WordPress Administration: Beginner’s Guide

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Managing a WordPress site can be overwhelming for new admins. With so many features and settings in your admin area, it’s easy to feel lost. This confusion can lead to mistakes that affect your site.

Imagine missing out on important security updates because you didn’t know where to look for them. Maybe you’re struggling to customize the default theme and didn’t know you could install a new theme that fit your design better. These errors can impact your time, resources and customer experience. 

This article will walk you through the different things that you can do in your admin area. 

TL;DR: The WordPress admin area lets you easily manage tasks like installing plugins or publishing posts. However, there is a risk you need to account for. A failed plugin update, for example, can crash your site. This is why we recommend that you always backup your site before making changes.

How to access WordPress administration?

The admin area is the control center of your WordPress site. To access it, you need to go to your login URL, which is usually “yoursite.com/wp-admin”. Replace “yoursite.com” with your own domain. This is where you enter your admin username and password to gain access.

If you forget your password, there’s a simple way to change your WordPress credentials. On the login page, click the “Lost your password?” link. WordPress will send you an email with instructions on how to create a new password. This makes sure you can quickly regain access while keeping your account secure.

Pro tip: The admin panel’s login URL is standard across WordPress sites, making it a hacker target. We recommend you strengthen login security with practices like using a plugin such as MalCare. It provides login protection and firewall security to keep attackers away.

Admin area at first glance

At first glance, this space might seem busy, but let’s take a closer look at what you’ll see when you first log in.

Dashboard

The dashboard is your first stop in the admin area, offering a quick overview of your WordPress site. Here, you can see the latest news from the WordPress community and check for any available updates. This keeps you informed about new features and security patches

Additionally, the dashboard provides insights into your site, such as visitor statistics or recent comments, depending on the plugins you’ve installed. This glance helps you stay on top of your site’s performance and needs.

Toolbar

At the top of the admin area is the toolbar, a handy strip that gives you quick access to various functions.

From here, you can view your site as visitors see it, create a new post or page, and add media like images or videos.

The toolbar also shows the number of updates available, keeping you informed about necessary actions to maintain your site.

It includes your account details for easy management. Depending on the plugins you’ve installed, the toolbar might have extra menus, providing additional functionality right at your fingertips.

Sidebar

The sidebar is where you’ll find everything else you need to manage your site. It’s located on the left side of the admin area and contains links to all major sections, such as posts, pages, media, and settings. We’ll talk about these sections in more detail in the following sections.

 

This menu gives you direct access to create content, manage users, customize appearance, and adjust settings. The sidebar may also expand with new options as you install necessary plugins, making it a central hub for all site operations. Understanding the sidebar is key to navigating your WordPress admin area efficiently.

Create content

In WordPress, creating and managing content is a core function that helps you connect with your audience. Before diving into the steps, it’s important to understand the individual components like pages and posts, and the difference between them. 

Pages are static, timeless content like your About or Contact pages. They form the backbone of your site and remain relatively unchanged over time. 

Posts, on the other hand, are dynamic entries listed in reverse chronological order. For example, posts are perfect for blog entries, news updates, or articles. With this distinction in mind, you can create, edit, and organize your content more effectively. Let’s explore how to manage content in WordPress step by step.

Create new content

  1. Go to the sidebar and click on Posts or Pages
  2. Select Add New to start creating
  3. Type your content using the editor. You can format text, insert images, and add headings as needed

Manage existing content

  1. In the sidebar, click on Posts or Pages
  2. Find the post or page you want to edit and click Edit
  3. You can view a post or page by clicking View on any item in the list
  4. To delete content, select it from the list, then click Trash

Pro tip: If you want to track changes to your posts and pages easily, use WordPress revisions. This default feature saves a copy of your content every time you update it. Revisions let you view past edits and restore previous versions if necessary. It’s especially helpful when multiple people edit the same site, offering a clear history of changes. Use this tool to ensure you always have the best version of your work available.

Manage media

The media library in WordPress is where you manage all the images, videos, and files used on your site. 

To upload media, go to the Media section in the sidebar and click Add New. From there, you can simply drag and drop files or select them from your computer. Viewing and managing your media is simple—just click on any file to see details, edit, or even replace it. If you need to remove a file, select it and click Delete to free up space.

Pro tip: Media files can slow down your site if they’re not optimized. Large or numerous files can impact load times and affect user experience. We recommend you use a performance optimization tool like Airlift. Airlift works behind the scenes to reduce the size of the media files without losing quality. Smaller media files mean faster loading times and better site performance. 

Modify appearance

There are a lot of things that affect the appearance of your site and themes are one of them. Themes set the overall design and layout of your website. In the Appearance section of your dashboard, you can select and install a theme that fits your design requirements. 

