Guide To Use The WordPress Dashboard

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This article is part of the Beginner’s Guide to WordPress Series. It covers the WordPress Dashboard, changing password, and some initial settings. You only need to know what you need when you need it.

After installing WordPress, and logging in to your new website, the Dashboard is what you will see. This is also known as your website’s ‘backend’.

The Dashboard will allow you to manage everything on your WordPress-powered website .

This quick overview will show you how to use WordPress Dashboard, the Admin Bar, how to change your password and what to do immediately after setup.

Dashboard

The Dashboard, as I said, is often the first thing that you see when you log into your account. It is a great way for you to keep up-to-date on your website and statistics.

You will find widgets in the main area of your site that provide basic information and news. These widgets can be moved around by drag-and-drop. You can also roll them by clicking on the down arrow icon at the bottom right corner of each widget title. You can find configuration options for some widgets by hovering over their title bar and clicking the link that appears.

Let’s now look in the upper right-hand corner. There are two pull-down tabs in the upper right corner, Screen Options or Help. You can customize your dashboard by clicking on the screen options tab. You can choose which widgets you wish to show/hide at any time. You can find helpful links and documentation as well as information on these customizations in the Help tab.

You will find buttons in the sidebar that allow you to quickly access different parts of your website. A list of sub-menu items will be displayed below the menu item once it is selected. The sub-menu will be displayed by hovering your mouse over them. These buttons can be clicked to access any subsection of your site.

The main menu items are:

Dashboard is where you can get updates and stats about your website.

Posts is where you can create and manage posts on your blog, as well as managing tags and categories.

Media is used to manage the media content library (things such as images, video and audio).

Pages is a tool for managing and creating pages on your website.

Comments are used to manage the feedback of your visitors.

Appearance is used to select your theme and set up widgets. You can also create custom navigation menus.

plugins gives you the ability to expand the capabilities of your website. It allows you to activate, manage, deactivate, and activate them.

Users allows you to view and manage all users on the site. You can also edit your profile. This includes the ability to change your password and email address as well as your screen name.

Tools provides powerful tools and options for importing or exporting content.

Settings is where most of your site’s options (like your name, privacy, and permalink settings) are kept.

The Administration Bar is located at the top of the page. It provides access to frequently used features and information.

Admin Bar

You will see a gray bar at top of your screen if you are logged into your site as an administrator. This is the “Admin Bar”, and is visible only to those who are logged in. It gives you easy access to your website and offers many options. The Admin bar has many different options when you log in as an administrator.

The WordPress icon contains information about WordPress as well as support and contact forums.

You can access multiple sites in a network by going to My Websites. This will provide quick links to take you directly to the dashboard, new post page, comments and site itself.

Next to My Sites you will find the current site as well as similar options that can be used to quickly navigate to your site. The Word Bubble icon, for example, takes you to the comments page of the current blog. It also shows the number and status of any pending comments.

To add or modify new items, click the Add New button.

The Admin bar’s right side shows your profile name and avatar icons. You can edit your profile from here or log out. Last but not least, you will see a search icon which allows you to search any page or post on your site.

Change Your Password

You can change your password at any time by going to Users, then Your Profil. You will find a box to confirm your password and a space to enter your new password at the bottom of this page. If you are interested in using it, you can find a strength indicator which will help you make stronger passwords.

After you’re done, click Edit Profile to replace your old password.

You can change settings immediately after installation

You’ll first need to navigate to Settings and then General. Verify your email address, time zone and other relevant information are correct. If you want your own www address instead of one that has WordPress dot com attached – change the Site URL and WordPress URL to [http://www.yourdomain.com]. Click Save.

Next, scroll down to Settings and then Permalinks. This page will determine the appearance of your blog posts as well as page addresses. You can choose the structure that you prefer.

Notice: To reset your permalinks after installing plug-ins, you must click Save.

Next, navigate to Setting and then Privacy. Good SEO is required. Make sure this option is checked. It’s important to save it.

Fourth, navigate to Settings and then to Discussion. These default settings are generally good. However, if you need to modify or add restrictions, this is the place to do so.

Find the Reading Tab under Settings. You will need to select how many blog posts to display on the page, and whether you would like a specific homepage or blog to appear.

To create a website, visit Pages or Add New. You will need to create a Homepage and a Blog page, and save them as you go. They can be edited later. Go back to Setting, and then read. Select the static page and choose the Home page for the Front and the Blog for the Posts pages. Save!