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Contents
Legal Disclaimer .......................................................................................... 2
Lesson 6 ........................................................................................................ 4
SSL ................................................................................................................. 4
Add an SSL Plugin .................................................................................... 7
SG Optimizer ........................................................................................... 11
Footer Changes ........................................................................................ 17
Meta Description for the Home Page .................................................... 21
Three Categories....................................................................................... 24
Changing the Logo .................................................................................. 30
Change Site Title Font ........................................................................... 31
Use a Different Logo Image ................................................................. 34
Create a Site Title and Logo Image Combined ................................ 44
Plugins for Sites Not Using the Clone Site Files ....................................... 58
Asset CleanUp: Page Speed Booster .................................................. 59
Cookie Notice ........................................................................................ 60
iThemes Security ..................................................................................... 61
Simple Sitemap....................................................................................... 74
EWWW Image Optimizer ....................................................................... 79
WPForms Lite ........................................................................................... 86
Yoast SEO ................................................................................................ 88
Support ....................................................................................................... 98

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Lesson 6

For my solar lights site I chose this domain:

[Link]
I entered “yellow rays” on [Link] to come up with ideas
and it gave me “[Link]” as in “lilac rays” but I read it as “lila
crays”.

That kind of made me think “lila is crazy” which might have been
interesting but wasn’t exactly what I was after.

I liked the “lila” part, though, and I liked the word “rays” in the domain
since my site is about lights that use the rays of the sun to gather
power.

I think it sort of rolls of the tongue, it’s short, easy to remember – it made
me smile.

I’ve installed the clone site files and now it’s on to further customization
of the site to fit my domain and niche.

Those are the steps I’ll be covering in this lesson.

SSL

An SSL certificate is a piece of information on your site that allows your

site to use a more secure transmission method (https instead of http at
the start of your site’s URLs) for sending data from your site to a visitor’s
browser and vice versa.

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This secure transmission method does a better job of protecting data
than using regular http transmission methods.

This is certainly important if you have visitors entering personal

information into your site such as credit card numbers, social security
numbers, and addresses.

An Amazon affiliate marketing site might not have a need to protect

a visitor’s personal information yet it’s still worth having an SSL
certificate because Google has made it clear that having an SSL
certificate IS a ranking factor in their algorithm.

This means that if you don’t have an SSL certificate for your site you
might not rank as well as you could if you did have one – even if you
aren’t collecting personal information from your visitors.

In addition, browsers are starting to make changes that warn a visitor

that is headed to a site without an SSL certificate that your site might
not be safe.

So, even if you do rank well in Google without an SSL certificate,

browsers may start showing warnings that will keep people from going
to your site!

Most hosting companies these days offer a free SSL certificate for
those on shared hosting accounts (or even for some non-shared
hosting accounts).

If you are using SiteGround as your host jump ahead

to the SG Optimizer section.
For everyone else – check whether your site is already set up to use
https by doing the following:

1. Bring up your site’s home page in a tab in your browser and

then copy the URL you see in your browser’s address bar:

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 2. Paste that copied URL into a Notepad (text) file or a blank
email:

3. If you see:
a. https:// before your domain then you already have
an SSL certificate but just to be sure it’s properly set up
bring up a new tab of your browser and enter the
http:// version of your home page URL (no “s” in the
[Link] and make sure that when your site comes up
the URL has changed to show [Link]
i. If you see https:// in your browser’s address
bar then jump ahead to the Footer
Changes section.
ii. If you still see the http:// and NOT https://
then it means your site is not properly
redirecting http:// URLS and you will need
to add a plugin to fix the issue. Follow the
steps in the Add an SSL Plugin section.
b. http:// (no “s”) then your site is not set up to use an SSL
certificate yet. Follow the: Follow the steps in the Add
an SSL Plugin section.
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Add an SSL Plugin
An SSL plugin will make sure your site is properly configured to send all
site visitors to https:// versions of your site’s URLs when your hosting
company does not do that for you.

