The WordPress Users Profile section lets you edit your name and how it will be displayed on your website, your e-mail address for admin purposes, optional personal details, plus additional settings.
In this post, you will learn how to change your user profile in WordPress and configure other contact information.
You will also learn how to set up a biographical info box that will display any content published by a user in the Author Archives area of your blog and how to use this feature to better promote yourself or your business online.
Contents
How To Edit Your WordPress User Profile
On the far right-hand side in your admin area is the “Howdy, User Name” section …
If you hover your mouse over this panel it displays your Gravatar image, your name and username, and also links pointing to your “Profile Screen” and a “Log Out” link …
Choose Edit My Profile…
Alternatively, to access your user profile screen from the main navigation menu, go to Users > Your Profile …
This brings you to the Profile section …
The Profile page contains various subsections that let you view and edit information about your WordPress user account.
These include:
- Personal Options
- Name
- Contact Info
- About Yourself
- Password Settings
Let’s review each of these sections below …
Your Profile Options
Please refer to the above screenshot as you go through the sections below.
Main User Profile Area
1 – Accessing Your User Profile
As explained previously, you can access your profile by clicking on your username, which is displayed on the top right hand side of the screen, and selecting “Edit My Profile” from the drop-down menu, or selecting Users > Your Profile using the dashboard menu.
Profile > Personal Options
You would ignore this section, unless you specifically want to customize aspects of your WordPress site administration area that are only viewable to you (and no one else) such as disabling the visual editor when writing, changing the admin area’s color scheme, or enabling keyboard shortcuts for comment moderation.
2 – Visual Editor
Checking the “Disable the visual editor when writing” box disables the visual editor and uses the plain HTML editor instead.
Tip: If ever you experience problems when trying to insert code into your posts or pages (e.g. HTML), try disabling the visual editor by ticking the checkbox in this section.
3 – Admin Color Scheme
WordPress lets you customize the look of your WordPress Dashboard by changing your default WordPress color scheme …
WordPress User Profile: Changing Your Global WordPress Color Scheme
You can select a different global color scheme for your WordPress administration area from the default choices, or customize the color scheme using various WordPress plugins …
Although this has no impact on what your site visitors see (your theme controls the design of your site is controlled by your theme) or the functional aspects of your site, this feature can be used to brand the admin area with your corporate colors, or allowing registered users on your site to personalize their own admin area.
To learn how to further customize your WordPress dashboard, see the tutorial below:
Customizing Your WP Dashboard Section
4 – Keyboard Shortcuts
Checking the Enable keyboard shortcuts for comment moderation box allow you to moderate comments using keyboard shortcuts.
5 – Toolbar
The Toolbar displays at the very top of your Administration screen and provides you (and your registered site users) with access to various administrative functions, features, information and “quick links” to other areas of your site …
Important: Leave the “Show Toolbar when viewing site” checkbox ticked to display the Admin Toolbar in your WordPress administration area.
To learn more about the WordPress toolbar, see the tutorial below:
Your WordPress Admin Screen – An Overview
Profile > Name
6 – Name > Username
Your username cannot be changed in the Profile screen.
You can, however, change your username if you know how to edit your WP database.
You can also change the username from your WordPress Admin area using an easier method that requires no code editing or messing around with your site’s database.
Changing your username will affect your login, as this username is required for logging into your WordPress site!
We have created a step-by-step tutorial that explains how to do this here:
How To Change Your WP Admin Username
6 – Name > First Name / Last Name
You can edit the First Name and Last Name details in this section.
Just type the first name and last name into the text fields …
7 – Name > Nickname / Display Name Publicly As
If you want to display a different author name than the name you originally registered for your site in your posts, you can change the Nickname (required) field and select a different nickname from the Display name publicly as drop down menu …
You can add multiple nicknames to your profile section.
If you change the nickname, all your posts, published comments, etc. will appear with this new nickname, instead of the one that you originally installed WordPress with.
Profile > Contact Info
8 – Contact Info > Email
Ensure that your correct email address is entered in the Email (required) field. This field is required (see “Notes” section below for more information).
9 – Contact Info > Website
Type the address of your website in the Website field (optional).
If you would like to display another URL in your profile, then enter the URL for that website or blog instead.
10 – Contact Info > Other
You can enter details for the other Contact Info section fields, or just ignore these.
For more details about this feature, see the “WordPress User Profile: Additional Contact Info” section further below.
