If you would like to make your WordPress installations more accessible for your clients, here are a couple of tips I’ve recently started implementing.
Simplifying the login and dashboard
The idea here is to minimise confusion for anyone new to WordPress and to make what they need accessible without fuss. [You can do this without plugins but the plugins kill many birds with 1 stone, so worth it in my opinion.]
Install the White Label CMS plugin for WordPress to your clients site
Now you can set the login page to something elegant like http://website.co.za/login instead of http://website.co.za/wp-admin or http://website.co.za/wp-login.php
Restricting client access to Editor
Your client does not need Administrator rights and will most likely benefit from the simplified menu’s offered by restricting their access to Editor. You do this when you set them up as a user.
Dashboard Musts
Add the Google Analyticator plugin, enable it and then setup access to analytics data by going to “Settings”, “Google Analytics”
Begin your SEO journey
Add the excellent WordPress SEO plugin by Joost de Valk, make sure to enable the XML sitemap
Add a sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools
Goto your Google Webmaster Tools and add the sitemap
Permalinks
Setup your sites permalinks to display something like http://website.co.za/2012/postname
You can find permalink settings under “Settings”, “Permalinks” check Custom Structure and copy and paste this “/%year%/%postname%/” minus quotation marks into the text box.
Small site and you just want the permalink structure http://website.co.za/postname, then use “/%postname%/”
Remember to add Redirection
You need to make sure you redirect any old website pages to their new locations to ensure you get the link juice you’ve worked so hard to generate passing to your new page structure.
Pingomatic
Add the following to your “Settings”, “Writing”, under “Update Services”
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de/
Site Speed
Add the excellent W3 Total Cache plugin to help cache your content an load it as fast as possible