The customization tool helps you tailor various aspects of your site. You can adjust page layouts, change color schemes, and modify typography. Additionally, organizing menus helps create intuitive navigation, allowing visitors to easily find content and improving overall user experience.

Pro tip: When you update a theme, the update rewrites the existing code. So, we recommend that you create a child theme and add customizations to that file instead. This process ensures that when you update a theme, the customizations will remain untouched. 

You can modify the theme file from the admin panel dashboard directly. This also means that anybody with access can modify critical files. For security’s sake, we recommend you disable file editing and make sure only admins and authorized personnel have access. It’s also important to take a backup before making these changes to reduce the chances of data loss.

Extend functionality

WordPress lets you extend your site’s functionality through plugins and customize features to match your specific needs. Whether you want to add contact forms, image galleries, or SEO tools to your site, there’s likely a plugin available to do just that.

WordPress plugins are often found in the WordPress Plugin Repository, commonly known as the “repo.” This is a centralized place where developers share plugins that meet WordPress’s standards. To install one from the repo, navigate to the Plugins section in the sidebar. Then click Add New. Here, you can search for, install, and activate new plugins.

You will also see information on when to update a plugin. We recommend you do this cautiusly because updates can be buggy or crash your site. Take a backup first and test the update on a staging site before making any changes.

Pro tip: You must keep plugins up-to-date to ensure site security and performance. You can enable auto-updates to ensure your plugins stay current and hassle-free. But, it comes with some risks. This is why we also recommend that you take additional measures like testing updates on a staging site before applying them to your live site. 

Manage users

User management in WordPress helps maintain your site’s security and functionality, especially if multiple people contribute to your site. To create a new user, go to the Users section in the sidebar and click Add New. Fill in the user’s information and assign a role that matches their responsibilities.

Roles define what users can and cannot do on your site. Common roles include Admin, Editor, Author, Contributor, and Subscriber, each with different permissions. For example, Admins have full control over the site, while Authors can only publish and manage their posts. Assigning the right roles helps keep your site organized and secure.

Managing users means regularly checking and updating their roles or permissions. This ensures each user has just the access they need and nothing more. Additionally, always encourage strong login security practices among your site users to enhance site security.

Understand WordPress tools

WordPress provides essential tools to help you maintain your site’s performance and manage content effectively. One of these tools is Site Health, which offers valuable insights into your site’s performance and security. It analyzes your site for any issues and suggests improvements, helping you keep your site functioning at its best. Regular checks on Site Health can prevent problems before they affect your site.

Another vital tool is the Import/Export feature, designed to migrate your website. Whether you’re redesigning your site or creating a duplicate for testing, this tool enables seamless transfer of posts, pages, and other content. Export data from your existing site, and then import it into a WordPress installation. Although, an easier way to do so is to use a migration plugin like Migrate Guru.

Using these basic maintenance tools can ensure your WordPress site runs smoothly and remains easy to manage.

Modifying settings

When managing your website, it is important to set up and adjust various settings to ensure your site runs smoothly. Here is a guide to the essential settings you should consider:

General 

General settings are where you manage basic site information. You can set the site title, which is the name of your website, and the tagline, a brief description of your site often seen in search results. You can also set the website URL and the email address that will receive administrative notifications.

Writing

The writing settings help you configure how you create and publish blog posts. Here, you can choose a default post category, which will be automatically assigned to new posts unless you specify otherwise. Categories can help with site navigation and organising your blog posts. You can also set the layout of your blog posts. For example, the Gallery format is great for images. 

Reading 

Reading settings affect how your site appears to visitors. You can decide what your homepage displays: a static page, your latest posts, or something else. This is helpful when you want to put your site in maintenance mode and change the homepage. Additionally, you can set how many posts are shown on the blog page and control your user experience.

Discussion

Discussion settings allow you to manage how comments are handled on your site. You can choose whether to allow comments on posts and manage who can comment. You can also set rules for comment moderation to prevent unwanted content and choose how you receive notifications about new comments. 

Pro tip: Comments are often flooded with spam. Removing them manually can be time consuming and cumbersome. We recommend you install an anti-spam plugin

Media

Under media settings, you can determine how images and other files are managed. Here, you set default sizes for image uploads to ensure uniformity across your site. You can also optimize file handling to balance quality with performance.

Permalinks

Permalink settings let you customize the structure of URLs for posts and pages. Having a clean and reader-friendly URL structure improves SEO and enhances the overall appearance of your site. You can choose your permalink structure from several formats or create a custom one that suits your needs best.

Additional maintenance for your WordPress site

WordPress sites require regular maintenance to keep them running smoothly. In this section, we will outline these additional maintenance tasks and explain why they are crucial. 

