How to Login & What is A Dashboard

Before you can make any changes to your site, you will need to log in. The login for your site is typically found at the following URL – http://your-wordpresssite.com/wp-admin. Obviously, replace your-wordpress-site.com with your actual domain name.

You can login to your Dashboard using either your Username or your email address associated with your account.

You can click on the ‘eye’ ? icon in the Password field to reveal the password that you entered, if you’d like to make sure you typed it correctly.

Once you’ve logged in, the WordPress Dashboard appears. This is your main administration homepage. At the very top of your Dashboard (and across every page), you will see the name of your site in the header area. In the example screenshot below (and throughout this documentation) the site name is Your WordPress Site. This is also hyperlinked to your site’s homepage. You will also see the name of the person who is currently logged in (e.g. Joe Blogg). Move your cursor over your name to reveal the Log Out link as well as a link to edit your Profile.

When new or updated features are introduced into WordPress, you’ll be shown a New Feature Pointer. This is simply to bring to your attention some feature within the Dashboard that’s been added or updated. In the following Dashboard image, the New Feature Pointer is highlighting the updated Toolbar. Click Dismiss to hide the pointer.

On most pages, just below your Username there are a couple of small inverted tabs. One called Screen Options and another called Help. Clicking either of these links will cause a panel to slide down from the top of the page. The Help link obviously displays some help information. The Screen Options link will display various options that allow you to configure what is displayed on the current page. The details in this panel change depending on what page you’re currently viewing. As an example, on your main Dashboard page the Screen Options allow you to set which panels you’d like displayed on the page and also how many columns you’d like the panels to appear across.

Dashboard Menu Options

Down the left-hand side of the Dashboard and on every page you will see your main admin navigation menu. This is where you’ll find all the options to update and configure your site.

Hovering your cursor over each of the main menu options will display a ‘fly-out’ menu with the various choices for that particular menu option. Once you click each of the main menu options, that particular menu will expand to show all the available options within that section (if there are any).

The main menu options and their usage are:

Dashboard

This will display your main Dashboard ‘homepage’. In the top left of your Dashboard you’ll see some brief stats on the number of Posts, Pages, Categories and Tags contained within your site, as well as the total number of comments and approved comments. There’s also a summary of how many Spam Comments you currently have.

Posts

This is where you can create a new Blog Post. You can also update your Categories and Post Tags.

Media

This is where all your uploaded images, documents or files are stored. You can browse through your Media library, as well as edit and update the files.

Pages

This is where you create and maintain all your Pages.

Appearance

This menu is where you control how your site looks. You can manage your site Widgets or Menus and even edit your site theme files.

Settings

This is where your site is configured. Among other things, it allows you to configure your site name and URL , where your Posts appear, whether people can leave Post Comments or not and numerous other settings. Most times, once your site is setup, there’s no need to change any of the settings within this section.

At the bottom of the menu you’ll see a link called Collapse menu. Clicking this will hide the menu and simply display their icons instead. Click the small arrow icon again to expand the menu.