How To Edit Your WordPress User Profile
Your Users Profile area lets you how your name will be displayed on your website, your e-mail address for administrative purposes, and other personal information and personal options associated with your WordPress user account.
In this blog post, you will learn about editing WordPress user profiles.
You will also learn how to create an information box that will automatically show up on your site in the “Author Archives” page and how to use this feature to better promote users or their business online.
Changing Your User Details In WordPress
On the far right-hand side at the top of your screen is the “Howdy, User Name” section …
Hover over this area with your mouse and it expands to display an image of your Gravatar, your name and username, and also links pointing to your “Profile Screen” and a “Log Out” link …
Select Edit My Profile…
Another way to access your user profile using the dashboard menu is to go to Users > Your Profile …
This brings you to the Profile page …
The Profile area contains a number of subsections that allow you to view and manage information about your WordPress user account.
These include:
- Personal Options
- Name
- Contact Info
- About Yourself
- Change Password
Let’s go through each of these options below …
User Profile Settings
Please refer to the screenshot above as you work through the sections below.
Profile Section
1 – Accessing Your Profile
As explained previously, you can access your profile 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 from the main 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 this box disables the visual editor and uses the plain HTML editor instead.
Tip: Should you experience any issues when trying to add code to your pages or posts (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 selecting a global color scheme …
WordPress User Profile: Customizing Your Default WordPress Color Scheme
You can choose a new global color scheme for your WordPress dashboard area from the default choices provided, or add a custom color scheme using various WordPress plugins …
Although this does not affect what your site visitors see (your theme controls the design of your website is controlled by themes) or the functionality of your site or blog, 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 area.
To learn how to further customize your WordPress dashboard, see the tutorial below:
4 – Keyboard Shortcuts
Checking this box allow you to navigate quickly and perform actions when moderating comments using keyboard shortcuts.
5 – Toolbar
The Toolbar is located at the very top of your Dashboard screen and provides you (and your users) with access to a number of important administration functions, features, information and “quick links” to other areas of your site …
Note: Leave the “Show Toolbar when viewing site” check box enabled to display the 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
Your username cannot be changed in the User Profile area.
You can, however, change your username if you know how to edit your WP database.
You can also change your username inside the WordPress Dashboard using an easier method that requires no code editing or messing 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 teaches you how to do this here:
6 – Name > First Name / Last Name
You can modify the First Name and Last Name details in this section.
Just type 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 one you originally set up for your site 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 in your profile section.
If you change the nickname, all your posts, published 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
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
Type your website or blog address in the Website field (optional).
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 “User Profile: Additional Contact Info” section below.
Profile > About Yourself
11 – About Yourself > Biographical Info
This section lets you insert 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 using this feature, see the “Useful Tips Related To Your Profile” section further below.
12 – About Yourself > Password Settings
This section lets you change your login password details.
Use the New Password section only if you need to change your login password. You will need to enter the new password twice before the system can accept the password change.
To learn more about what to do if you lose or forget your WordPress password, go here:
13 – Log Out Of All Other Sessions
WordPress lets you log out of all current sessions 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 the tutorial below:
14 – Update Profile
Click the Update Profile button to save any changes you make to your user profile …
Important Notes
- WordPress only requires an email address and a nickname.
- Your email address is only used for administration purposes.
- The email address on your profile is never sent to any other site (including WordPress) and it is never shown on your website (unless you display it, or use a theme that has been encoded to display your email address).
- Only registered users of your blog have access to the email address you have provided.
- Every 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 screen (e.g. add a Twitter username field, display extra options related to the plugin, etc…)
There are various plugins that allow you to modify user profile fields. You can browse a number of these plugins by going to Add Plugins and searching for “user profile fields” inside your WP dashboard …
See Tip #3 in the “Useful Tips Related To Your Profile” section further below for an example of a free plugin that lets you remove unnecessary user profile fields.
Your Profile: Additional Contact Information
As mentioned earlier, the WordPress Profile area 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
Most users simply 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.
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 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 the Google Hangouts website.
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 webinars on your site using Google Hangouts, then see this article we’ve written about a great plugin that lets you manage a business-level webinar platform on your website with Google Hangouts:
Useful Tips Related To Your Profile
Tip #1: Make sure the “Show Toolbar when viewing site box is ticked inside 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.
To start with, 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 selected nickname is added to every blog post published on your site …
Clicking on the author link takes your 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 all other articles that you (or your guest users) have published …
You can insert links and simple formatting like bold and italicized words to enhance your author description and promote yourself, your services, products, other websites, etc. to your site visitors …
This can be easily done by typing HTML formatted text into the About Yourself > Biographical Info text area in your Profile section …
Tip #3 (Advanced User): Hide User Profile Fields
If you plan to run a corporate website, you can install a free plugin called Hide User Profile Fields that hides the following fields from your site’s user profiles and creation pages when activated:
- Colors Profile
- Keyboard Shortcuts Checkbox
- Admin Toolbar
- AIM
- Google Talk
- Yahoo IM
- Website
- Biographical Info text area
- User Role (every new user is registered as “Subscriber”)
To learn more, visit the plugin page here:
Congratulations! Now you know how to edit your user details in WordPress.
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