How To Edit Your WordPress User Profile

The Profile screen lets you how your name displays on your site, your e-mail address for administrative purposes, optional personal details, and personal options.

In this article, you will learn how to change your user profile in WordPress and configure optional contact information.

You will also learn how to create a “resources” box that automatically shows your content in the Author Archives section of your site and how to use this feature to better promote yourself or your business online.

How To Edit Your User Details

At the far right-hand side of the Admin Toolbar is the “Howdy, User Name” section …

If you hover your mouse over this panel it displays your Gravatar image, your name and username, and links pointing to your “Profile Screen” and a “Log Out” link …

Select Edit My Profile…

Alternatively, to access your user profile section from the dashboard navigation menu, go to Users > Your Profile …

This brings you to the Profile area …

The Profile section contains various subsections that let you view and edit information about your WordPress user account.

These include:

• Personal Options
• Name
• Contact Info
• About Yourself
• Change Password

Let’s go through each of these options …

User Profile Settings

Please refer to the image above as you go through the descriptions below.

Profile Section

1 – Accessing Your User Profile

As explained previously, you can always access your profile by clicking on the “Howdy, User Name” section, 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 from the dashboard navigation menu.

Profile > Personal Options

Normally, just 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 this box disables the visual editor and uses the plain HTML editor instead.

Tip: If ever you experience any problems when trying to add code to your content (e.g. HTML), try disabling the visual editor by ticking the checkbox in this section.

3 – Admin Color Scheme

With WordPress, you can customize the look of your WordPress Dashboard by changing your default WordPress color scheme …

WordPress User Profile: Changing The Default WordPress Color Scheme

You can select a different global color scheme for your WordPress admin area from the default choices, or add a custom color scheme using WordPress plugins …

Although this does not affect what your blog visitors see (themes control the external design of your site is controlled by your theme) or the functional aspects of your site or blog, this feature can be used to brand the admin area with your corporate colors, or allowing users to personalize their own  admin area.

To learn how to customize your WordPress dashboard, see the tutorial below:

• How To Customize Your WordPress Dashboard Screen

4 – Keyboard Shortcuts

Checking this box allow you to use keyboard shortcuts when moderating comments.

5 – Toolbar

The WordPress Toolbar displays at the very top of your Dashboard screen and provides you (and your registered site users) with access to various useful admin 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:

• Understanding The WordPress Admin Page

Profile > Name

6 – Name > Username

You cannot change your username in the Profile area.

You can, however, change your username if you know how to edit your WordPress database.

You can also change the username inside the WordPress Admin area using an easier method that requires no messing with code or editing your WordPress database.

Changing your username will affect your login, as this username is required for logging into your site!

We have created a step-by-step tutorial that explains how to do this here:

• Changing Your Admin Username

6 – Name > First Name / Last Name

You can modify your First Name and Last Name data in this section.

Just type the first name and last name into the name 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 WordPress site on your posts, you can change the Nickname (required) field and select your new nickname from the Display name publicly as drop down menu …

You can add multiple nicknames in your profile section.

If you select a nickname, all your posts, published comments, etc. will appear with your new nickname, instead of the name you originally set up your site with.

Profile > Contact Info

8 – Contact Info > Email

Ensure that your correct email address is entered in the Email (required) field. This is a required field (see “Notes” section below for more information).

9 – Contact Info > Website

Enter the address of your website or blog in the Website field.

If you would like to display another URL in your profile, then enter the address 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, refer to the “User Profile: Additional Contact Info” section further below.

Profile > About Yourself

11 – About Yourself > Biographical Info

In this section, you can add a personal or business description for your visitors or blog readers.

This feature not only lets you tell the world about yourself or your business, it can also be used to convert new visitors into leads for your products or services.

For great tips on how to write a truly compelling bio section that will help improve your conversions, see the article below:

• How To Write A Killer Bio Section For Your Website

For more details about this feature, refer to the “Useful Tips Related To Your WordPress Profile” section further below.

12 – About Yourself > Password Settings

This section lets you change your login password details.

Use the New Password section only if you need to change your login password. You will need to confirm your new password before the system can accept the password change.

For more information about changing passwords, go here:

• What To Do If You Forget Or Lose Your WordPress Password

13 – Log Out Of All Other Sessions

WordPress lets you log out of all current sessions except the one in your current browser. This is useful if, for example, you’ve left your account logged in at a public computer, or if you’ve lost or misplaced your phone.

For more information about how to log out of WordPress, see this tutorial:

• Logging Off WordPress

14 – Update Profile

Click the Update Profile button to save any changes you make to your user profile settings …

Important Notes

• WordPress only requires your e-mail address and a nickname in your User Profile section.
• Your email address is used only for administrative purposes.
• The email address on your profile is never sent to any other site (including WordPress) and it is never shown on your site (unless you choose to publish it, or use a WordPress theme that displays the email address).
• Only registered users of your site have access to the email address you have provided.
• Each user’s email address must be unique.

In Addition …

Adding certain plugins to your site (e.g. for adding social media features), may add or remove fields in the User Profile section (e.g. add a Twitter username field, display additional functionality fields related to the plugin, etc…)

There are various plugins that let you customize user profile fields. You can find these plugins by going to Add Plugins and searching for “user profile fields” inside your WordPress dashboard …

See Tip #3 in the “Useful Tips Related To Your User Profile” section below for an example of a free plugin that lets you hide unnecessary user profile fields.

WordPress User Profile: Additional Contact Information

As mentioned previously, the WordPress Profile screen 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 simply ignore these fields. Some WordPress theme developers, however, may choose to display this and other contact information in their themes.

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.

WordPress provides default fields for the following services:

AIM

AIM is a desktop and mobile chat application that allows you to chat with friends or collaborate on a group project online …

Yahoo! Messenger

Yahoo! Messenger allows you to connect and chat with friends from any web browser or mobile device …

Jabber / Google Talk

Although this field says “Jabber / Google Talk”, clicking on the link actually takes you the Google Hangouts website.

Google Hangouts is an instant messaging and video chat platform developed by Google. It replaces three messaging products that Google had previously implemented within its services, including Google Talk, Google+ Messenger (formerly: Huddle), and Hangouts, a video chat system present within Google+ …

Useful Tip: If you plan to run webinars on your website using Google Hangouts, then check out this article we’ve written about a great plugin that lets you create a business-level video conferencing platform on your WordPress site with Google Hangouts:

• RunClick – Webinar Plugin For WP

User Profile: Tips

Tip #1: Make sure that Show Toolbar when viewing site is enabled inside the Toolbar subsection of your Profile area …

Tip #2: Your user profile gives you an additional opportunity to promote your business to your site visitors.

As mentioned earlier, you can add a Nickname and/or select a different name to display as the author of your blog posts …

Once you have done this, a link to the author displaying your selected nickname will be added to every blog post published on your site …

This link takes your 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 all content that you (or other users) have published …

You can also include links and simple text formatting like bold and italicized words to improve your author description and promote yourself, your services, products, other websites, etc. to your site visitors …

This is done by inserting HTML formatted content into the About Yourself > Biographical Info field in your Profile section …

Tip #3 (Advanced User): Hide User Profile Fields

You can install a simple WordPress plugin called Hide User Profile Fields that instantly hides the following fields from your site’s user profiles and creation pages when activated:

• Colors Profile
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Admin Toolbar
• AIM
• Google Talk
• Yahoo IM
• Website
• Biography description
• User Role (every new user is created as “Subscriber”)

For more information, visit the plugin page here:

• WP Plugin – Hide User Profile Fields

Congratulations! Now you know how to change your user details in WordPress.

***