WordPress is one of the easiest blogging platforms to set up, but there are a few things you should do right after installing WordPress to help have a better experience.

1. Change you user account settings

Be sure to set up a new password and add your name in the fields.

2. Edit the permalinks

Go to Settings > Permalinks and change them to something other than the default. The default setting isn’t SEO friendly and makes the url look bad.

3. Activate the Akismet plugin

Akismet is a plugin that blocks comment spam and if your blog allows comments then trust me, you’re going to get spammed.

1. Go to the Plugins page in the admin area and activate Akismet
2. To complete Akismet activation, Wordpress requires an API key. You can get this by registering on Wordpress.com then viewing your profile.
3. Now go to Plugins > Akismet Configuration, and paste in your key.

4. Install Google XML Sitemaps

Google XML Sitemaps generates a compliant XML-Sitemap for your site, allowing the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN) to easily index your site. Every time you edit or add a post, the sitemap will modify itself.

Click here for Google XML Sitemaps plugin.

Now go to Google Webmaster Central and log in with your Google Account. On the first page, there will be a link to “Verify” your site. Follow the instructions there.

Once that’s done, you can then click the “Add Sitemap” link from the first page and put in the URL to your sitemap, which will be http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml

5. Setup your RSS feed in FeedBurner

You will need a FeedBurner account, or if you have a google account you can use that to log in.

Download the plugin, then follow the instructions below to begin forwarding all WordPress feed traffic to your FeedBurner feed.

1. Copy the plugin file, FeedBurner_FeedSmith_Plugin.php into your default WordPress plugin directory, wp-content/plugins/ .
2. Activate the plugin by logging into your WordPress administration area, clicking Plugins, then clicking Activate at the end of the “FeedBurner FeedSmith” row.
3. In the WordPress administration area, begin the configuration by clicking Options and then the FeedBurner FeedSmith sub-option.
4. Follow the links to create your FeedBurner feeds, or if they already exist, simply fill in their URLs in the boxes provided.
5. Verify your URLs in the text entry fields, and click Save.

Now all of your WordPress feed traffic should be redirected to FeedBurner.

6. Setup Analytics for your site

It’s always a good idea to keep track of the visitors on your site. WordPress has a Stats plugin but I would recommend Google Analytics. This will require you to add some code to the footer.php file on your site.

Additional reading

Famous 5-Minute Install
The Very First Steps After a Fresh WordPress Install
Easier Theme Development with Sample WordPress Content