How To Edit Your WordPress User Profile

The WordPress Users Profile screen lets you how your name will display on your website or blog, your e-mail address for admin purposes, and other personal information and optional settings associated with your WordPress user account.

In this tutorial, you will learn about editing WordPress user profiles.

You will also learn how to set up an information box that automatically displays on your site in the “Author Archives” area and how to use this feature to better promote an author and their business online.

Editing Your User Profile And Personal Settings In WordPress

On the far right in your administration area is the “Howdy, User Name” section …

If you hover over this section with your mouse it expands to display an image of your Gravatar, your name and username, and links to your “Profile Screen” and a “Log Out” link …

Select Edit My Profile…

Another way to edit your user profile using the dashboard navigation menu is to go to Users > Your Profile …

This open up the Profile area …

The Profile screen contains various 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 now review each of these options …

User Profile Fields

Please refer to the screenshot above as you work through the descriptions below.

Main Profile Screen

1 – Accessing Your User Profile

As explained above, you can always access your profile by clicking on your username, which is displayed in 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 main dashboard menu.

Profile > Personal Options

Normally, you wouldyou would 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

Ticking this box disables the visual editor and uses the plain HTML editor instead.

Tip: Should you experience issues 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

WordPress lets you customize the look of your WordPress Dashboard by selecting a global color scheme …

WordPress User Profile: Customizing Your Global WordPress Color Scheme

You can choose a different color scheme for your WP administration area from the default choices provided, or add a custom color scheme using WordPress plugins …

Although this will not affect what your blog visitors see (the look 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 users to personalize their own  admin area.

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

• Customizing Your WP Dashboard Area

4 – Keyboard Shortcuts

Ticking this box allow you to moderate comments quickly using keyboard shortcuts.

5 – Toolbar

The Toolbar is located at the very top of your Admin screen and provides you (and your registered users) with access to a number of useful administration 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 Toolbar in your WP dashboard.

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

• The WP Admin Area – A Step-By-Step Tutorial

Profile > Name

6 – Name > Username

Your username cannot be changed in the User Profile area by anyone, including the site administrator.

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

You can also change the username inside the WP Admin area 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 WordPress site!

For a step-by-step tutorial that explains you how to do this, go here:

• How To Change Your WordPress Admin Username

6 – Name > First Name / Last Name

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

Just type in 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 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 name that you originally installed WordPress with.

Profile > Contact Info

8 – Contact Info > Email

Make sure 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

Add your website URL into the Website field.

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 fill in the other Contact Info section fields, or just ignore these.

For more details about using this feature, refer to the “Your Profile: Additional Contact Information” section below.

Profile > About Yourself

11 – About Yourself > Biographical Info

This section lets you 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 WordPress Profile” section 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 confirm the new password before the system can accept the password change.

For a step-by-step tutorial that explains you what to do if you lose or forget your login password, go here:

• How To Reset Your WordPress Password

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 this tutorial:

• Logging Out Of WordPress

14 – Update Profile

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

User Profile: Important Notes

• WordPress only requires your e-mail address and a nickname.
• Your email address is only used for admin purposes.
• Your email address is never sent to any other site (including WordPress) and it is never shown on your website (unless you choose to display it, or use a theme that has been encoded to display the email address).
• Only registered users of your blog can access the email 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 your User Profile section (e.g. add a Facebook URL field, display additional functionality options related to the plugin, etc…)

There are a number of plugins that allow you to change user profile fields. You can browse a number of these plugins by typing in keywords like “user profile fields” in the “Add Plugins” section inside your dashboard …

See Tip #3 in the “Useful Tips Related To Your WordPress Profile” section further below for an example of a free plugin that lets you remove unnecessary fields in your Profile area.

User Profile: Additional Contact Info

As mentioned above, your WordPress 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 be taken 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+ …

Tip: If you plan to run business webinars on your website 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 website with Google Hangouts:

• RunClick – WordPress Webinar Software

User Profile: Useful Tips

Tip #1: Make sure that Show Toolbar when viewing site is enabled inside 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 blog posts …

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

Clicking on the author 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 other content that you (or other authors) have published …

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

To do this just type HTML formatted content into the About Yourself > Biographical Info text area 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 simple WordPress plugin called Hide User Profile Fields that will automatically hide the following fields from your site’s user profiles and creation pages when activated:

• Colors Profile
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Toolbar
• AIM
• Google Talk
• Yahoo IM
• Website field
• Biographical Info
• User Role (every new user is registered as “Subscriber”)

To learn more, visit the plugin page here:

• WP Plugin – Hide User Profile Fields

Congratulations! You have just learned how to edit your user profile and personal settings.

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