Navigating in WordPress Dashboard

Once the installation is complete, the first thing you would want to do is log in to the WordPress administrator dashboard. Usually, there is a link to the login page on the front end of WordPress blog. However, some themes don’t have this link. In this case, the easiest way to log in to WordPress is by adding wp-admin at the end of your website’s address like this:

http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin

This URL will direct you to the login screen where you will be asked to enter the administrator’s username and password. Remember, you have entered these details during WordPress installation. If you have forgotten your password, click on the Lost your password? link. More detailed instructions on how to login to WordPress can be found here.

Logging into WordPress Dashboard

After logging in, you will see the administrator dashboard. It’s built to give you an overview of your entire website and contains 3 main sections:

WordPress Dashboard

  1. A toolbar at the top of the page. It contains links to the most commonly used administrative functions and resources. For example, if you hover over your website’s name, you will get a link to the public view of your site. It also displays simple notifications like updates and new comments count.
  2. The main navigation menu on the left-hand side. It contains links to all administrative screens of WordPress. If you hover over a menu item, a submenu with additional items will be displayed.
  3. The main work area.

The first time you log in to the WordPress admin panel, you will see a welcome module which contains some useful links to help you get started. Once you are comfortable with the dashboard, press the Dismiss button in order to hide this module.

Other Modules:

  1. At a Glance box will tell you how many posts, pages and comments you have. It also shows WordPress version and theme you are running.
  2. Activity box gives you a bit more information about your latest posts and comments. It shows the status of all comments and a short list of the most recent comments.
  3. Quick Draft box. Entering content into this box will start a new blog post. However, you cannot publish one from here as this box is only for taking blog posts ideas for you to come back to later.
  4. WordPress News. This module displays the latest WordPress news.

Each of these windows has little arrows which you can use to quickly hide the box. You can also drag and drop them to different positions.

Step 3 – Publishing Content

Creating a website with WordPress starts with publishing a new post or a new page. You may wonder – what is the difference between posts and pages?

The answer is simple. WordPress posts can be categorized, tagged, archived. WordPress posts are used to publish time-sensitive content. In contrast, pages are mainly for static, dateless content. They don’t have categories or tags. Contact us or About pages are good examples of pages.

Step 3.1 – Creating a New Post

To create a new WordPress post open the Add New section under Posts or choose New -> Post option from the top toolbar.

You will be presented with an editing screen with an array of posting features. The first thing you should do is enter a title for your post. Secondly, enter the actual content of your post in the field below. If you want to format your text, use the toolbar options. It’s similar to the one you can find in MS Word or any other popular text editor.

At the right-hand side of the screen, you can see the so-called meta-boxes. Each box has a particular function.

  • Publish. Here you can change the status and visibility of your post, schedule it. By clicking the Publish button your post will go live. If you decide to delete the post, press the Move to Trash button.
  • Categories. On this box, you can assign your post to a specific category. You can even create a new one by pressing the + Add New Category button.
  • Tags box allows to quickly add new tags.
  • Featured Image. Here you can assign a featured image to a post. It will be visible at the very top of the post (image location can be different depending on theme).

Step 3.2 – Creating a New Page

In order to create a new WordPress page, open the Add New section under Pages menu or click New -> Page button at the top toolbar.

Add New page section has identical WYSIWYG text editor just like the Posts section has. Thus, the process of text input and formatting is the same.

You may also notice that Pages section does not have Tags and Categories meta-boxes. Instead, it has a box called Page Attributes. In this section, you can change the order of your pages and set parent pages. This is useful if you want to have several pages under one parent page.