WordPress setup

Modified on September 25, 2020

In this tutorial I will teach you how to correctly set up a fresh WordPress install.

Before watching this video…

  1. Purchase web hosting (see below).
  2. Install WordPress.

Web Hosting

  • Find a reliable web host. My favorite is KnownHost due to their uptime, excellent hardware, great customer support, and reasonable pricing. BuddyBoss is hosted there (SSD-2 option) and we’ve been very happy with them.
  • You can start with cheap shared hosting if you’re on a budget, but BuddyPress queries the database constantly and your site will be slow. You’re much better off with a fast SSD (solid state drive) and a ton of RAM (memory) on your own dedicated virtual server (no other sites sharing resources). It makes an enormous speed impact.

1. Familiarize yourself with the WordPress dashboard (0:16)

  1. Click your site title in the Admin Bar to access the dashboard. Or go to www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin to access the login screen.
  2. See an overview of your site in the Dashboard > Home section.
  3. See WordPress and plugin updates in the Dashboard > Updates section.
  4. Play with creating blog posts and pages in the Posts and Pages sections.

2. Configure basic WordPress settings (1:14)

  1. Navigate to Settings > General.
    • Check “Anyone can register” if you want to later let BuddyPress users create accounts.
    • Select your local timezone.
    • Click “Save Changes”.
  2. Go to Settings > Reading.
    • Under “Search Engine Visibility”, check if you want search engines (like Google) to index and display results from your site or not.

3. Configure Blog and Homepage setup (2:20)

Option A: Use your homepage as the blog

  1. Go to Settings > Reading.
    • Set “Front page displays” as “Your Latest Posts”.
    • Your blog posts (created at Posts > Add New) should now feed into the homepage.

Option B: Use a static homepage, with blog posts on a separate page

  1. Go to Pages > Add New.
    • Create a page and name it “Home” or whatever you want your homepage to be titled.
    • Create another page and name it “Blog” or whatever you want your blog page to be titled.
  2. Go to Settings > Reading.
    • Set “Front page displays” as “A static page”.
    • Set the home page you just created as the “Front page”.
    • Set your newly created page as the “Posts page.”
  3. Your blog posts (created at Posts > Add New) should now feed into the blog page.

4. Create a custom navigation menu (3:50)

  1. Go to Appearance > Menus.
    • Rename the default “Menu 1” to the name you prefer. Or click “create a new menu”.
    • Add the pages you want into the menu.
    • Drag and drop to re-order the pages within the menu.
    • Click “Save Menu”.
  2. Go to “Manage Locations”, still in the Menus screen.
    • Assign your new menu to the desired menu location from your theme.
    • Click “Save Changes”.

5. Set up “pretty permalinks” for better URLs (5:13)

  1. Go to Settings > Permalinks.
    • Set it to whichever option you prefer. Most people recommend using the “Post name” option.
    • Click “Save Changes”.