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How To Edit Your WordPress User Profile
The WordPress Users Profile section lets you how your name will be displayed on your website or blog, your e-mail address for administrative purposes, optional contact information, and additional settings.
In this article, you will learn how to change your user profile in WordPress and configure optional contact details.
You will also learn how to set up a “resources” box that will display in the “Author Archives” page of your site and how to use this feature to better promote yourself and your business online.
How To Edit Your User Profile
At the far right-hand side at the top of your screen is the “Howdy, User Name” section …
Hover over this section with your mouse and it will expand with an image of your Gravatar, your name and username, and also links to your “Profile Screen” and a “Log Out” link …
Select Edit My Profile…
Another way to edit your user profile using the main dashboard menu is to go to Users > Your Profile …
This open up the Profile screen …
The Profile area contains a number of subsections that allow you to view and edit information about your WordPress user account.
These include:
- Personal Options
- Name
- Contact Info
- About Yourself
- Password Settings
Let’s go through each of these sections below …
Your Profile Options
Please refer to the above image as you go through the sections below.
User Profile Section
1 – Accessing Your Profile
As we’ve already explained, you can always access your profile screen 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 dashboard 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 this box disables the visual editor and uses the plain HTML editor instead.
Tip: Should you experience any issues when trying to insert code into your pages or posts (e.g. HTML), try disabling the visual editor by ticking the checkbox in this section.
3 – Admin Color Scheme
With WordPress, you can customize the look of your WordPress Dashboard by selecting a global color scheme …
WordPress User Profile: Customizing The Global WordPress Color Scheme
You can select a new color scheme for your WordPress dashboard area from the default choices, or customize the color scheme using various WordPress plugins …
Although this does not affect what your blog visitors see (your theme controls the look of your website is controlled by themes) or the functional aspects of your site or blog, this feature can be used for branding the admin area with your corporate colors, or allowing other site 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 Administration screen and provides you (and your site users) with access to various admin 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 Admin Toolbar in your WordPress dashboard area.
To learn more about using the WordPress toolbar, see the tutorial below:
Profile > Name
6 – Name > Username
You cannot change a username in the User Profile screen.
You can, however, change your username if you know how to edit your WP database.
You can also change your username inside the WP Admin area using a simpler 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!
For a step-by-step tutorial that explains you how to do this, go here:
6 – Name > First Name / Last Name
You can modify the First Name and Last Name details 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 name you originally registered for your site or blog in your posts, then 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.
Once you change the nickname, all your posts, published comments, etc. will then display with your 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 has been entered in the Email (required) field. This field is required (see “Notes” section below for more information).
9 – Contact Info > Website
Type your website URL 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, see 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 this feature, see 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 are required to modify or reset 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 have lost or forgotten passwords, go here:
13 – Log Out Of All Other Sessions
WordPress lets you log out everywhere 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.
For more information about logging securely out of WordPress, see the tutorial below:
14 – Update Profile
Remember to click ”Update Profile” if you change any details in your profile to save your changes …
Notes
- WordPress only requires an email address and a nickname.
- Your email address is used only for your site administration.
- 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 choose to display it, or use a theme that displays the email address).
- Only registered users of your site can access the email 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 insert or remove fields in your User Profile area (e.g. add a Twitter username field, insert extra fields related to the plugin, etc…)
There are various plugins that let you customize 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 WP dashboard …
See Tip #3 in the “User Profile: Useful Tips” section below for an example of a free plugin that lets you remove unnecessary user profile fields.
WordPress User Profile: Additional Contact Information
As mentioned earlier, the WordPress Profile section 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 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.
Currently, 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”, 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 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 online using Google Hangouts, then see this article we’ve written about a great plugin that lets you create a professional video conferencing platform on your WP site with Google Hangouts:
Useful Tips Related To Your Profile
Tip #1: Check that Show Toolbar when viewing site is enabled in the Toolbar section of your Profile screen …
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 specified nickname will be 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 all other articles that you (or other authors) have published …
You can insert hyperlinks and basic text 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 is easily done by pasting 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 will automatically hide a number of fields when activated, such as:
- Color Selector
- Keyboard Shortcuts Checkbox
- Toolbar
- AIM
- Google Talk
- Yahoo IM
- Website
- Biography description
- User Role (every new user is created as “Subscriber”)
To learn more, visit the plugin page here:
Congratulations! You have just learned how to change your user details and personal options.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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