How To Edit Your WordPress User Profile
The Profile area lets you specify your name and how it will be displayed on your site, your e-mail address for administrative purposes, and additional personal information and personal options associated with your WordPress user account.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to edit your WordPress user profile and configure optional contact details.
You will also learn how to create a user information box that automatically shows up in the “Author Archives” page of your blog and how to use this feature to better promote yourself or your business online.
Editing Your User Profile In WordPress
On the far right of the Toolbar is the Howdy, User Name section …
Hover over this section with your mouse and it will expand with your Gravatar image, your name and username, and also links pointing to your “Profile Screen” and a “Log Out” link …
Choose Edit My Profile…
Another way to access your user profile area using the main navigation menu is to go to Users > Your Profile …
This brings you to the Profile screen …
The Profile section contains a number of subsections that let you manage information about your user account.
These include:
- Personal Options
- Name
- Contact Info
- About Yourself
- Change Password
Let’s now go through each of these options below …
Profile Sections
Please refer to the screenshot above as you work through the sections below.
Profile Section
1 – How To Access Your User Profile
As mentioned previously, you can always access your profile by clicking on the “Howdy, User Name” tab and selecting “Edit My Profile” from the drop-down menu, or selecting Users > Your Profile from the main navigation menu.
Profile > Personal Options
Normally, 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 issues when trying to add code to your content (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 Default WordPress Color Scheme
You can select a different color scheme for your WordPress dashboard area from the default choices provided, or customize the color scheme using various WordPress plugins …
Although this will not affect what your site visitors see (the look of your website is controlled by your theme) or the functionality of your site or blog, this feature can be useful to brand the dashboard 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:
4 – Keyboard Shortcuts
Ticking this box allow you to quickly navigate and perform actions when moderating comments using keyboard shortcuts.
5 – Toolbar
The WordPress Toolbar is located at the very top of your Admin screen and provides you (and your registered users) with access to a range of useful administration functions, features, information and “quick links” to other areas of your site …
Important: Leave the “Show Toolbar when viewing site” check box ticked to display the Toolbar in your WordPress administration area.
To learn more about the WordPress toolbar, see the tutorial below:
Profile > Name
6 – Name > Username
You cannot change a username in the Profile section.
You can, however, change your username if you know how to edit your WP database.
You can also change the username inside the WordPress Dashboard using an easier method that requires no code editing or messing with your WordPress database.
Changing your username will affect your login, as this username is required for logging into your WordPress site!
We have created a tutorial that shows you how to do this here:
6 – Name > First Name / Last Name
You can edit your First Name and Last Name details in this section.
Just type in your first name and last name into the text fields …
7 – Name > Nickname / Display Name Publicly As
If you want a different author name than the one you originally registered for your site to display on your posts, then change the Nickname (required) field and select a different nickname from the Display name publicly as drop down menu …
You can add multiple nicknames in your profile section.
If you change the nickname, all your posts, comments, etc. will appear 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 is entered in the Email (required) field. This is a required field (see “Notes” section below for more information).
9 – Contact Info > Website
Enter your website or blog URL in 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 enter details for the other Contact Info section fields, or just ignore these.
For more details about 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 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: Tips” section further below.
12 – About Yourself > Password Settings
Here you can change your login password details.
Use this section only if you need to modify or reset your login password. You will need to confirm the new password before the system can accept the password change.
For a tutorial that explains you reset your WordPress password, go here:
13 – Log Out Of All Other Sessions
WordPress lets you log out everywhere 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.
To learn more about how to log out of WordPress, see this tutorial:
14 – Update Profile
Click ”Update Profile” before leaving to update your settings …
Notes - User Profile
- WordPress only requires your email address and a nickname.
- Your email address is used only for your blog administration.
- Your email address is never sent to any other site (including WordPress) and it is never displayed on your site (unless you choose to display it, or use a 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.
In Addition …
Installing certain plugins on your site (e.g. for adding social media features), may add or remove fields in your User Profile area (e.g. add a Twitter username field, display extra fields related to the plugin, etc…)
There are a number of plugins that allow you to customize user profile fields. You can browse a number of free plugins by going to Add Plugins and searching for “user profile fields” inside your dashboard …
See Tip #3 in the “Useful Tips Related To Your WordPress User Profile” section below for an example of a free plugin that lets you remove unnecessary user profile fields.
Your Profile: Additional Contact Information
As mentioned above, the WordPress Profile section has a number of fields that allow you to enter extra contact information such as:
- AIM screen name
- Yahoo! Messenger ID
- Jabber / Google Talk name
Normally, most users just 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 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.
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”, 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 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 see this article we’ve written about a great plugin that lets you run a business-level webinar platform on your WP site using Google Hangouts:
Your Profile: Tips
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 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 set this up, a link to the author displaying your chosen nickname will be added to every blog post published on your site …
Clicking on the author link takes your blog 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 what other blog posts that you (or other authors) have published …
You can include hyperlinks and basic 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 simply type HTML formatted text into the About Yourself > Biographical Info field in your Profile section …
Tip #3 (Advanced User): Hide User Profile Fields
If you plan to run a corporate website, you can install a simple WordPress plugin called Hide User Profile Fields that instantly 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”)
To learn more, visit the plugin page here:
Congratulations! You have now learned how to configure your WordPress user profile.
***
"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now