To add the plugin:

1. Go to Plugins/Add New in your WordPress dashboard:

2. Search for the “really simple ssl” plugin:

3. Click the Install Now button for the Really Simple SSL plugin in
the list of search results:

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 4. Once the plugin has finished installing click the Activate
button for the Really Simple SSL plugin:

5. As long as your hosting company has set up an SSL certificate

for you then you should see a message saying “Almost ready
to migrate to SSL!”. If you see that message then click the “Go
ahead, activate SSL!” button. If you DO NOT see the message
saying you’re “Almost ready…” then read the any message
shown by the plugin to understand the issue. You may need
to stop here and contact your host for assistance in installing
an SSL certificate before you can activate this plugin. As long
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 as you see the “Almost ready…” message then click the “Go
ahead, activate SSL!” button:

6. Once you’ve clicked the “Go ahead…” button you should

log out of your site and log back in because now your site’s
URLs have been changed. Any changes you make before
logging out and logging back in may end up with you being
logged out anyway so it’s just easier to log out and back in
again now.
7. Go to Settings/SSL in your WordPress dashboard:

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 8. Click the Dismiss button (or the More Info link if you’re curious)
for items #1, #2, and #4 in the checklist and then click the
ENABLE link for the 3rd item:

9. Scroll down and click the button for “Enable 301 .htaccess
redirect” to turn it blue (on) and then click the Save button:

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Now, when you access your site, all URLs should start with https:// even
if you enter [Link]

SG Optimizer
This section applies ONLY to those who are using SiteGround as their
hosting company.

If you are NOT using SiteGround as your hosting company jump ahead
to the Footer Changes section.

SiteGround offers their customers a custom WordPress plugin that

adds a number of site security and speed improvement features.

To add the plugin and configure the settings:

1. Go to Plugins/Installed in your WordPress dashboard:

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 2. Scroll down to the EWWW Image Optimizer plugin and click
the Deactivate link (you don’t need it because the SG
Optimizer plugin will compress and lazy load your images –
that makes the EWWW Image Optimizer plugin unnecessary):

3. Once the EWWW Image Optimizer plugin has been

deactivated click the Delete link under the plugin listing to
completely remove it from your site:

4. Click the Add New button at the top of the screen:

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 5. Do a search for “sg optimizer” and then click the Install Now
button for the SiteGround Optimizer plugin:

6. Activate the plugin

7. Click on SG Optimizer in the left sidebar in your WordPress
dashboard:

8. Click the Environment Optimization tab and then turn on the

Enable HTTPS feature:

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 9. Log out of your site and log back in (you may be forced out
anyway – this is only because your site URLs have now
changed to include https:// - this activates your site’s SSL
certificate)
10. Go back to SG Optimizer in your WordPress dashboard:

11. Click on the Frontend Optimization tab and activate the

features shown in the image below:

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 12. Go to the Media Optimization tab and activate the features
shown in the image below – NOTE: your screen should show
options in #3 and #4 to generate optimize existing images
and to create webp versions of existing images – please click
the options to do both of those things as they will improve your
site’s speed – that task was already done before the
screenshot below so it doesn’t show quite the same text:
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Footer Changes

There’s a section in the footer of your site (the very bottom of the
screen) that needs to be customized to fit your site.

1. Go to Appearance/Widgets in your WordPress dashboard:

2. Click the dropdown arrow for the Footer 1 widget:

3. Click the dropdown arrow for the Text: Site Name box:

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 4. Replace the Site Name text in the Title field with the actual
name of your site:

5. Write a brief description of your site and its contents in the text
box and click the Save button (I have some tips on writing this
description under the image below):

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While the description of your site IN THIS PARTICULAR FIELD is important
because your visitors may see it I’m going to have you also use this
description as the META DESCRIPTION of your site’s home page.

