WordPress dashboard settings

WordPress Basics Part 2: The WordPress Dashboard

In the last part of this series I explained to you what WordPress is, how a website is built and what the difference between sites and posts is. The following article is about the WordPress admin dashboard. I show you step by step, which settings you can make where, which are important and of course I give you tips and tricks for many points, which setting I recommend you why.

Preparation

Before we get started, a note about username and password. Most hosters will allow you to set your own username and password. Unlike the password, changing the username usually entails considerable effort.

Username

The username should not be your first or last name and should not be "admin". It is best to choose something innocuous that has nothing to do with your real name. The username is not necessarily visible to the visitors, you can decide later with which name you appear on your website.

Password

The password should be completely secure! Please do not use "admin123", "password" or "vacation". It is best to use unique passwords with special characters and letter/number combinations. The more complex the better.

Tip: use a mnemonic sentence

To be able to remember complex passwords, think of a sentence that will then make up the password. For example, "Hi, I'm Johannes and this is my password for WordPress" becomes the password HibJ&d=mPWfWP! For Facebook the sentence would be "Hello I am Johannes and this is my password for Facebook" and the password would be HibJ&d=mPWfFb! Once you have a phrase in mind, you can customize it for each system and have individual passwords for each service.

Since a secure password is one of the most important security measures (for example, against brute force attacks), Raidboxes uses a validator for all access data, which checks whether your chosen password is secure enough.

The WordPressDashboard

So, here we go! After logging in with your individual username and password you will land in the WordPress-Dashboard - the "command center" of your WordPress-site. Other names for this area are WordPress-Backend, WordPress Admin-Dashboard or WP-Admin.

WordPress  Basics Part 2: The WordPress  Dashboard

Don't worry if you feel a little overwhelmed when you first log in, it's (almost) impossible to break anything. Nevertheless, I recommend you first read this article from start to finish so you can go through the steps once more and read the sections that are most relevant for you. 

Attention!

The order you see may be slightly different depending on the hoster, installation, WordPress version, theme and setup. There may also be some items here you don't see on the list and vice versa but most of the points should stay the same.

Through the WordPress-Dashboard you control and organize all your content, choose a template (called in WordPress "theme"), moderate comments and and and. So the admin-Dashboard is the entire command center of your WordPress website. As usual with content management systems, everything happens in the browser. So you can edit your website, create posts or create and modify pages from anywhere in the world where you can connect to the internet.

Contrary to the order shown in the dashboard, we won't be going from top to bottom in this article but rather starting at the bottom in the settings. If you are configuring your WordPress website for the first time, I also recommend this order.

One more thing: there are several possible ways or locations in the dashboard to change most settings. Over time you will automatically come across various different ways. In this article I will show you just one possibility.

Settings

In this section you can define the basic settings of your CMS. Most of the time you will only be making these settings once, so you should think carefully about what you are doing. It's better take some time here and not rush through the list. This menu item is one of the few areas where you can actually mess something up.

If you click on "settings", you will be taken directly to:

General

WordPress  Basics Part 2: The WordPress  Dashboard

Here you can change the general settings, which I'll explain below.

Site title

The title of the web page is displayed at the top of the "header" in most themes. Here you can enter, for example, your own name, the name of the project you are creating a website for or the name of the association. 

Tagline

In many themes the tagline appears next to or below the title. In some theme, however, the subtitle is not displayed at all. Here you can enter a short description of yourself, your company or your association.

WordPress address (URL)

The WordPress address is the URL, domain, of your WordPress installation. Mostly it is the same URL as the website address. For some hosters it can be different, however.

Website address (URL)

This is the URL of your website.

Careful! Hands off these settings!

The WordPress address and the website address are important foundations of your system. You should only change these settings made by the hoster if you know exactly what you are doing and why. Here it is possible to destroy your entire site making repairs extremely difficult.

Administrator email address

The system will send important information to the email address you enter there. It therefore needs to be current and working. You will be notified, for example, when there are comments waiting to be approved.

Membership

If you want to build a community, you should allow this hook. This way, anyone who wants to become part of your community can register. In order to build a community, you will later need another Plugins. I have written a separate article on this topic in the magazine. However, for most needs and websites, this is not necessary. So you can uncheck it or leave it unchecked.

New user default role

If you allow the registration of new members, you define here which role the members will get upon registration. I will go into more detail about user roles later. If you have not checked the box "Membership", this setting is irrelevant. If you have checked the box, I recommend the default role "subscriber".

Site language

Here you define the language in which your website is published. For some time now, this setting is also valid for the WordPress backend, i.e. the dashboard you are currently working on.

