How to log into the WordPress website? (A complete guide to WordPress admin panel).
Updated: 12 January 2023
Now that you have installed your brand new website. You need to log in as an administrator to make it look pretty and do things to make sure the goals are achieved.
The WordPress admin panel, also famously known as the dashboard, is another world of wonders. Where you can turn the simple blogging software into a messiah of website design and do miracles.
This is where you can manage the looks and feel using themes, and get it to do stuff for your visitors (and you) using plugins. You must be logged in to create new pages and keep your WordPress up to date.
In short, if you are planning on building your own website then you will be working in the admin panel. Not just throughout the making process but also once everything is ready and launched.
So familiarising yourself with the admin panel and understanding everything is the only option. Do not be alarmed, the reason this admin panel is built is to make sure users like us (with no coding skills) could make great websites.
So yay! It is very easy to understand and make changes to your website.
Without further ado, let us explore our WordPress admin panel.
How to log in to the WordPress admin panel?
To log in you will need to get to the login page which can be reached by appending wp-admin at the end of your domain name.
Once you start working on your website you will use this address every time. Therefore, I recommend bookmarking it. Speaking of passwords, you will need the admin password that you chose during the WordPress Installation.
> go to www.youdomain.co.nz/wp-admin
An Overview of the WordPress Admin Panel (aka WordPress Dashboard)
The WordPress admin panel is where you can rectify minor spelling mistakes or make major look changes. In short, your one-stop shop for any WordPress modification, addition, deletion, you name it.
Also, be able to see what is happening with your website at a glance. It gives you the latest WordPress-related news, the recent comments by your visitors, and your recent activity and you are also able to quickly draft a blog post.
It will let you add new functions (with the help of plugins) and change the looks (using a theme) of your website.
In this section, I will explain things that you will definitely need in the future and I will also provide links to WordPress documentation for tools and sections that you may or may not need.
Later on in the journey, I will go through, the tools that you will be using a lot, in detail and they will have their own articles.
WordPress login screen
Top Bar
At the top, we can find some information and quick links to tools and plugins available on your website. As you can see our website is a pretty basic blog, therefore, there is not much to see, however, there are a few things you see all the time.
Link to WordPress (Under WordPress Logo)
These links are something you will not be visiting often but I do recommend going there as often as you need help.
WordPress has amazing documentation and support forum volunteers which you can refer to anytime when you need help.
I would prefer WordPress documentation over others just for the reason that is updated on a regular basis and the forum is very active, unlike others.
The links appear when you hover your mouse over the WordPress logo on the top left corner. There are five links that are all about WP.
The first one links to the about page of your current WP installation where it will tell you the current version, what’s new in the current version, and a list of people who have contributed to WP. A little about freedom one can have when using it and lastly about the privacy and how it collects data from the users.
You will also find links to WordPress.Org which you will be working on if you build your website following our guide.
There is also a link to their documentation, support forum, and feedback. Please go through all the links as I am confident you will find them very helpful.
Website Link (To view your website)
A quick link to visit your website live.
Kia ora, User
On the top right corner, you will see “Kia ora, User” with your Gravatar. That is where you can edit your profile as well.
Dashboard
The dashboard has two main links, Home (the dashboard itself) and Updates. The home gives you the latest updates from your website and the WordPress community.
It also allows you to create a post or page. The Updates is where you will see if your website needs any updates. Soon you will realise keeping an eye on updates is a very important part of WP.
So you will be visiting this section a few times a week. The WordPress and plugin developers keep updating things regularly to make sure everything works properly and there are no security vulnerabilities.
Keeping everything is very important. If a plugin is not supported stop using it. There is always an alternative.
Media
Here you will see the list of images, videos, and pdf files on your website. You can grab a link by clicking on the image. A very important part of a website is images and other media files however they can have a negative impact on your website if not optimised.
The more images and the bigger in size the longer it will take to load on a website. Google keeps a close eye on page speed as its goal is to give a great experience to Google search users. If your page loads quicker than your competitors then a good chance Google might reward you with higher page rankings on their search engine.
