Introduction to WordPress General Settings
In this chapter you would learn about WordPress General Settings, the kind of configuration changes that can be done here, and how you can configure General Settings of WordPress.
As we already know from the previous tutorial (Exploring WordPress Settings Menu), that this settings “General” is the first and default settings page under the WordPress Settings menu.
It contains some of the most basic configuration settings of your WordPress site: your site's title, tagline, site URL, WordPress core file location, email address, user registration preference, time zone setting, and how dates and times will be calculated and displayed.
To open the general settings, point to the settings tab and click on General. (As shown In the below image)
Now, you would see the general settings page as below:
Configuring WordPress General Settings
Now, as we are already on the General Settings page of WordPress, we can start configuring the settings as below:
Site Title:
The site title is the name you want to give to your site. It may be displayed in various places, including but not limited to the web browser's title bar, the site header etc (depending on WordPress theme you have chosen). It's also shown in the upper left corner of the Admin bar if you are logged in to your site.
Some themes or SEO plugins may have the option to include this title as part of the title tag on each page, and it might also be used as an identifying name in your sites RSS feeds.
The site title doesn’t require to be an exact match for your site name or URL, and depending on applicability you may include keywords to take SEO benefits.
Tagline:
Tagline provides an option to include a short few words description or memorable phrase that describes the mission of your site. Some themes also have the option to display the tagline in the header, sidebar, or in the web browser's title bar. This field is totally optional and can be left blank.
For most of the installations, the default tagline is given as “Just another WordPress site”, therefore be sure to either change it to an appropriate one or remove it completely.
WordPress Address (URL)
This should be the actual location of your WordPress installation where the core application files are located (i.e.- the location of e.g., wp-config.php, wp-admin, wp-content, and wp-includes etc). For most of the sites, that will be the same as the site's homepage URL. However, if you have installed WordPress in a subdirectory then you should put that location here.
For example: if you have installed WordPress in the "blog" folder, then you must put "http://yoursite.com/blog" in this field. If you have installed WordPress in / (root) directory then you should write "http://yoursite.com" in this field.
Site Address (URL)
This is the address that visitors will type into their web browser to view your site. On the technical side, this represents the directory where WordPress's main "index.php" file is installed.
In the majority of installations, the Site address (URL) is same as the WordPress address (URL) unless you have installed or moved WordPress in a different directory than the main homepage.
One thing you must remember that you must not include a trailing "/" after any of the above URLs.
Email Address
This is the address where WordPress will send various messages about your blog status and administration. For example, you would be notified when new comments are posted, or if a comment is held for moderation, or if a new user gets registered in your site etc.
Moreover, this email will also act as the password recovery email address in case if you forget the password.
This email address will not be displayed anywhere on your site, so it’s protected in terms of visibility. Hence you can keep this email address something other than what you use in your administrator account.
Membership
Check this option only if you want to allow visitors to register for an account on your blog or website, otherwise leave it unchecked.
New User Default Role
This option only takes effect if you checked the box of allowing membership. Here you can select the default role for the users those who gets registered. You may choose their default roles as subscriber, contributor, author, editor, and administrator (as shown in below image).
Site Language
This is the option to set the language in which you want to view the WordPress dashboard. Please note that this is not the language of your blog post.
Timezone
In all WordPress installations, the default timezone is set to UTC (Coordinated Universal Time, which is actually in London, England). Form the dropdown list you can either choose your time zone relative to UTC (such as “UTC+5:30” as in case of this website) or you can choose the city name that represents your timezone.
For example, instead of selecting UTC+5:30 I can also select Kolkata as both represent Indian time zone.
Date Format
By default, the date format is "Month Date, Year" but you can customize the display as you like. This field is there to help your WordPress theme to display the date on your website.
This option is fairly customizable as per your preference. Some tips for customizing date format is provided below:
- l (lower-case L) = Full name for the day of the week.
- D = 3 letter name of the day (eg- Mon, Tue)
- F = Full name for the month.
- m = month in number (01-12)
- M = 3 letter name of month (eg- Jan, Feb)
- j = The day of the month in number (01-31).
- Y = The year in 4 digits.
- y = year's last 2 digits
- , = you can use commas as a separator.
Time Format
This option defines the format in which your theme will display times on your site. The default time format is 12-hour format "Hour:Minute am/pm".
This field is also highly customizable and you can customize it as per your preference. Some tips to customize time format is provided below:
- g = Hour in 12-hour format without leading zeros (1–12)
- h = Hour in 12-hour format with leading zeros (01–12)
- G = Hour in 24-hour format without leading zeros (0-23)
- H = Hour in 24-hour format with leading zeros (00-23)
- i = Minutes with leading zeros (00-59)
- s = Seconds, with leading zeros (00-59)
- a = Lowercase am / pm
- A = Uppercase AM / PM
- T = Timezone abbreviation (EST, UTC)
Week Starts On
This option provides a drop-down that allows you to select your preferred start date for WordPress calendars. The default value is set to Monday, which means the calendar widget will show Monday in the first column. You can choose other values as you wish to.
Save Changes
This is the last button on the WordPress General Settings page. Once you are satisfied with the changes you have made, clicking the Save Changes button will implement those changes to your website. It also saves those changes to the database.
Once you click the Save Changes button, WordPress will show a confirmation text box telling you that your settings have been successfully saved.
We hope that you have enjoyed the above tutorial on how to Configure WordPress General Settings. Be with us to explore free training on Leading Technologies and Certifications.
Leave us some comments if you have any question about the WordPress General Settings menu, we would be very happy to help you.
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