This post was originally published in June 2009 following the launch of Social Photo Talk. It has been updated with additional supporting links as part of a presentation I gave at WordCamp Seattle titled “After Launching a Couple Dozen Blogs, I Figured Out how to Do it Right.” Jump to the bottom of this post to watch that video.

Last month I launched Social Photo Talk, a new blog powered by WordPress. I kept track of the steps as I put the site together. This is not a comprehensive guide, but a rough list of the various tasks that I took care of in the preparation and launch of the site. As I’ve launched a variety of blogs for a variety of purposes, I’ve learned a few lessons. This list of my practices has a couple simple goals: fully prepare the blog before public launch, and to be ready to accept traffic when the site goes live.

Beginnings

• Purchase domain
• Setup domain on web host (I use A2 Hosting and have been quite happy)
• Install WordPress – I prefer to install WordPress manually instead of using the “one click” installers (such as Fantastico) provided by some web hosts. A manual installation ensures I could control details if I want, plus I’ll know all of the behind the scenes database information usernames, and passwords.
• Install Maintenance Mode and activate – Maintenance Mode is a plugin which presents a (customizable) static page to visitors to your website unless they’re logged in with an administrator account. It can be used to temporarily make your site unavailable during maintenance, or in our case, to prevent access to the site until it is ready for launch.
• Setup user account (and give it admin rights)
• Delete the built-in admin account – As a security precaution, it’s not a bad idea to create a second user account that is an administrator, then delete the built-in admin account. By removing the default admin account, it prevents any malicious attacks that might attempt to use that account for access.
• Activate Akismet
• Go through each Settings panel, update as needed, paying particular attention to permalinks and the discussion (comment) options
• Install Thesis and make it the active theme. That’s an affiliate link
• Install initial plugins:
  • Dashboard Scheduled Posts
  • No Self Pings
  • Twitter Tools (update the “new blog post” text as well)
• Customize the Theme
• Write “About” Page – Every blog should have an “About” page which discusses the company and/or authors. Make it easy for people to contact you… a contact form is quite stuffy and makes visitors jump through hoops. I prefer offering an email address and a phone number.
• Setup sidebar widgets – Lorelle has a great series about WTF Blog Clutter that talks about all sorts of things that can litter ones sidebar. You don’t want to overdo it, but use the sidebar to provide value for your readers in the form of navigation, subscription options, and possibly some relevant advertising.
  • subscription options (rss, twitter)
  • affiliate/ads
  • category archives
  • recent comments
  • delicious links
• OpenID integration
• Setup analytics (Mint)
• Custom 404 page
• Custom Archives page powered by Clean Archives Reloaded
• Setup Twitter account + avatar
• Favicon

Launching

• Deactivate Maintenance Mode
• Disable Twitter Tools*
• Publish queued posts for initial site content
• Announce Site to the Public
• Re-enable Twitter Tools
• Setup Feedburner (create feed, redirect WordPress) – Feedburner needs a live feed to “burn” your RSS feed. When Maintenance Mode is active, Feedburner can’t hit your feed, so I wait to burn it until just after the site goes live.
• Feedburner email subscription
• Skribit widget
• Vanity/search feeds

* Be sure to disable Twitter Tools while publishing content before you announce the site, lest someone discover it before you’re ready. Once your initial content is on the site, re-enable the plugin before you forget.

Obviously this is a fairly rough list, with some steps being quite vague (like “Customize the theme”), but I wanted to get this online both as a reference for myself and others in the future.