The Profile section lets you how your name will display on your website or blog, your e-mail address for administrative purposes, other contact details, and personal settings.
In this post, you will learn how to edit your WordPress user profile and configure other contact details.
We will also show you how to create a user information section that automatically shows up in the “Author Archives” section of your site and how to use this feature to better promote yourself or your business online.
Contents
How To Edit Your User Details And Personal Options In WordPress
At the far right at the top of your screen is the Howdy, User Name section …
If you hover over this area with your mouse it expands to display your Gravatar image, your name and username, and also links pointing to your “Profile Screen” and a “Log Out” link …
Select Edit My Profile…
You can also edit your user profile screen using the main dashboard menu by going to Users > Your Profile …
This brings you to the Profile screen …
The Profile section contains a number of subsections that let you view and manage information about your user account.
These include:
- Personal Options
- Name
- Contact Info
- About Yourself
- Password Settings
Let’s go through each of these sections …
User Profile Options
Please refer to the image above as you go through the descriptions below.
Main Profile Section
1 – Accessing Your Profile
As explained previously, you can always access your profile screen by clicking on the “Howdy, User Name” section, which is displayed on the top right hand side of the screen, and selecting “Edit My Profile” from the drop-down menu, or selecting Users > Your Profile using the dashboard navigation menu.
Profile > Personal Options
Normally, you can 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 the “Disable the visual editor when writing” box disables the visual editor and uses the plain HTML editor instead.
Tip: Should you experience any problems when trying to insert code into your pages or posts (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 the default WordPress color scheme …
WordPress User Profile: Customizing Your Default WordPress Color Scheme
You can select a different color scheme for your WP dashboard area from the default choices, or customize the color scheme using various WordPress plugins …
Although this has no impact on what your site visitors see (your theme controls the look of your site is controlled by themes) or the functionality of your site, this feature can be used for branding the dashboard area with your corporate colors, or allowing users to personalize their own dashboard area.
To learn how to customize your WordPress dashboard, see the tutorial below:
How To Customize Your WP Dashboard Area
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 Dashboard screen and provides you (and your registered site users) with access to various admin 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 Admin Toolbar in your WordPress dashboard.
To learn more about the WordPress toolbar, see the tutorial below:
The WP Control Area – A Tutorial
Profile > Name
6 – Name > Username
Your username cannot be changed in the User Profile screen.
You can, however, change your username if you know how to edit your WordPress database.
You can also change the username inside the WP Admin area 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 WordPress site!
For a tutorial that shows you you how to do this, go here:
Changing Your WordPress Admin Username
6 – Name > First Name / Last Name
You can change your First Name and Last Name details in this section.
Just type 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 name you originally set up for your site or blog in 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 in your profile section.
If you select a nickname, all your blog posts, comments, etc. will appear with your new nickname, instead of the one that 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 field is required (see “Notes” section below for more information).
9 – Contact Info > Website
Add your website or blog URL in the Website field (optional).
If you have another website or 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 “User Profile: Additional Contact Information” 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.
For more details about using this feature, refer to the “Your Profile: Tips” section 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 enter your new password twice before the system can accept the password change.
For a step-by-step tutorial that teaches you you how to change passwords in WordPress, go here:
What To Do If You Forget Or Lose Your 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’ve 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 this tutorial:
14 – Update Profile
Click the Update Profile button if you change any details in your profile to update your user profile settings …
User Profile: Notes
- WordPress only requires an email address and a nickname in your User Profile section.
- Your email address is only used 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 decided to publish it, or use a theme that has been encoded to display the email address).
- Only registered users of your site have access to the e-mail address you have entered.
- 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 area (e.g. add a Facebook URL field, insert additional functionality fields related to the plugin, etc…)
There are various plugins that allow you to change user profile fields. You can find many free plugins by going to Add Plugins and searching for “user profile fields” inside your WP dashboard …
See Tip #3 in the “User Profile: Useful Tips” section further below for an example of a free plugin that lets you hide unnecessary fields in the Profile section.
User Profile: Additional Contact Info
As mentioned above, the 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
Normally, most users simply ignore these fields. 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 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 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 business webinars online using Google Hangouts, then see this article we’ve written about a great plugin that lets you run a professional video conferencing platform on your web site using Google Hangouts:
RunClick – Webinar And Video Conferencing Software
WordPress User Profile: Useful Tips
Tip #1: Make sure the “Show Toolbar when viewing site box is ticked in the Toolbar subsection 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.
As mentioned earlier, you can add a Nickname and/or select a different name to display as the author of your posts …
Once you have set this up, a link to the author displaying your chosen nickname is added to every post published on your site …
This link takes site 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 all articles that you (or other authors) have published …
You can include links 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 just paste HTML formatted text into the About Yourself > Biographical Info box in your Profile section …
Tip #3 (Advanced User): How To Hide User Profile Fields
You can install a simple plugin called Hide User Profile Fields that instantly hides the following fields from your site’s user profiles and creation pages when activated:
- Admin Color Selector
- Keyboard Shortcuts
- Admin Toolbar
- AIM
- Jabber
- Yahoo IM
- Website URL
- Biography description
- User Role (every new user is created as “Subscriber”)
To learn more, visit the plugin page here: WordPress Plugin – Hide User Profile Fields
Congratulations! You have just learned how to modify your WordPress user profile and personal settings.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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