I had steps for writing the meta description in Lesson #5 but I forgot we
were using a static home page so I directed you to the wrong place
to add that description. (I’ll get to fixing that in the next section.)

A meta description is an on-page SEO (search engine optimization)

element. On-page SEO elements are the things over which you have
control in how search engines determine your site’s niche, target
keywords, and relevancy to the phrases searchers type into those
search engines.

Your meta description may also be used as the text that shows up
under your site’s title in search results:

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This is like free advertising in search results!

There’s no guarantee that Google will use what you write as your
meta description but I’ve found that they will usually use what you
write so it’s well worth your time to write a strong description.

Your description helps searchers understand what they’ll find on your

site. It’s a chance to make your site sound more attractive and helpful
than the sites showing above and below it in those search results.

You want to use one reference to your niche towards the front of the
sentence you write for your meta description. Words at the front of this
field have been thought to carry more weight than the words at the
end of this field.

At the same time, you don’t want to overuse words for your niche in
this field. Don’t use words more than once. For example, I would not
include the word “solar” or “lights” more than once in my meta
description. (Using short words like “the” and “of” more than once if
you must is fine – those don’t count but they do take up space so write
carefully!)

You have about 150 characters of space that are shown in search
results in the description field.

Once you’ve saved your site’s description in the Widget you can
refresh the home page of your site and you should see the description
in the lower left corner of your site’s footer:
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Meta Description for the Home Page

In the last lesson I had you go to SEO/Search Appearance to add the

meta description for your site but you probably saw this if you’re using
the clone site files:

Since this theme is using a “static home page” vs the default blog roll
(a rolling list of all of your published posts) I forgot we have to actually
edit the home page itself to add the home page meta description.

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To do this:

1. Go to Pages/All Pages in your WordPress dashboard:

2. Hover over the Home Page title and click the Edit link
underneath:

3. Scroll down the screen until you see the Meta Description
field, copy the description you added to your footer (you can
bring up your site’s home page and copy it from there), and
paste it into the Meta Description field:

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 4. If the bar under the Meta Description box is green you have
the right length. If it’s orange your description is too short or
too long and you’ll want to adjust it until you see it turn green
(you don’t have to change what you put in your footer – just
shorten it for the meta description field but keep your
important words here as THIS is the description that Google will
use)
5. Click the Update button at the upper right corner of the
screen to save your change:

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Three Categories

WordPress lets you create Categories to which you can assign your
posts. It’s WordPress’s filing system for your content.

A website’s content should be organized into categories that will

make sense to your site visitors so they can easily navigate your site
and find exactly what they need.

You then add your Categories to your site’s navigation menu and they
become clickable links that take your visitors to different parts of your
website.

If you’re using the clone files then you can change Category names
any time, switch a post from one category to another, and add a post
to multiple categories without any issue.

That’s because I have structured the clone site to NOT include a post’s
category in the post URL and to NOT allow site engines to index your
actual Category URLs. Making changes to Categories then does not
change any of your post URLs.

I’m explaining this so that you won’t overthink your Categories – you
can change them later – but I want you to come up with three now
just so we can get things rolling on the home page of your site.

To come up with three Categories:

1. Brainstorm a list of all the different KINDS of posts you’ve been

thinking about writing for your site (how to posts, inspiration,
reviews, product recommendations)
2. Brainstorm a list of all the different TOPICS you’ve been
thinking about writing for your site (for my site I know I know I’ll
have posts about solar flowers, solar patio lights, holiday
decorating ideas with solar lights, pool decorating with solar
lights, display layout experiments)
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 3. Pick three items from your total list to be the first Categories
you’ll add to your site’s navigation menu (these should be the
kinds of posts and/or topics that you think you’ll write about
first since we want to get something published into each of
these categories in the near future – adding categories and
leaving them empty for too long won’t be good for your site
visitors)

For my site I’ve decided that the first Categories I want to add to my
site are:

• Solar Flowers
• Solar Light Reviews
• Solar Light How-To

BUT – see how those Category names are too repetitive? The words
“solar” and “light” should not be used in each Category.