Profile > About Yourself
11 – About Yourself > Biographical Info
In this section, you can insert a personal or business description for your visitors or site readers.
For more details about using this feature, refer to the “Useful Tips Related To Your WordPress User Profile” section further below.
12 – About Yourself > Password Settings
Here you can change your login password details.
Use this section only if you are required to change your login password. You will need to enter the new password twice before the system can accept the password change.
For a tutorial that explains you what to do if you lose or forget WordPress passwords, go here:
13 – Log Out Of All Other Sessions
WordPress lets you log out everywhere except your current browser. This is useful if, for example, you have left your account logged in at a public computer, or if you’ve lost or misplaced your phone.
For more information about logging out securely in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
14 – Update Profile
Click the Update Profile button to save any changes you make to your user profile …
User Profile – Notes
- WordPress only requires your email address and a nickname in your Profile section.
- Your email address is used only for admin purposes.
- Your email address is never sent to any other site (including WordPress) and it is never displayed on your site (unless you publish it, or use a WP theme that has been encoded to display your email address).
- Only registered users of your site have access to the e-mail address you have entered.
- Each user’s email address must be unique.
In Addition …
Installing certain plugins on your site (e.g. for adding social media features), may insert or remove fields in the User Profile section (e.g. add a Facebook URL field, display additional functionality fields related to the plugin, etc…)
There are various plugins that allow you to change user profile fields. You can find a number of these plugins by typing in keywords like “user profile fields” in the “Add Plugins” section inside your WP dashboard …
See Tip #3 in the “Useful Tips Related To Your Profile” section below for an example of a free plugin that lets you remove unnecessary user profile fields.
WordPress User Profile: Additional Contact Info
As mentioned earlier, the User Profile section has a number of fields that allow you to enter additional contact information such as:
- AIM screen name
- Yahoo! Messenger ID
- Jabber / Google Talk name
Most users just leave these fields empty. Some WordPress theme developers, however, may choose to customize their templates to display this and other contact information.
If this is the case, then you can set up accounts with these services (if you haven’t already done so) and then add your details to the appropriate fields in the Contact Info section.
Currently, WordPress provides default fields for the following services:
AIM
AIM is a desktop and mobile chat application that lets you chat with friends or collaborate on a group project online …
Yahoo! Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger lets you connect and chat with friends from any web browser or mobile device …
Jabber / Google Talk
Although this field says “Jabber / Google Talk”, if you click on the link in this section, you will be taken to Google Hangouts.
Google Hangouts is an instant messaging and video chat platform developed by Google. It replaces three messaging products that Google had implemented concurrently within its services, including Google Talk, Google+ Messenger (formerly: Huddle), and Hangouts, a video chat system present within Google+ …
Tip: If you plan to run business webinars online using Google Hangouts, then check out this article we’ve written about a great plugin that lets you create a professional webinar platform on your WordPress site using Google Hangouts:
RunClick – WP Webinar And Video Conferencing Software
Your Profile: Additional Information
Tip #1: Check the “Show Toolbar when viewing site box is ticked in the Toolbar subsection of your Profile area …
Tip #2: Your user profile gives you an additional opportunity to create additional backlinks which can be indexed by search engines.
To start with, add a Nickname and/or select a different name to display as the author of your blog posts …
After you have done this, a link to the author displaying your chosen nickname is added to every post published on your site …
This link takes site visitors to the Author Archives section, where people can learn more about you (or about other authors registered as users on your site) and see what other blog posts that you (or your guest authors) have published …
You can also insert links and simple text formatting like bold and italicized words to enhance your author description and promote yourself, your services, products, other websites, etc. to your site visitors …
This can easily be done by pasting HTML formatted text into the About Yourself > Biographical Info text box in your Profile section …
Tip #3 (Advanced User): How To Hide User Profile Fields
If you plan to run a corporate website, you can install a simple WP plugin called Hide User Profile Fields that will automatically hide the following fields from your site’s user profiles and creation pages when activated:
- Admin Color Selector
- Keyboard Shortcuts Checkbox
- Admin Toolbar
- AIM
- Jabber
- Yahoo IM
- Website URL
- Biographical Info feature
- User Role (every new user is added as “Subscriber”)
To learn more, visit the plugin page here: Hide User Profile Fields
Congratulations! You have now learned how to change your user profile in WordPress.
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