Time zone

Here you set the time zone of your website. Most of the time the system automatically detects the correct zone, sometimes you have to help a bit. Choose here the standard time zone that applies to your location.

Date format

Okay, the next bit is going to seem little long-winded, but we're almost done. Here you choose in which style and format your site displays the date. If you "only" want to create a classic website without a blog, it doesn't matter what you set here. But if you want to publish articles, it's worth giving it some thought. My recommendation is the top option: here the date is displayed in the European style and the month is written out. So for example 21st August 2020

Time format

Similar to the date format, the same applies here. I recommend the third option where the time is written out using the 24-hour clock. For example, 14:30.

Week starts on

I honestly haven't thought of a good reason yet why this setting exists and what characteristics it affects. But since we are in Europe, our week starts on Monday. Now we move on to the next sub-items of the WordPress settings:

Writing

This option is left over from an era when not every watch was connected to the internet! You were able to publish posts here automatically by sending an email to the system. This function is usually no longer needed as you can also administrate your website with your smartphone. You can even use the WordPress app to do this.

Read

WordPress  Basics Part 2: The WordPress  Dashboard

This is where you define what your home page looks like. Remember: the "homepage" from the first part of this series. This can be a static site like an "about me" or the "posts page" - a special site in the WordPress system that lists your blog posts. If you don't want to create blog posts at all, I recommend a static site . Once you've created sites (later), you can specify here which of these sites should be your home page.

You also define how many blog posts should be displayed below each other on the post page. I recommend a number between five and ten. On my website, seven has turned out to be a good average. It looks like this: www.johannesmairhofer.de/magazin. Here it becomes already clear, my "homepage" is the site "Johannes", my "contribution side" is the site "magazine" and I have seven contributions under each other listed, which are indicated in each case as "short version". Displaying the whole text directly here can quickly become confusing and depends very much on the chosen Theme . My recommendation is therefore "Abstract".

You should simply try out a few options to find the best one for you. What the page ultimately looks like depends first on the theme you choose and also on how many posts, if any, you end up creating.

In my opinion there isn't much point in disabling the "search engine visibility" box. For one thing, checking this box doesn't guarantee that your website won't be indexed and, secondly, it doesn't make sense to publish a website that nobody can find.

Discussion

This is often a talking point: whether or not you should allow comments on your website. There is no clear answer to this question because, well, it depends. It would take an eternity to go into all the points in detail. Most of the subitems are self-explanatory and only relevant if you allow comments. Therefore I want to talk about comments in general and explain the pros and cons.

WordPress  Basics Part 2: The WordPress  Dashboard

If you're creating blog posts, it tends to make more sense to allow comments. If you "only" want to create a classic and static site, it would be rather uncommon to have comments. Many bloggers want to get in contact with their readers, get feedback and indeed initiate discussions.

Remember, however, that you must also moderate the comments if you allow them. Unfortunately, you are now on thin ice legally as personal data is processed during commenting. If in doubt, get legal advice or turn off comments if you are unsure.

Pingbacks

The top two items in the screen shot Try to notify all blogs that link to the post and Allow link notifications from other blogs to new posts are useful. This is where I recommend checking the boxes. Because this way all blogs or WordPress websites you link to can be notified about this linking. 

If you get linked, you will get a notification on the start page of the dashboard.

Although this setting is useful, as it depends on so many factors there is unfortunately no guarantee that a notification will arrive. But it does no harm to let the system at least try to send and receive the notification.

Media

When you include images in blog posts or pages, you can specify whether the image is "small", "medium" or "large". In the "Media" settings, you can also adjust what is meant when you insert a "large" image into posts or blog entries. So you define different parameters. If you have no particular reason for changing the image sizes, you can leave the settings as they are.

Permalinks

The permalinks area is also of interest. Here you decide the settings for your permalink structure.

WordPress  Basics Part 2: The WordPress  Dashboard

The permalink is the path that appears at the top of the browser when you go to your site. I recommend here using the "Post name" setting. The name is a bit confusing but this way the permalink appears as the blog post, or the page, instead of displaying the page ID. So www.yourwebsite.com/about appears in the browser rather than www.yourwebsite.com/pageid=1.

"Readable links" sound better, are easier to remember and search engines are happier.

You can also customize the permalink structure. Here in the magazine, for example, it contains not only the article name, but also the category.

WordPress  Basics Part 2: The WordPress  Dashboard

Data protection

Similar to the contributions page, the data protection page is a special page in the WordPress system. This setting has only existed since the GDPR. Here you can define which of your pages is the "data protection" page. If you don't have one yet, you can easily create one in the "pages" section.

Now we'll work our way up and have a look at the tools.

