How To Edit Your WordPress User Profile

Your Profile section lets you edit your name and how to display it on your website, your e-mail address for administrative purposes, optional personal information, plus additional options.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to edit your user profile in WordPress and configure optional contact details.

You will also learn how to create a biographical info section that will automatically link your published content to the Author Archives section of your site and how to use this feature to better promote users who publish content on your blog and their business online.

Editing Your User Details 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 edit your user profile using the dashboard navigation menu by going to Users > Your Profile …

This open up the Profile section …

The Profile screen contains a number of subsections that allow you to view and edit information about your user account.

These include:

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

Let’s review each of these sections …

Your Profile Settings

Please refer to the screenshot above as you go through the sections below.

Main Profile Section

1 – How To Access Your Profile

As we’ve already described, you can always access your profile by clicking on the “Howdy, User Name” tab at the very top right hand corner of your admin screen and selecting “Edit My Profile” from the drop-down menu, or selecting Users > Your Profile using the dashboard navigation 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 you experience 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

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

Although this will not affect what your blog visitors see (your theme controls the look of your site is controlled by themes) or the functional aspects of your site or blog, this feature can be useful to brand the dashboard with your corporate colors, or allowing other site users to personalize their own  dashboard.

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

• Customizing The WP Dashboard Area

4 – Keyboard Shortcuts

Checking the “Enable keyboard shortcuts for comment moderation” box allow you to use keyboard shortcuts to moderate comments.

5 – Toolbar

The WordPress Toolbar is located at the very top of your Dashboard screen and provides you (and your logged in site users) with access to various administration functions, features, information and “quick links” to other areas of your site …

Note: Leave the “Show Toolbar when viewing site” check box ticked to display the Admin Toolbar in your WordPress dashboard.

To learn more about the benefits of using the WordPress toolbar, see the tutorial below:

• The WP Admin Area – A Tutorial

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 inside the WordPress Admin area using a simpler method that requires no code editing or messing with your site’s database.

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

We have created a tutorial that teaches you how to do this here:

• How To Change Your Admin Username

6 – Name > First Name / Last Name

You can change the First Name and Last Name data in this section.

Just enter your 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 one you originally set up for your 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 to your profile section.

If you select a new nickname, all your blog posts, comments, etc. will then display with this new nickname, instead of the one you originally set up your site with.

Profile > Contact Info

8 – Contact Info > Email

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

9 – Contact Info > Website

Enter the address of your website or blog into 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 using this feature, see the “Your Profile: Additional Contact Information” 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 site 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 User Profile” section further below.

12 – About Yourself > Password Settings

Here you can change your login password details.

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

For more information about what to do if you have lost or forgotten WordPress passwords, go here:

• How To Reset The Login Password

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 securely out of WordPress, see the tutorial below:

• Logging Off WordPress

14 – Update Profile

Click ”Update Profile” at the bottom of your page to save your changes …

User Profile: Notes

• WordPress only requires your e-mail address and a nickname in the User Profile section.
• Your email address is only used for your site administration.
• Your email address is never sent to any other site (including WordPress) and it is never displayed on your website (unless you display it, or use a WP theme that has been encoded to display the email address).
• Only registered users of your blog have access to the e-mail address you have provided.
• Each email address must be unique.

Also …

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

There are various plugins that let you change user profile fields. You can browse a number of free 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 Profile” section below for an example of a free plugin that lets you hide unnecessary user profile fields.

WordPress User Profile: Additional Contact Info

As mentioned previously, the Profile area 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 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 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 actually be taken 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 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 site using Google Hangouts, then check out this article we’ve written about a great plugin that lets you manage a professional webinar platform on your website with Google Hangouts:

• RunClick – Webinar & Video Conferencing Plugin

Useful Tips Related To Your WordPress Profile

Tip #1: Check the “Show Toolbar when viewing site box is ticked in the Toolbar information area 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 on your posts …

Once you have set this up, a link to the author displaying your chosen 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 content that you (or your guest authors) have published …

You can also add 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 …

To do this simply type HTML formatted content 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 website that restricts what users can do, you can install a free plugin called Hide User Profile Fields that automatically hides the following fields from your site’s user profiles and creation pages when activated:

• Admin Color Scheme
• Keyboard Shortcuts Checkbox
• Admin Toolbar
• AIM
• Google Talk
• Yahoo IM
• Website
• Biographical Info
• User Role (every new user is added as “Subscriber”)

For more information, visit the plugin page here:

• Hide User Profile Fields - WP Plugin

Congratulations! You have now learned how to configure your user profile settings.

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