A beginner’s tour of the WordPress dashboard
WordPress powers a huge share of the world’s websites. If yours is one of them, here’s a plain-English tour of the back end, where you make changes.
Logging in
What visitors see is the front end. To make changes you need the back end. On most WordPress sites you add /wp-admin to the end of your web address and log in with your username or email and password. Some sites, including those we manage, use a different login address for security. If /wp-admin doesn’t work, check with whoever looks after your site.
The dashboard
Once you’re in, you’ll see the dashboard. The top often shows notices from WordPress and your plugins. They’re worth a glance, but most can be dismissed. The menu down the left-hand side is where almost everything happens.
Plugins: the apps of WordPress
Think of WordPress like a phone, and plugins as its apps. WordPress does the basics, and plugins add extra features. Useful types include:
- Anti-spam, to stop junk comments flooding your site.
- Cookie consent, to help with UK GDPR.
- Security. I strongly recommend one, properly set up, because WordPress’s popularity makes it a target.
- Speed and image optimisation, to keep your site fast.
- WooCommerce, if you want to sell online.
- An SEO plugin such as Yoast, to help your pages get found on Google.
A word of caution: every plugin adds a little security risk and can slow your site down. Use the ones you need, delete the ones you don’t, and keep them updated. Updates almost always go smoothly, but keep regular backups just in case.
Themes: how your site looks
Under Appearance → Themes you’ll find your theme, which controls the look of your site. Some themes are built for one type of business and one look. Page-builder themes such as Divi let you design visually and create many different layouts. You only need one theme. Delete any you’re not using, because unused themes are also a security risk, and keep the active one updated.
Posts and pages
Posts are your blog articles. Pages are your main website pages, such as Home, About and Contact. Your theme adds things like the menu and footer around the content you write. For a step-by-step guide to publishing a post, see how to add a new blog to your website.
The rest of the menu
- Media is your library of images and files. For videos, upload them to YouTube and embed them rather than storing them on your site.
- Comments are where you approve or bin comments. Keep an eye out for spam.
- Appearance → Customise holds site-wide design settings such as header, colours and text sizes.
- Appearance → Menus controls your navigation menus.
- Users controls who can access the back end and at what level.
- Tools and Settings hold general settings, plus options added by your plugins.
Your menu will look slightly different depending on your theme and plugins, but these basics are the same on every WordPress site. If you’d rather someone else looked after it, ask us about WordPress maintenance.
