User's Manual

Page | 4 WordPress User Manual for Beginners

2. The Dashboard

Now you're logged in, you'll arrive at the Dashboard which is the Admin section, or

“back end” of a WordPress website. You’ll see that it’s a screen that gives a range of

information about your website: On here you can quickly go to writing a post,

managing your site, your user profile, see which websites are linking to yours,

WordPress news, and see comments that are waiting for moderation (that is,

approval from admin before publishing).

There are ways to customise this page if, for example, you use WordPress in your

Intranet and want it to hold information from your company sites. Research on

Google will teach you how.

Depending on your user level you will have different rights once you're signed in –

the exact rights you will have are covered further on in this document under

'Managing Users'. We’ll assume for now though that you have full administration

rights. In fact, in most cases people first sign on as ‘admin’.

2.1 First thing to do – IMPORTANT!

Once you are in the Dashboard, (the ADMIN section) you will see, on the left hand

side of the screen, a list of various sections of the administration section. One of

them is Users, where you are able to add, modify and remove users. If you go there

now you will see your user profile. If you have installed WordPress yourself, and

received a password via email with the password, you will need to change the

password to something you can remember.

Do it now; change the password (at the bottom of the screen) update the

profile, then log out and back in again, to test it. If you make an error and cannot

can log in with the password of your choice, that you will remember.

Other functions in the Dashboard will be covered throughout this User Guide but it

could be a good idea to have a look at all the available options while you are here.

Click on headings to expand them, and take a quick look at each one. It will save you

a bit of time when you need to go there later, and perhaps help you to understand

this Guide a little more easily.