How To Edit Your WordPress User Profile
Your Users Profile section lets you how your name will be displayed on your website, your e-mail address for admin purposes, other personal information, plus personal options.
In this post, you will learn about editing WordPress user profiles.
You will also learn how to create a biographical info section that automatically shows up in the “Author Archives” area of your blog and how to use this feature to better promote yourself and your business online.
How To Change Your User Profile In WordPress
At the far right at the top of your screen is the “Howdy, User Name” section …
If you hover your mouse over this panel it will expand with your Gravatar image, 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 section from the main dashboard menu by going to Users > Your Profile …
This open up the Profile screen …
The Profile page contains various subsections that let you view and manage information about your user account.
These include:
- Personal Options
- Name
- Contact Info
- About Yourself
- Change Password
Let’s go through each of these options …
User Profile Fields
Please refer to the screenshot above as you work through the descriptions below.
Profile Section
1 – How To Access Your Profile
As described previously, you can access your profile section by clicking on the “Howdy, User Name” tab at the very top right hand corner of your dashboard and selecting “Edit My Profile” from the drop-down menu, or selecting Users > Your Profile using the dashboard 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 posts or pages (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 the default WordPress color scheme …
WordPress User Profile: Customizing The Global WordPress Color Scheme
You can choose a different color scheme for your WordPress dashboard area from the default choices, or add a custom color scheme using WordPress plugins …
Although this does not affect what your blog visitors see (your theme controls the external look of your site is controlled by your theme) or the functional aspects of your site, this feature can be used 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:
4 – Keyboard Shortcuts
Ticking this box allow you to use keyboard shortcuts when moderating comments.
5 – Toolbar
The WordPress Toolbar is located at the very top of your Administration screen and provides you (and your users) with access to various important admin functions, features, information and “quick links” to other areas of your site …
Note: Leave the “Show Toolbar when viewing site” checkbox enabled to display the Admin Toolbar in your WP admin area.
To learn more about the benefits of using the WordPress toolbar, see the tutorial below:
Profile > Name
6 – Name > Username
You cannot change a 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 from your WP Dashboard using an easier 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!
For a tutorial that explains you how to do this, go here:
6 – Name > First Name / Last Name
You can modify your First Name and Last Name details in this section.
Just type in a 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 set up for your site or blog 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.
Once you select a nickname, all your blog posts, comments, etc. will then display with the new nickname, instead of the one you originally installed WordPress with.
Profile > Contact Info
8 – Contact Info > Email
Ensure that your correct email address has been entered in the Email (required) field. This is a required field (see “Notes” section below for more information).
9 – Contact Info > Website
Add the address of your website 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 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 Information” section below.
Profile > About Yourself
11 – About Yourself > Biographical Info
In this section, you can insert a personal or business description for your site 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:
For more details about this feature, refer to the “Your Profile: Additional Information” section further below.
12 – About Yourself > Password Settings
This section lets you change your login password details.
Use this section only if you are required to change your login password. You will need to enter your new password twice before the system can accept the password change.
For more information about resetting your WordPress password, go here:
13 – Log Out Of All Other Sessions
WordPress lets you log out everywhere 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.
To learn more about how to log out of WordPress, see this tutorial:
14 – Update Profile
Don’t forget to click the Update Profile button to save any changes you make to your user profile settings …
User Profile: Important Notes
- WordPress only requires an e-mail address and a nickname.
- 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 website (unless you choose to display it, or use a theme that displays your email address).
- Only registered users of your site have access to the email address you provide.
- Every email address must be unique.
Also …
Installing certain plugins on your site (e.g. for adding social media features), may add or remove fields in your 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 change user profile fields. You can find these plugins by typing in keywords like “user profile fields” in the “Add Plugins” section inside your dashboard …
See Tip #3 in the “Your Profile: Tips” section further below for an example of a free plugin that lets you remove unnecessary fields in the Profile section.
Your Profile: Additional Contact Info
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 just ignore this section. 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 choose to 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 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 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+ …
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 manage a professional video conferencing platform on your WP site using Google Hangouts:
WordPress User Profile: Additional Information
Tip #1: Check that Show Toolbar when viewing site is enabled in 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 on your blog posts …
After you have done this, a link to the author displaying your specified nickname will be added to every 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 publishing content on your site) and see other posts that you (or other users) have published …
You can even include hyperlinks and text formatting like bold and italicized words to enhance your author description and promote yourself, your services, products, other websites, etc. to blog readers …
To do this simply insert HTML formatted content 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 plugin called Hide User Profile Fields that automatically hides a number of fields when activated, such as:
- Color Selector
- Keyboard Shortcuts
- Toolbar
- AIM
- Jabber
- Yahoo IM
- Website URL
- Biography description
- User Role (every new user is added as “Subscriber”)
For more information, visit the plugin page here:
Congratulations! You have now learned how to change your WordPress user details and personal options.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group