They do not necessarily penalise slow-loading pages but if everyone else’s page is loading faster than yours then your page may rank after them. Don’t panic there are some very good tools that can help you optimise your images such as
Pages
This is where you see all the pages you have on your website. You can add, edit or remove pages individually or in bulk from here. According to WordPress official documentation pages can be defined as:
Pages are for content that isn’t specifically time-dependent, or which isn’t “blog content”.
More sophisticated themes may provide a wider range of adjustments or display options for individual pages.
It’s quite possible to make a website using WordPress that only contains pages.
How to create a new page in WordPress?
Go to Pages menu and click Add new. It will open the WordPress page editor.
You can now add a title, ‘Our Services‘.
Start adding content in the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. As of early 2019, the default WordPress page editor is Gutenberg. Gutenberg essentially works as a page builder which aims to make creating web pages easy using blocks.
Under the Page Attributes section, you can choose your page to be a subpage or select a template to apply.
Before publishing, click Preview to view it one more time. When you are done adding content, you can click Publish to publish your content.
Comments
When you have set up a great blog and shared your knowledge with the world, you would also like to know what they think, right? Here comes the WordPress comments which allow readers to submit their views and respond to your blog. In comments, readers usually compliment the article, author, or the blog in general, they can also post links and start a discussion. When selling online, comments are also used to get customer reviews on products.
These discussions are also spammed by bots and people therefore the comments can be controlled to make sure nothing spammy is posted on your website by approving each comment manually. You can manually moderate the comments, you can edit, remove or mark them as spam as well. If you get a massive amount of comments then AntiSpam plugins would be great which automatically filter spam and language.
Appearance
In this part of your admin panel, as the name suggests, you can control the look and feel of your WordPress website or blog. This section will allow you to install new themes or choose from thousands of free themes available in the WordPress repository.
Themes
A Theme is the overall design of a site and encompasses color, graphics, and text. A Theme is sometimes called skin. WordPress site-owners have available a long list of Themes to choose from in deciding what to present to their sites’ viewers.
From the Appearance Themes Screen under the Manage Theme tab, you can choose which Theme will be presented to users visiting your site. You can also view screenshots of each theme you have uploaded to your site. In addition, under the Install Themes tab, you can find and install new Themes.
Customize
The Customize screen displays the settings that can be customized for a specific theme. This option will only be present if the Theme author has configured the theme to allow this capability. For instance, the WordPress Twenty Seventeen theme provides options that allow the user to set the colors and a background image.
The Customize Screen page describes the details of this feature.
Widgets
Widgets are gadgets or gizmos that allow you to add various pieces of information to your Theme’s sidebar content. Widgets, for example, can be used to add Categories, Archives, Blogroll, Recent Posts, and Recent Comments to your sidebar. The WordPress Twenty Seventeen theme is an example of a widget-compatible theme.
The Menus feature allows you to create a navigation menu of pages, categories, custom links, tags, etc. that is presented to your visitors. A custom menu WordPress Widget allows the display of a custom menu in the sidebar or other widgetized areas in the Theme. This option will only be present if the Theme author has configured the theme to allow this capability and the site administrator uses them.
From the Appearance Menus Screen, you can create and edit navigation menus for visitors’ use.
Header
The Header feature allows you to manage what image is displayed in a Theme’s header. This option will only be present if the Theme author has configured to header to allow this capability. For instance, the WordPress Twenty Seventeen theme allows you to preview, upload, remove, and set as default, the images you want randomly displayed in the header.
The Background feature allows you to manage the look and feel of the background for your theme. This option will only be present if the Theme author has configured the theme to allow this capability. For instance, the WordPress Twenty Seventeen theme allows you to set the background image or the background color.
Use the Theme Editor to edit the various files that comprise your Themes. The Appearance Editor Screen allows you to designate which theme you want to edit and then displays the files in that theme. Each file (Template and CSS) in the theme can be edited in the large text box.