You don’t want to overuse words from your niche in your Category
names.

Once we create home page images it should be clear what your site
is about so you don’t have to repeat yourself mentioning words from
your niche in every Category name.

To come up with the actual names I’d give the Categories I’m going
to cross off the words that should be obvious to my site visitors once I
finish the images for my home page:

• Solar Flowers
• Solar Light Reviews
• Solar Light How-To

These categories help me know where to file a post AND help visitors
know where to look for posts about a certain topic. A review post
would go in the Reviews category, a post about solar flowers one
could buy would go in the Flowers category, and any how-to posts
would go in the How To category.
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Once you have your three first categories chosen it’s time to add
them to your site and to your navigation menu:

1. Go to Posts/Categories in your WordPress dashboard:

2. Add the title of your first Category in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS in

the Name field of the Add New Category section (I think all
capital letters in the navigation menu stands out better in this
theme):

3. Add the category name in all lower case letters AND with
hyphens between words (example, how-to) in the Slug field:

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 4. Scroll down and click the Add New Category button:

5. Repeat the steps above for your other two categories

6. Go to Appearance/Menus in your WordPress dashboard:

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 7. Click the dropdown arrow for the Categories section:

8. Click the View All tab in the Categories section:

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 9. Check the boxes next to your new Category names and then
click the Add to Menu button:

10. You should now see your Categories added to the list of items
in your navigation menu. You can drag and drop them into a
different order but always keep the Home page tab first in the
list. Click the Save Menu button to save your changes:

11. Check the home page of your site and you should see your
Categories showing in your site’s navigation menu:

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Changing the Logo

The settings in the site clone files use the theme to generate the site
title text and an image in the logo field:

You can choose to:

1. Leave things as they are (if you’re short on time choose this
option!)
2. Change the font of the site title
3. Use a different image as the logo
4. Create an image with your site title and a logo and replace
the two items so they’re combined into one image (this is the

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 option I’m going to use because I can add more text to the
image to help explain the site’s niche)

Change Site Title Font

To change the font of the site title:

1. Go to Appearance/Customize in your WordPress dashboard:

2. Click the Header tab:

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 3. Click the settings icon for the Logo section:

4. Click the Design tab:

5. Click the select font box:

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 6. Choose any of the available fonts:

7. Click the Publish button to save your changes:

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Use a Different Logo Image
To replace just the logo image:

1. Create a free account at [Link] (or log into

an existing account if you have one)
2. Click the Custom Size button:

3. Enter 100 x 67 px and click the Create New Design button:

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 4. Click the Elements tab:

5. Enter the word “logo” in the search field and then click the
Graphics tab (you could also search for something related to
your niche instead, like a vacuum or flowers, etc.):

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 6. Scroll through the list of results and look for a logo you like (if
you’re using a free account make sure the logo says FREE in
the corner when you hover over it):

7. Click on the logo to add it to your canvas:

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 8. Drag the corner handles to make the logo big enough to fill
the canvas:

9. Click on the logo and move it around until the pink lines show
that it’s centered vertically and horizontally:

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 10. Click where it says “untitled design” and give your file a name
like “logo” or “sitelogo”:

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 11. Click the Download arrow button, choose the JPG file type
and click the bottom Download button to save the image to
your computer:

12. Go to Appearance/Customize in your WordPress dashboard:

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 13. Click the Header tab:

14. Click the settings icon for the Logo section:

15. Click the Change Logo button:

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 16. Click the Select Files button:

17. Browse your computer’s files and select the image you
downloaded from Canva
18. Put the word “logo” in the Alt Text field (EVERY image you add
to your site should have a unique description in the Alt Text
field) and click the Select button:

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 19. Click on the gray lines and drag them up so your whole logo
is shown – you don’t want any gray showing as that will crop
portion of your logo out of view:

20. Click the Crop Image button:

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 21. Check the preview of your logo and then click the Publish
button:

22. Check the home page of your site to see your new logo – you
can always upload a different one at any time:

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Create a Site Title and Logo Image Combined
I prefer to replace both the site title text and the logo with one new
image that combines both.