Pro tip: You can hire WordPress management services to take care of most of these maintenance tasks.

Take regular backups

Routine backups ensure that you have a copy of your website’s data in case of emergencies like server failures or cyber-attacks. Ideally, you want to create a backup schedule that caters to your site. The more changes you make, the more backups you need. 

It can be a lot of work to manually backup your WordPress site. Automating this process means the hassle is taken off your plate. BlogVault helps you create a schedule and depending on the plan, takes a backup at least once a day. 

Implement a firewall

A firewall acts as a barrier between your site and potential threats. By monitoring and controlling incoming and outgoing traffic, it blocks malicious activities and unauthorized access attempts, keeping your site secure from hackers. 

BlogVault can automatically install a firewall on your site. It comes with other features like bot protection and geoblocking as well. 

Check for malware

Regularly scanning your site for malware helps identify and remove malicious code that may have infiltrated your site. A malware scanner informs you of potential threats and helps in cleaning your site before significant damage occurs. BlogVault offers security features like a scanner that reviews your site every 12 hours. This is enough time to catch a problem early. 

Disable file editing

WordPress allows direct editing of theme and plugin files through the admin panel. We talked about it briefly in the section about customizing your site’s appearance.

However, file editing runs the risk of malicious alterations. Disabling the file editing feature prevents unauthorized users from making changes to your code. So, even if a hacker gains access to your admin panel, they can’t access your backend files.

If disabling this feature is too technical for you, plugins like BlogVault also help you toggle it on and off on their dashboard. 

Limit failed logins

Limiting failed login attempts is an important security measure to protect your WordPress site from unauthorized access. This practice helps prevent brute force attacks, where attackers use automated methods to try numerous combinations of usernames and passwords until they find the correct one.

By restricting the number of failed login attempts, you can effectively reduce the risk of a brute force attack. Once the limit is reached, the account or IP address is temporarily locked out, stopping the attacker from continuing their attempts. This not only secures user accounts but also helps maintain the integrity and safety of your website.

The risk with limiting failed attempts is that genuine users may also get locked out sometimes. BlogVault solves that issue by allowing a locked-out user to regain access by solving a reCAPTCHA puzzle. This blocks the bots but allows for genuine, human users. 

Monitor performance

Keeping an eye on your site’s performance helps identify issues that could hamper your site or drive users away. Regular performance monitoring ensures your website remains fast and responsive, creating a better user experience. BlogVault helps you monitor uptime and performance right from its dashboard. You can then use performance-enhancing plugins like Airlift to optimize your site in a few clicks.

Keep everything updated

You must keep WordPress core files, themes, and plugins regularly updated. Updates often include security patches and new features that enhance performance and security, helping you stay ahead of potential threats.

As good as updates are, they can pose risks such as compatibility issues, loss of customizations, and the introduction of new bugs. They might also lead to downtime or conflicts with other components. To mitigate these risks, always backup your site, test updates in a staging environment, and read release notes. 

Additionally, you can use UpdateLens which scores an update on several factors to determine how safe it is for your site. 

Clear up storage periodically

Periodically reviewing and cleaning up your site helps maintain organization and efficiency. Remove unused plugins, inactive users, old posts, and unnecessary images to optimize storage and improve site performance.

All of the tasks on this list might be manageable if you are the admin of only one site. But, if you’re an agency that manages more than one site, this work can get hectic.

Final thoughts

The admin area is your command center for managing and modifying your website. You can modify a lot of things using this panel. We recommend you take a backup before making any changes. This creates insurance that if things go wrong, you can restore your site easily

FAQs

What is a WordPress administrator?

A WordPress administrator is a user role with the highest level of access to a WordPress site. Administrators can manage site settings, install and update themes and plugins, create and edit posts, and manage other users.

How do I administrate WordPress?

To administer WordPress, you log into the admin dashboard using your credentials. From there, you can manage site settings, customize themes, install plugins, create and organize content, and handle user roles and permissions.

What is the role of the administrator in WordPress?

The administrator role in WordPress involves overseeing all aspects of the site. This includes managing site settings, installing and updating themes and plugins, creating and editing content, handling user accounts, and ensuring the site’s overall security and performance.

Where is the administration area in WordPress?

The administration area in WordPress is accessed through the dashboard. After logging in with an admin account, you can find the dashboard at yoursite.com/wp-admin, where you can manage all aspects of your site.

How to secure WP admin?

To secure the WordPress admin area, use strong, unique passwords and implement two-factor authentication. Limit login attempts to prevent brute force attacks, keep WordPress updated, and use plugins like BlogVault to provide additional layers of protection.

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