Setting up your website

Modified on Thu, 29 Jan, 2015 at 10:46 AM

To edit your WordPress website, you need to log in through a web browser. The URL is typically your website URL, followed by a slash and the text wp-login.php. For example, http://example.com/wp-login.php. If you are working from a draft site and your website has not been launched yet, then the URL will be in a different form.

Use your username and password to log in. You can check the box next to “Remember Me” to save your login information in your web browser so you do not have to retype your username and password the next time you want to edit your website. Do not do this if you are using a public computer. If you forgot your password, there is a “Lost your password?” link. Click the “Log In” button to go to your website dashboard.

The WordPress Dashboard

When you log in to edit your website, you enter what is known as the backend. This is where you can make all changes to your website. It is organized into various menus, which you can access from the left side of the backend. The first menu is your Dashboard. The dashboard is typically the first page that you will see when you log into your website. Some plugins will activate widgets, or panels, on your dashboard. For example, if you have the Google Analyticator plugin activated, you may see a dashboard widget with a Google Analytics Summary.

The Administration Menu

These menu items appear down the left side of your WordPress backend.

Dashboard: where you arrive when you log in to your WordPress website. It displays a snapshot of your website.
Posts: where you manage your blog posts. If you are not using posts on your website, you will not need to use this menu.
Media: where you manage the files you upload to your website, such as images, audio, video, documents, and PDFs.
Links: where you manage the links on your sidebar. If you are not using a list of links on your sidebar, you will not need to use this menu.
Pages: where you manage the pages on your website. For most websites, this will be the menu you will visit the most.
Comments: where you manage the comments on your website. If you are not allowing comments to be submitted on your website, you will not need to use this menu.
Genesis: where you manage the design and SEO settings on your website, if you have a Genesis theme activated.
Appearance: where you switch themes and manage widgets.
Plugins: where you activate and deactivate plugins on your website.
Users: where you manage your user profile and add, edit, or delete additional users to edit your website. You can assign different levels of permission.
Tools: where you perform some of the more technical tasks related to your website. You will rarely need to use this menu.
Settings: where you edit your website settings. You will rarely need to use this menu.