I can then add additional graphics or text to help better explain what
the site is about so that visitors understand the site content as soon as
they land on any page.

To do this:

1. Create a free account at [Link] (or log into

an existing one)
2. Create the Custom Size button:

3. Enter 400 x 67 px and click the Create New Design button:

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 4. Click the Text tab on the left:

5. Click the Add a Heading option:

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 6. Change the text to the name of your site:

7. Drag the text to the left and use the pink lines to tell you when
the text is centered:

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 8. Use any of these tools to change the font, font size, color, and
letter spacing – your text needs to be easily read so it should
be tall enough to almost touch the top and bottom of the
canvas but leave just a little white space so it doesn’t look
squished into the spot on your site:

9. If you have room for more text click on the Add a Subheading
option:

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 10. Change the subheading text to a short description of your site
and use the toolbar to change the font, font size, color, and
line/letter spacing:

11. Click the Elements tab, do a search for something related to

your niche and click the Graphics tab:

12. Find a logo or graphic you could add to the image if you have
room. Keep the colors in mind – you don’t want anything too
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 busy. Click on the graphic to add it to your image (look for
ones that say FREE in the corner when you hover over them if
you have a free account):

13. Drag and drop the graphic into position and use the handles
at the corners to resize it:

14. You can click the Duplicate button above your canvas to
create a copy and then play around with changes to see
which you like best:

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 15. I often end up with 10-20 versions before I make a final
selection:

16. Click in the Untitled Design field and give your file a name like
“logo” or “sitelogo” – if you have multiple versions you can
give a unique name to each file so you can tell them apart
once you download them:

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 17. Click the Download arrow, choose the JPG file type, and click
the bottom Download button to save the image to your
computer:

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 23. Go to Appearance/Customize in your WordPress dashboard:

24. Click the Header tab:

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 25. Click the settings icon for the Logo section:

26. Click the Change Logo button:

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 27. Click the Select Files button:

28. Browse your computer’s files and select the image you
downloaded from Canva
29. Put the word “logo” in the Alt Text field (EVERY image you add
to your site should have a unique description in the Alt Text
field) and click the Select button:

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 30. Click on the gray lines and drag them up so your whole logo
is shown – you don’t want any gray showing as that will crop
portion of your logo out of view:

31. Click the Crop Image button:

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 32. Click the Logo only layout option so your site title doesn’t show
twice:

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 33. Click the Tablet & Mobile versions and change the Logo
Layout to Logo Only for both of them as well:

34. Click the Publish button:

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 35. Check the home page of your site to see your new image –
you can always upload a different one at any time:

Plugins for Sites Not Using the Clone Site Files

Those who are not using the clone site files may be interested in
knowing about the plugins I’ve installed on the clone site along with
the settings.

This section will cover those items.

If you’re using the SITE CLONE FILES you can ignore

the rest of this PDF!
List of plugins I use that do not have to do with installation of the clone
site files:

• Asset CleanUp: Page Speed Booster – improves site speed

• Cookie Notice – satisfies cookie notice required in some
states/countries
• GA Google Analytics (Covered earlier)
• iThemes Security – improves site security
• Really Simple SSL (Covered earlier)
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 • Simple Sitemap – provides shortcode to use on an HTML Sitemap
page
• EWW Image Optimizer – compresses images, allows for lazy-
loading, and converts images to next generation webp formats
• WPForms Lite – used for the form on the Contact page
• Yoast SEO – used for improved SEO

Asset CleanUp: Page Speed Booster

This plugin can be very confusing if you don’t have a lot of experience
with WordPress.

