The settings available are for you to set defaults according to your preferences. WordPress Settings by default are: General, Writing, Reading, Discussion, Media, Permalinks settings in your WordPress Dashboard. Note: if you install certain WordPress Plugins, then, they may also add new settings options for those plugins.
Video Lesson Showing WordPress Settings
Most Important Setting for SEO
Your permalinks are your most important setting in terms of SEO for highest possible Google organic rankings. Because of the way WordPress works, Permalinks can include post date, title, or other elements. If you are building a brand new site and Google traffic is important for you, then use Custom Permalinks along these lines: /%category%/%postname%/ or this /%category%/%postname%.html (either will work, for ladder can be tricky to implement)
If you ever need to change WordPress permalink settings for whatever the reason, then, you should plan ahead and make sure that you use 301 Server Redirection correctly, or else your website rankings will fluctuate drastically.
Also, due to WordPress being popular, its prone to comment spam, so make sure that the settings under Discussion > Before a comment appears > Comment must be manually approved option is checked.
Furthermore, you can and should include the URL http://rpc.pingomatic.com/ for pinging > Update Services within wp-admin/options-writing.php
