It’s necessary to visit this at least once when you’re getting started on the site.
In the left menu of your dashboard, go to the “Settings” tab. It contains several sub-sections that we’ll go through.
1 - General
Here you will set:
- Your site title (the one visible in a search engine tab, for example)
- Its tagline, if any
- The icon (the favicon)
- Your site’s address/URL (its homepage)
- The admin email address (this is the email of the organization managing your site — if managed by an agency, it’s the agency’s email)
- Then a series of settings for language, time zone, time and date format, and start of the week
Save before moving on to the next tab!
2 - Writing
- Choose whether you want to assign a default category and format to newly created posts
- Here you also manage the contact details for sending emails from the site
Save before moving on to the next tab!
3 - Reading
- Choose which page of your site will be the homepage
- Choose which page will list all posts
- Choose the maximum number of items displayed in a list (10 is set by default and is enough — visitors can then go to the next page!)
- When your site is finished and ready to go live, make sure to uncheck “Discourage search engines from indexing this site.” Otherwise, your site won’t appear anywhere!
Save before moving on to the next tab!
4 - Discussion
Settings for what you allow or prefer regarding comments on your site. Unless it’s a blog, your pages usually don’t receive comments.
5 - Medias
Here you manage the size of images uploaded to the site. The default settings can generally be kept as they are.
6 - Permalinks
Here you manage the site’s permalink format. The default settings can generally be kept as they are.
7 - Privacy
Here you choose which page will be considered the privacy policy page.
You can also install a plugin to manage your privacy policy and handle users’ consent for cookies on your site. Some plugins are very well designed, with step-by-step guidance for creating your document, integrating it, and formatting the consent banner.