It’s designed to help your site load more quickly which is good for SEO.

WordPress and all the plugins you use are made up of lots of files.
Some of those files can’t tell when they’re needed or not so they load
on every URL of your site.

For example, the WPForms plugin doesn’t know that you’re going to
use that plugin on only your Contact page so it is written to load with
every URL on your site just in case you’re using a Form on that URL.

YOU, though, know which URLs of your site are and are not using a
form you created with that plugin.

The Asset CleanUp: Page Speed Booster can be configured so that

you can view it in your post and page editor screens. You can then
mark which files you know do not need to be loaded for that
particular page or post.

You reduce the number of files that get loaded and that speeds up
your site.

However, it does a lot more than that and can conflict with some
caching plugin settings so I’m not going to go into detail about how
to use or configure this plugin as it’s likely to cause you more time than
it’s worth at this point.
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Just keep it in mind for future reference once your site is larger.

Cookie Notice
Putting a notice on your site that your site may use cookies (little bits
of tracking software that embeds itself on a visitor’s browser) makes
your site compliant with various laws requiring such disclosures.

To add the cookie notice plugin:

1. Go to Plugins/Add New in the left sidebar of your WordPress

dashboard
2. Use the search field to look for “cookie notice” plugin
([Link]

3. Click the Install Now button for the Cookie Notice for GDPR
plugin:

4. Click the Activate button for the plugin:

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iThemes Security
1. Go to Plugins/Add New in your WordPress dashboard:

2. Enter “ithemes security” in the search box (you don’t have to

click a search button – WordPress will automatically start
showing plugins that match your search term in the section
below the search field):
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 3. Click the Install Now button for the iThemes Security plugin
([Link]

4. Click the Activate button:

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 5. Click the Settings link under the iThemes Security plugin listing:

6. Click the Secure Site button:

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 7. Click the Activate Network Brute Force Protection button
(you’ll get emails about your site from the plugin and while
you can ignore many of them these emails will also let you
know when someone is trying to attack your site – you’ll see
an email with repeated denials for access to your site all
come in a row – that’s a clue you want to check your site and
make sure it’s still operating as it should):

8. Click the Close button:

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 9. Click the Configure Settings button for the Global Settings box
(if you don’t see any of the referenced boxes click the All link
above the configuration boxes):

10. Scroll down to the Lockout White List section and click the
“Add my current IP to the White list” button – this will make sure
you don’t accidentally get locked out of your site from your
own IP address:

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 11. Scroll down and click the Save Settings button:

12. Click the Enable button for the 404 Detection box:

13. Click the Configure Settings button for the Banned Users box:

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 14. Check the box to “Enable [Link]’s blacklist
feature”:

15. Scroll down and click the Save Settings button

16. Click the Enable button in the File Change Detection box –
you will now receive emails about file changes made to your
site. Most of the time, these are changes you’ve made while
working on the site or changes your host has made however,
keep an eye out for changes to major files of your site – like
your wp-config file. Emails about changes to that file could
indicate someone hacking your site and you’ll want to
explore your site immediately to see if everything is okay:

17. Click the Configure Settings button in the Password

Requirements box:

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 18. Check the box to Enable strong passwords and set the
minimum role to Subscriber:

19. Click the Save Settings button

20. Click the Enable button in the System Tweaks box:

21. Click the Configure Settings button in the System Tweaks box:

22. Check all the boxes in the System Tweaks settings showing as
checked in the images below:

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 23. Click the Save Settings button
24. Click the Configure Settings button in the WordPress Tweaks
box:

25. Use the settings shown in the images below in the WordPress
Tweaks section:

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 26. Click the Save Settings button
27. Scroll back to the top and click the All link:

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 28. Click the Settings option in the left sidebar of your site to return
to the Security settings screen:

29. Click the Configure Settings button for the Hide Backend box
(if you don’t see that box click the All link again at the top of
the screen):

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 30. Check the box to “Enable the hide backend feature” – this
will cause more setting boxes to show up:

31. Change “wplogin” to something else – something meaningful

to you:

32. Click the Save Settings button – NOTE: This step changes
your login URL!! You will no longer be able to login at
[Link]/wp-admin. Instead, your new login URL
becomes [Link]/yourchosenphrase. This step
hides your login screen from potential hackers. MAKE A NOTE
OF YOUR NEW LOGIN URL!

