I would like to begin by thanking Mike for giving me the chance to join the Mike's Life team as a Staff Writer. I hope that the information which I am going to share is beneficial and useful for you.
Installing Wordpress is not a mission impossible, on the contrary; it is a one-click process. By installing Wordpress you're not yet done with setting up your blog, you still have an important journey ahead; tweaking and modifying your blog.
1- Activate Akismet
You should directly activate the Akismet plugin, which is a plugin that comes with Wordpress by default and it prevents spam comments from entering your blog. I don't think that you, nor Google want spam comments on your blog. Activating Akismet requires an API key from wordpress.com, it is free and all you have to do is to register an account in wordpress.com, login then go to “Edit Profile” from “My Account”
2- Burn your blog feed with FeedBurner
FeedBurner helps you monitor and manage your RSS subscribers, in addition to assisting you in combining all types of feeds in one feed. FeedBurner also helps you to keep count of your RSS subscribers and shows them off to your readers by using its chicklet.
3- Signup for a Google Webmasters Tools account and add your blog to it
Google Webmasters Tools is a must for any webmaster. A few features include helping you get your blog indexed on Google, monitoring the indexing process, alerting you when any error occurs, and much more that will really help in SEO.
4- Write a kick-ass “About” page
Whenever people arrive to your blog, they most probably don't know who you are or what your blog is all about. Therefore you should have a kick-ass “About” page that will attract viewers allowing them to know you more, hence having them return to your blog regularly.
5- Install WordPress Related Posts plugin
What this plugin basically does, is that it suggests a number of posts that are related to the current one for the reader, this way they can get to read interesting articles and you get the chance to increase your page views.
6- Install Google XML Sitemap plugin
This plugin works on creating an updated XML sitemap for your blog which is of course, a Google friendly sitemap. That will help you gain extra attention from Google Bot.
7- Setup your permalinks
First of all, just in case anyone doesn't know what a permalink is, it is the unique link for each one of the posts on your blog. Once you go to “Permalinks” options under “Settings” you will see 5 different options for your blog's permalinks structure. You need to know that the healthiest permalink should contain actual words and keywords related to your article, rather than random numbers and special characters. Search engines, like Google, give priority and attention to permalinks with keywords and proper words.
8- Install Statpress Reloaded Plugin
Statpress Reloaded plugin is an analytical system for your blog. It has many cool features, the best of them is that it has live updates and doesn't need any period of time to update. It also gives a number of page views, visitors, referrers, top pages, top OS, top browsers and much more detailed information that could give you an indication of how your blog is performing.
9- Install comment relish plugin
Comment Relish is a very simple plugin that will send an email (which you will write in the plugin's setting section) to all users when submitting his/her first comment, only their first comment. I believe that such a plugin will increase the loyalty of the readers and will increase the chance of them visiting your blog again. I also remind them within the email to subscribe to my RSS Feed.
10- Place a HUGE RSS Subscription button on the blog!
Any website on the Internet is measured by the number of its subscribers. Therefore you should do your best to convert your readers into subscribers. I believe that there should be an attractive RSS image that is different than the usual ones, and recommend that it be VERY visible to the users, and to be placed either on the header or on the upper part of the sidebar.
11- Install MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer
This plugin helps you in the pinging process and it saves a blogger from being tagged as a ping spammer.
Also worth a look at:
1/ Useful resource posts for new bloggers
2/ Maintaining motivation in the middle phase of blogging
3/ Why you should switch to Google
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