11 Default WordPress Settings to Change

You can create a WordPress website easily. Installing WordPress is a single click process as we have a WordPress Installer on our servers. And from there, your site is ready to go.

It would help if you made a few changes before publishing your content or setting up your online shop.

If you do some quick tweaks to your default WordPress settings, you can optimize your website speed and load time from the very beginning.

Check these default WordPress settings that every website owner requires to change just after installing WordPress.

This guide is useful whether you’re a blogger, business owner, or an e-commerce store owner.

So, now log in to your WordPress Admin.

1 – Reset Your WordPress Password

Our WordPress installer generates a strong password during the installation.

We do not store the password on our servers.

Changing your WordPress website’s default admin password is one of the simplest ways to make your WordPress website more secure.

To change your WordPress password, navigate to Users > Your Profile in the WordPress dashboard. Scroll down to the Account Management section.

Then, click the Generate Password button to get a new password.

Copy and save this newly generated strong password for your future use.

If the password is hidden and you need to see it, click Show to reveal the password.

Now click the Update Profile button at the bottom of the page to save your new password. Use this new password next time when you log into your WordPress dashboard.

You can also reconsider changing the WordPress admin username from the default admin username like admin.

This step helps you from brute force attacks and other threats trying to hack into your account.

2 – Change the WordPress Site Title, Tagline, and Timezone

In the WordPress dashboard, navigate to Settings > General. There are a bunch of various settings that, by default, have been set for you.

Focus on three settings here: The site title, tagline, and timezone.

Few of these settings can set during the installation.

“My Blog” is your default site title. Change this title to something more relevant to your site.

This site title helps your website visitors know what you have to offer and brand your business.

This change would boost your search rankings significantly.

“My WordPress Blog” is the default tagline for a WordPress website. You see, this is not meaningful.

Adding a short and meaningful tagline tells your site visitors what your site is all about. And what they can get from your website.

Next, you have to change the timezone from the default Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). You can switch to the timezone you and most of your site visitors live.

This timezone change indeed minimizes confusion when it comes to your eCommerce management. Things like the time and date of the posts published, uploaded media, comments left on your blogs are relying on these settings.

Do you want to make a few more changes? You can Uncheck the Membership checkbox.

This setting limits unwanted site visitors like spammers from registering on your website and obtaining access to your site user login page.

Furthermore, change the default date and time format and pick the day to start the week based on your geography.

3 – Delete Default Post, Page, and Comment

WordPress comes with default sample content that works as placeholders before you add your content.

You can see a sample post, page, and comment on your WordPress website.

Delete this sample content before the visitors start accessing your website.

For removing the sample post, go to Posts > All Posts in your WordPress dashboard.

There you can see a post called “Hello world!“. Click on the Trash link next to it to send this post to your WordPress trash.

Next, go to Pages > All Pages and trash the “Sample Page” as you did with the sample post.

Go to the Comments, and from there, you can delete the default comment added by WordPress.

4 – Remove Unused WordPress Themes

You must use a properly-designed and fast loading WordPress theme. Then only your website can impress your visitors and rank on Google. You have to test and install many WordPress themes before you choose the right one for your website.

We offer a FREE Divi theme with an intuitive visual builder so that you can build a fantastic website quickly.

Delete any theme that you don’t intend to use. These themes would take up unnecessary space from your server space.

More importantly, abandoned themes are potential security risks to your website.

So how do you delete an inactive theme?

You go to Appearance > Themes. Hover over the theme that you wanted to remove and click on Theme Details.

Then, on the bottom-right corner, press Delete.

5 – Optimize Permalinks for SEO

Permalinks are the URLs your website visitors see in their browser when they access your site.

An example of WordPress permalink would be https://da-demo.xyz/p=1234.

This link is short, but it is not SEO friendly, not suitable for humans either. This URL structure doesn’t make much sense to your visitors.

Now let’s make your permalinks short and SEO friendly.

For that, go to Settings > Permalinks. And select the Post name option there.

The post name option creates a permalink that displays part of any post name in the URL.

These URLs would be easily visible to search crawlers indexing your site. And at the same time understandable to site visitors visiting your website.

You know creating pretty permalinks can help you drive more traffic to your site?

You can add relevant keywords in the URL and boost overall SEO if you choose pretty permalinks.

6 – Make a Better Default Category

Every post you publish on WordPress requires to have at least one category assigned.

WordPress automatically assigns it to the default “Uncategorized” category If you don’t select it.

You always have to categorize your posts as suitable to them. So your website visitors can accurately understand the content of your blog posts.

Open Posts > Categories. Here let’s create a new category.

After that, go to Settings > Writing. The Default Post Category drop-down menu is here. Choose the new category you have created.

Now go back to Posts > Categories. Click on the Uncategorized category checkbox. And click Delete.

7 – Switch the Default Gravatar

To display photos in author bios and WordPress comments, WordPress uses Gravatar. WordPress uses the default mystery man if you don’t have a Gravatar to use.

You can easily use Gravatar on your website or any other sites that support Gravatar service.

You have to create an account on Gravatar’s website. Make sure you use the same email address on Gravatar’s website and your WordPress website.

You can upload your profile picture there. This picture also shows on any other sites where you leave comments or publish posts.

What if you need to change the default avatars used for people who don’t have a Gravatar and leave a comment on your site?

Go to Settings > Discussion and scroll down to the Avatars section.

Here, choose the avatar you like most and save your changes.

8 – Customize Your User Profile

Usually, the username you use to log in to your WordPress site is the username presenting next to your comments and blog posts.

You can change this to your real name or your preferred nickname.

Go to Users > Your Profile. And scroll down to the Name section. Here, input your First Name, Last Name, and Nickname.

Then, go to the drop-down labeled Display name publicly as. Select the name you want to appear on your website.

9 – Change Your WordPress Email Address

During the WordPress installation, you probably used your not so official email address, something like your Gmail address.

This email address is the default email address that will use to contact both internally and externally.

This means, if you are running an e-commerce website, your Order Confirmation email to your customers goes with your Gmail address.

You can change this email address to your business email.

For that, go to Settings > General.

Find the Email Address section and input the business email you want to receive the notifications.

Please remember to use an active email address here because WordPress will send a confirmation email to it.

10 – Change the Homepage

WordPress displays your site’s blogs on the homepage by default.

If you are running a small business website, you need to display a separate landing page instead. Or even a static page.

Let’s change your homepage.

Go to Settings > Reading. Now select the A static page option under Your homepage displays section.

Using a static page as your site homepage lets you create custom layouts. When a visitor land on your website, they see this custom page.

11 – Disable or Limit WordPress Post Revisions

WordPress post revisions can fill your WordPress site’s database with useless content if left unchecked.

We have a separate blog post that will explain where we talk more about WordPress Post Revisions.

And there you have it! Ten necessary default WordPress settings to change just after installing WordPress.

Are there any default WordPress settings that we have missed from this list that you think is worth adding?

If yes, please share with us in the comments below!

If you enjoyed this tutorial, then you’ll love Rovity and our fast-growing premium shared hosting on the cloud. Check our subscription plans.