Simple Sitemap
There are two kinds of sitemaps:

1. HTML sitemap – this kind of sitemap can be used to create a

page on your website that lists all of your posts and pages.
It’s meant to be a resource for your site visitors so they can
see how your site is laid out and can find various sections,
pages, or posts.
2. XML sitemap – this kind of sitemap is formatted to be read by
search engine bots. It’s written in a code and layout that
Google, for example, can more easily crawl in order to
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 understand your website’s layout, structure, posts and
pages.
Ideally, you should have BOTH kinds of sitemaps on your site. In this
step, we’re going to add the HTML sitemap.

To install this plugin:

1. Go to Plugins/Add New in the left sidebar of your WordPress

dashboard
2. Use the search field to look for the “simple sitemap” plugin
([Link]

3. Click the Install Now button for the Simple Sitemap plugin:

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 4. Click the Activate button for the plugin:

5. Click on Pages/Add New in the left sidebar of your

WordPress dashboard:

6. Give the new title the page of Sitemap:

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 7. Click the Text tab (if you’re using Gutenberg add a
shortcode block and paste your shortcode into that block):

8. Enter this shortcode in the content box for the page:

a. [simple-sitemap types="post,page"]

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 9. Click the Publish button:

10. Right-click on the View Page link and choose to open the
page in a new tab of your browser to make sure it looks as it
should:

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EWWW Image Optimizer
If you haven’t already heard, the speed with which your websites
loads IS a ranking factor in Google. We want to use all the tools at
our disposal to keep our sites loading as quickly as possible.

Images are a big problem for websites. You certainly want them on
your site but the file size of images is often very large.

This plugin compresses images that you upload to your site so they
take up as little space as possible, manages lazy loading so images
are loaded on an as-needed basis, and converts images to the next
generation webp format which speeds up load times.

To install this plugin:

1. Click the Add New button at the top of the screen to add a
new plugin:

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 2. Search for the EWWW Image Optimizer plugin:

3. Click the Install Now button for the EWWW Image Optimizer
plugin:

4. Click the Activate button for the EWWW Image Optimizer

plugin:

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 5. Click the Settings link under the EWWW Image Optimizer
plugin in your list of installed plugins:

6. Click the “I know what I’m doing, leave me alone!” link:

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 7. Check the box to turn on Lazy Load (this will open other
settings choices for Lazy Loading but you don’t have to
change any of those):

8. Check the box to turn on WebP Conversion:

9. Click the Insert Rewrite Rules button in the WebP Delivery

Method section:

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 a. NOTE: If you do NOT see the Insert Rewrite Rules
button you may see a message saying that you are
using Cloudflare (or another CDN). In those cases,
you need to check the boxes for both the JS WebP
Rewriting and <picture> WebP Rewriting rules.
10. Click the Save Changes button:

11. Go to Media/Library:

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 12. Click the List icon to change to the list view of your images:

13. Click the Screen Options drop down arrow:

14. Change the “Number of items per page” setting to 999 and
click the Apply button:

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 15. Click the box next to File to select ALL of your images on the
screen:

16. Click the Bulk Actions drop down arrow, choose Bulk
Optimize and then click the Apply button:

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 17. Click the “Scan for unoptimized images” button:

18. Once it’s analyzed your images click the “Optimize #

images” button (this will both compress your images AND
create a webp version of each):

19. Once the process is complete you may have to go repeat

the process for any additional pages of images if you have
more than 999 images in your library

WPForms Lite
This plugin scores better in the WordPress Site Health check than the
Contact Form plugin I’ve used in the past.

