The Profile screen lets you how your name will display on your website or blog, your e-mail address for admin purposes, and additional personal information and personal options associated with your WordPress user account.
In this blog post, you will learn about editing your user profile.
You will also learn how to set up an “about the author” box that automatically shows up on your blog in the “Author Archives” section and how to use this feature to better promote users who publish content on your blog or their business online.
Contents
How To Edit Your User Details
At the far right in your dashboard area is the Howdy, User Name section …
If you hover over this section with your mouse it will expand with an image of your Gravatar, your name and username, and links to your “Profile Screen” and a “Log Out” link …
Select Edit My Profile…
You can also access your user profile area using the main dashboard menu by going to Users > Your Profile …
This brings you to the Profile screen …
The Profile screen contains various subsections that let you manage information about your WordPress user account.
These include:
- Personal Options
- Name
- Contact Info
- About Yourself
- Change Password
Let’s now review each of these sections below …
User Profile Sections
Please refer to the image above as you work through the sections below.
Main Profile Area
1 – Accessing Your User Profile
As we’ve already mentioned, you can always access your profile screen by clicking on the “Howdy, User Name” tab and selecting “Edit My Profile” from the drop-down menu, or selecting Users > Your Profile using the dashboard menu.
Profile > Personal Options
You can 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
Ticking 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 content (e.g. HTML), try disabling the visual editor checkbox in this section.
3 – Admin Color Scheme
In version 3.8, WordPress introduced a new design feature that allows you to customize the look of your WordPress Dashboard by changing your default WordPress color scheme …
WordPress User Profile: Changing The Global WordPress Color Scheme
You can choose a different color scheme for your WP administration area from the default choices, or add a custom color scheme using various WordPress plugins …
Although this does not affect what your blog visitors see (your theme controls the external design of your site is controlled by themes) or the functionality of your site, this feature can be useful to brand the dashboard with your corporate colors, or allowing registered users on your site to personalize their own dashboard.
To learn how to customize your WordPress dashboard, see the tutorial below:
How To Customize The WordPress Dashboard Area
4 – Keyboard Shortcuts
Checking this box allow you to moderate comments using keyboard shortcuts.
5 – Toolbar
The Admin Toolbar is located at the very top of your Admin screen and provides you (and your users) with access to various administrative functions, features, information and “quick links” to other areas of your site …
Note: Leave the “Show Toolbar when viewing site” checkbox ticked to display the Admin Toolbar in your WordPress admin area.
To learn more about the WordPress toolbar, see the tutorial below:
The WordPress Dashboard Explained
Profile > Name
6 – Name > Username
The username cannot be changed in the Profile screen by anyone, including the site administrator.
You can, however, change your username if you know how to edit your WordPress database.
You can also change your username from your WordPress Dashboard using a simpler method that requires no code editing or messing around with your WP database.
Changing your username will affect your login, as this username is required for logging into your site!
We have created a tutorial that shows you how to do this here:
How To Change Your WordPress Username From Admin
6 – Name > First Name / Last Name
You can edit the First Name and Last Name details in this section.
Just enter your 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 one you originally set up for your site on your posts, you can change the Nickname (required) field and select another nickname from the Display name publicly as drop down menu …
You can add multiple nicknames to your profile section.
If you select a nickname, all your blog posts, published comments, etc. will appear with your new nickname, instead of the name 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
Add the address of your website into the Website field.
If you have another website or business blog that you want to display in your profile, then enter the URL for that website or blog instead.
10 – Contact Info > Other
You can fill in the other Contact Info section fields, or just ignore these.
For more details about using this feature, refer to the “WordPress User Profile: Additional Contact Info” section below.
Profile > About Yourself
11 – About Yourself > Biographical Info
In this section, you can add a personal or business description for your site visitors or blog readers.
For more details about this feature, refer to the “WordPress User Profile: Additional Info” section further below.
12 – About Yourself > Password Settings
This section lets you change your login password details.
Use this section only if you need to change your login password. You will need to enter your new password twice before the system can accept the password change.
For a tutorial that shows you you how to change passwords, go here:
What To Do If You Have Forgotten Or Lost A Password In WordPress
13 – Log Out Of All Other Sessions
WordPress lets you log out of all current sessions except 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 logging out securely in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
14 – Update Profile
Click the Update Profile button at the bottom of this page to update your profile settings …
User Profile – Notes
- WordPress only requires your email address and a nickname in the User Profile section.
- Your email address is used only for admin purposes.
- The email address on your profile is never sent to any other site (including WordPress) and it is never displayed on your site (unless you choose to publish it, or use a specific WP theme that displays your email address).
- Only registered users of your site can access the e-mail address you provide.
- Every email address must be unique.
Also …
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 Twitter username field, display extra fields related to the plugin, etc…)
There are various plugins that allow you to modify 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 hide unnecessary user profile fields.
User Profile: Additional Contact Info
As mentioned above, the 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 leave these fields empty. 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.
Currently, 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 to Google Hangouts.
Google Hangouts is an instant messaging and video chat platform developed by Google. It replaces three 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 business webinars online using Google Hangouts, then see this article we’ve written about a great plugin that lets you run a business-level video conferencing platform on your website using Google Hangouts:
RunClick – Video Conferencing Plugin For WordPress
User Profile: Useful Tips
Tip #1: Make sure that Show Toolbar when viewing site is enabled in the Toolbar information area 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 on your posts …
Once you have set this up, a link to the author displaying your selected nickname is added to every blog post published on your site …
This link takes site visitors to the Author Archives section, where they can learn more about you (or about other authors registered as users on your site) and see what other articles that you (or your guest users) have published …
You can even add links and basic 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 …
To do this just type HTML formatted text into the About Yourself > Biographical Info field in your Profile section …
Tip #3 (Advanced User): How To Hide User Profile Fields
If you plan to run a website that restricts what users can do, you can install a free WordPress plugin called Hide User Profile Fields that hides a number of fields when activated, such as:
- Color Selector
- Keyboard Shortcuts Checkbox
- Admin Toolbar
- AIM
- Google Talk
- Yahoo IM
- Website
- Biographical Info feature
- User Role (every new user is created as “Subscriber”)
For more information, visit the plugin page here: WordPress Plugin – Hide User Profile Fields
Congratulations! You have just learned how to edit your user profile in WordPress.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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