Suffusion WordPress Theme Check List post provides a list of settings I have added to help you get started. This is just a guidance.
Last Updated: November 7, 2018
Latest News: I have updated the information.
The power and flexibility of suffusion in comparison to other themes is second to none. It has more options than you can imagine. Depending on the options you enable in the theme, it will determine if you need to install more plugins or not.
The list below is a simple guide I put together to help you set up and manage suffusion correctly from the beginning. This list covers the most important areas of the admin back-end, however this list will change from time to time.
(There are more options to check and play around with but they are more for personal preferences and or designing purposes.)
Make sure you read through the whole list below before you get started. This will save you a lot of time and possibly future headaches. Once you have checked your website settings against the list, then you will know that you are on the right track. (You might decide to create your own list to cater for your unique design.)
Suffusion WordPress Theme Check List
Cosmetic Display
Settings 1 ) Selecting the correct layout for your site.
This setting helps you with the overall layout of the sidebars and content.
Settings 2 ) Settings up the header in the site.
Settings 3 ) Adding a favicon.
You probably need to design your own favicon.
Settings 4 ) Settings up the footer in the site.
===============================
Management And Organization
Settings 1 ) Adding Google Analytics.
You need a Google account for this option. It is also very good for managing and checking the website traffic.
Settings 2 ) Adding a navigation bar above the header.
Settings 3 ) Adding a navigation bar below the header.
Settings 4 ) How to set up Breadcrumbs and Page Navigation options?
This will allow visitors to know where they are in your website while navigation through your post and pages.
Settings 5 ) Setting up a user profile.
This is important if you want to add some information on every post or page regarding the editor or editors.
Settings 6 ) How do I display the search option?
This option allows you to choose whether you want your search bar in the header section or will you be using the Widget option in one of your sidebars?
- Sidebars -> Right Header Widgets
- Appearance -> Widgets -> Search (WordPress admin settings)
Settings 7 ) Comment settings.
This option allows you to set up how you will display the comments on your website or blog. There are a few areas that you need to check to display comments correctly. There are also a couple of areas in WordPress that you need to also check.
Appearance -> Suffusion Options
- Back-end -> Comment Settings)
- Typography -> Comments)
- Other Graphical Elements -> Post Formats)
- Other Graphical Elements -> Post and Page Bylines)
WordPress Settings
- Settings -> Discussion (WordPress admin settings)
- (Location = While editing a Post click on Screen Options (top right hand corner) enable Comments and Discussion) (WordPress admin settings)
Settings 8 ) How will I set up the front page and blog layout? This option allows you to set up how many blog post will you display on the front page? You can select from following options to display your content.
- Full content
- Excerpt
- List
- Tiles
- Mosaic
Click on the following URL Suffusion Theme Options Layouts to view the settings.
Note: The number of post displayed on the front of your website is controlled from the following WordPress Admin settings found under Settings -> Readings -> Blog pages show at most.
===============================
Important Settings
Settings 1 ) Using a child theme.
Important if you will be carrying out major design, implementation, functions and CSS customization. This also means that if you upgrade the theme you will not loose any customization.
Settings 2 ) Setting up the site optimization.
Good for SEO and Speed. Remember if you use a plugin you need to disable this settings. You can check my recommendations found on the following URL Cache Plugins and the following URL Performance Plugins.
Settings 3 ) Enabling the thumbnail generation option.
Important to check this option. If you don’t intend to use these thumbnails then I suggest that you disable this option. If you don’t you will end up with images that you don’t need. This will increase your backup file size especially when you have 100 or more images.
Settings 4 ) Adjusting the sidebars.
You need to set this up to control how you are going to display your sidebars and widgets.
Settings 5 ) Setting up an internal sitemap.
It is important to have an internal sitemap to help users navigate around your website as well as an external sitemap for search engines to find out all your links and URLs.
===============================
SEO And Speed
Settings 1 ) Disabling or enabling different modules.
You can disable the following widgets if you don’t intend to use them Query Post, Query Users, Google Translator, Featured Post, Follow Me, Child Pages, Search Twitter and Flickr. By disabling the widgets you will not use, it will reduce the website loading time.
Settings 2 ) Setting up the responsive settings.
Nowadays those who don’t have their website set up in a responsive layout will get penalized by Google. So it is very important that you set up this option from the beginning.
Settings 3 ) SEO / Meta Settings.
This option was removed in version 4.4.8. You can check the plugins I recommend to manage your SEO from the following URL WordPress SEO Plugins.
===============================
Social Sharing
Settings 1 ) Adding the Follow Me widget.
This widget lets your visitors subscribe to it and follow you on popular social networks like Digg, FaceBook, FeedBurner reader, Delicious, Flickr, Google+, LinkedIn, Reddit, RSS, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Twitter and YouTube. Additionally they can subscribe to your blog by email, for which you need a FeedBurner account from Google. (Need to create an account for each service)
- Appearance -> Widgets -> Follow Me (WordPress admin settings)
===============================
Optional Settings
Settings 1 ) How do I remove Sayontan credit link on the right side footer? The following post shows you how to remove the credential found on the right hand side of the footer when you install Suffusion.
===============================
I hope this list helps you further with Suffusion. I will be updating this list from time to time.
If you have any questions please let me know. I will be updating this from time to time. So keep coming back for the latest.
Enjoy.
More Suffusion Tutorials:
I have been working in IT since 1999 and I enjoy the challenges it brings me. I love developing websites with WordPress. I spend a lot of time helping out in wordpress.org forums. I have been writing tutorials since 2011. Now I am learning how to manage my own VPS "Virtual Private Server.
Its a great work by you. I am very impressed by the theme & using it for one NGO of which I am member.
It will be great help from you, if you will allow us to download a complete guide of suffusion theme in PDF. This will provide us the possibility to get it printed for easy reference when off net.
will you please also provide the complete list of .php files & their inter-linking along with purpose.
Hi CA, thank you for your comment and suggestion. I have thought about creating a PDF file a while back. I will probably start soon but I need to get my head around everything that I want to add in the PDF file. Thank you for reading my blog.
Kind regards