To install this plugin and set up your Contact page:

1. Go to Plugins/Add New
2. Do a search for the WP Forms Lite plugin
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 3. Click the Install button for the plugin
4. Click the Activate button for the plugin
5. Go to WP Forms/Add New
6. Enter a name for your Contact form and click the Simple
Contact Form template:

7. Click the Save button:

8. Click the X to close the screen:

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 9. Copy the shortcode for your form:

10. Go to Pages/Add New

11. Give your new page the title of Contact
12. Paste your shortcode in the Text tab of the classic post editor
or add a Gutenberg shortcode block and paste the
shortcode into the block
13. Publish your new page

Yoast SEO
A plugin for SEO can be used to configure settings on your site that
can help your posts rank better in Google. I have used the Yoast
plugin for years and prefer it over any other but if you have one you
prefer instead feel free to use the other plugin.
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To install this plugin:

1. Go to Plugins/Add New in the left sidebar of your WordPress

dashboard
2. Use the search field to look for the “yoast seo” plugin
([Link]

3. Click the Install Now button for the Yoast SEO plugin:

4. Click the Activate button for the plugin:

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 5. Go to SEO/Search Appearance in the left sidebar of your
WordPress dashboard:

6. Select a separator – the separator symbol you choose will

show up in title fields that show two or more pieces of
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 information. For example, the meta title of your posts might
be structured as the post title followed by the name of your
site. The separator symbol would show in Google search
results between the post title and the site name. I like to use
the pipe symbol:

7. Scroll down to the Homepage section:

8. Write a meta description for your site’s home page that is no

more than 158 characters long and put it in the meta
description field of the SEO/Search Appearance tab:

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 9. Scroll down to the Knowledge Graph section and choose
whether you want to be known as a company or a person.
Because my site is going to have a sort of blog approach, I
chose to be known as a person and used the first name
“Erica” for the person name. If you want your site to be known
as a company, you could enter your site’s name as the
company name. You also do not have to use your real name
as the person name. You CAN use an alias instead:

10. Scroll down and click the Save Changes button:

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 11. Click the Taxonomies tab in SEO/Settings:

12. Under the Categories section, change “Show Categories in

search results?” from Yes to NO (you don’t want your
category URLs to be in the Google search index – it’s bad for
SEO as Google doesn’t like to show those kinds of pages due
to the poor search user experience they present – by
removing those from the index Google will see that you’re
doing a good job of controlling what shows in their index and
helping them improve the user experience):

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 13. Scroll down and click the drop down arrow for the Tags
section:

14. Under the Tags section, change “Show Tags in search results?”
from Yes to NO (for the same reason as Categories):

15. Click the drop down arrow for the Format section:

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 16. Under the Format section, change “Show Format in search
results?” from Yes to NO (for the same reason as Categories):

17. Scroll down to the Category URLs section and change the
setting from Keep to REMOVE (I don’t like my post URLs to
include the category name – I think it makes them too long
and I want my post title itself to be as close to the front of the
URL as possible for SEO purposes):

18. Click the Save Changes button:

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 19. Click the Archives tab in SEO/Settings:

20. Change “Author archives” to Disabled:

21. Click the drop down arrow for the “Date archives settings”
box:

22. Change “Date archives” to Disabled:

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 23. Click the Save Changes button:

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Support

If you need to contact me during the course because you have a

question or have not received your emails:

Send an email to erica@[Link]

If I do not respond within 48 hours that could indicate a delivery issue

has occurred between my email system and yours. Following are
backup methods of reaching me should you not receive a response
from that email address:

• Email ericadesertpond@[Link]
• Email: ericastone@[Link]

Facebook (you’ll have to friend me first, though, so I see the message):

[Link]

I look forward to working with you!

Sincerely,

Erica Stone

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