear in Google search results.

3 | Change your permalinks to an SEO-friendly structure

By default, WordPress URLs often look something like this:

yourwebsite.com/?p=123

Not exactly pretty… and definitely not ideal for SEO.

A cleaner URL structure is easier for both visitors and search engines to understand. Instead, use URLs like:

yourwebsite.com/your-blog-post-title

To change this, go to Settings → Permalinks then select Post Name.

This creates clean, readable URLs and is the best option for most websites.

4 | Update your site title & tagline

By default, many new WordPress websites still show the classic “Just another WordPress site”.

Not exactly the best first impression.

Your site title and tagline help explain what your website or business is about.

Go to Settings → General and update:
1. Site Title
2. Tagline

5 | Set up categories & remove “Uncategorized”

WordPress automatically creates a default category called Uncategorized.

And let’s be honest… it doesn’t look great.

If you forget to choose a category while publishing a post, WordPress will automatically assign it there.

Go to Posts → Categories and:
1. Rename it to something more useful (like Updates, News, or Blog).
2. Create categories that match your content.

Having a simple category structure will make your blog easier to navigate and more organized.

6 | Remove default pages, posts, widgets & plugins

A fresh WordPress installation usually comes with a few default items you probably won’t need.

Things like the “Hello World” post, “Sample Page”, unnecessary widgets, and default plugins can make your website feel unfinished and cluttered.

Take a few minutes to clean everything up before you start building your site.

To delete default content, go to Posts → All Posts and delete the “Hello World” post. Then head to Pages → All Pages and remove the “Sample Page”.

Some WordPress installations include default widgets that you may not need. Go to Appearance → Widgets and remove unnecessary widgets — especially if you’re planning to use one of our themes.

To remove default plugins, go to Plugins and deactivate then delete anything you’re not planning to use.

7 | Change the default number of blog posts per page

By default, WordPress displays 10 blog posts per page.

Depending on your website style and content strategy, this number may not be ideal for your blog layout.

For many modern websites, showing fewer posts can create a cleaner, more premium look and improve the browsing experience.

To change this setting, go to Settings → Reading then look for Blog pages show at most and choose how many posts you want displayed per page.

We usually recommend displaying 6 blog posts per page, as it creates a cleaner layout while still giving visitors enough content to explore without feeling overwhelming.

8 | Upload & customize your new WordPress theme

Now for the fun part — customizing your website!

After setting up the essentials, it’s finally time to install your WordPress theme and start bringing your brand to life.

Go to Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme then upload your theme ZIP file and activate it.

Once you activate and set up your theme, you can begin customizing:
• Pages
• Colors
• Branding elements

A beautiful, well-designed theme can instantly elevate your website and save you hours of customization.

Final thoughts

Installing WordPress is only the beginning — setting things up properly from the start can make a huge difference later.

Taking a little extra time to improve security, optimize settings, organize content, and clean up unnecessary defaults will help your website run more smoothly in the long run.

Once these essentials are done, you’re ready for the best part: building a website you truly love.