Tools

In this area you can find some (rarely used) functions. For example, you can import and export your blog posts here if you want to switch to another hoster. Some plugins are also stored in this area and you can export your members' data or "delete personal data". This function is interesting if you have built a community and one of your members wants to know what data you have saved about him or her. As these tools are rarely used and only come up in exceptional cases, I don't want to dwell on them too much.

Users

Here you define the users and their WordPress roles, i.e. the rights, or capabilities, of individual users for your website. You can also customize your own profile, upload a picture and create a text about yourself for your author profile. Whether and how this author profile appears, however, depends again on your WordPress theme. Here in the magazine, for example, my profile looks like this:

WordPress  Basics Part 2: The WordPress  Dashboard

Caution when assigning roles! Remember: "with great power comes great responsibility". So think carefully about whom you give what rights to on your website. I'll briefly outline the different roles below.

Administrator

Users assigned the WordPress role "administrator" are allowed to perform all tasks. For example, they can delete other administrators, change user roles or create new users. So you should only give this role to users you trust and who have used a secure password. Since administrators are allowed to change everything, they can potentially also ruin everything.

Editor

The editor is allowed to create, edit, publish and even delete their own and external posts. They may also create and edit categories and keywords.

Author

Users with the role "author" may create, edit and publish their own articles. In addition, they may upload photos and videos to the WordPress media library and can activate comments on their own posts.

Contributor

The contributor is allowed to create and edit their own articles, but not to publish them. Users with the role "contributor" can see the titles of other articles in the WordPress backend, but they cannot edit them. Contributors are thus quite restricted. A contributor role is useful, for example, if you want to allow other authors to create or add their own guest articles, but you want to be able to read the articles before publication.

Subscriber

The WordPress role "subscriber" has no editing capabilities. As a subscriber, you can leave comments under posts and edit your own profile. 

So far in this introduction we've covered the main areas where you can change your settings. Now we'll move on to the menu item "pages".

Pages

Here you create your pages and enter and edit their content. Some themes will automatically add the newly created page to your navigation when you click on "publish". Depending on the template, it is also possible that the created pages won't be visible straight away. If this is the case, you should have a look at "individual menus" in the "design" section but we will come back to that later on. 

The important sites

It's your website, you decide which pages you want to create. But a few are important to have and I recommend including them on your website.

  • Imprint: This site is mandatory!
  • Privacy: This site is also a must. For this, as described above, there is now a special site , which you define in the settings as THE privacy page.
  • Contact: This site is recommended for your contact details, phone, mail etc.
  • Homepage: This is your homepage. Here you can introduce yourself (like on my homepage) or list the core offer of your company and your Unique Selling Points (like on the homepage of Raidboxes)
  • Blog: This is the site with your blog posts. For example, this can also be called "News" or "News".

What does the perfect homepage look like?

In a related article, Felix Brodbeck explains how to win over your target audience with an elevator pitch on your home page.

Createsite

It's easier than you think. If you want to create a new site , just click on "create". You will probably end up in the Gutenberg editor, as it is the new default editor since WordPress 5.0. Gutenberg is very controversial in the WordPress community, which is why some use the option to turn it off. Therefore, you may also end up in the old "Classic Editor".

Both text editors are very easy to use and are almost like all familiar word processors. You can just get started straight away and try it out. As long as you don't click on "publish", there's not much you can do wrong at this point.

If you are only now starting out with WordPress, I recommend using the Gutenberg editor from the outset. Because the way things are going at the moment, it seems like the whole system is beginning to incorporate more and more Gutenberg features.

Attributes (For advanced users)

When you create a page, you can set attributes and so define the "parent" page of the one you are creating. This sounds strange but all it means is that you are determining the hierarchical page parent. Remember the permalinks? This setting refers to those.

How does it work? Imagine for a moment that you are a photographer and want to put your pictures online. You take pictures in two areas, cars and people, which you also want to present individually. You create a site "Gallery". This gallery-site has two subpages: People and Cars. For this to work, you specify in sites Cars and People that "Gallery" is the parent site . In the browser line it would look like this:

www.deinewebseite.de - the homepage
www.deinewebseite.de/galerie - the gallery
www.deinewebseite.de/impressum - the imprint
www.deinewebseite.de/galerie/menschen - your photos of people
www.deinewebseite.de/galerie/autos - your photos of cars

Just try it out and consider whether you need subpages at all.

This brings us to the next important menu item: posts

Posts

WordPress was originally a pure blog system. Over the years, has WordPress evolved considerably and new possibilities were added over time - including the creation of sites . In the meantime, WordPress has become a complete CMS, and the blogging function has even taken a back seat.

This menu item is only important if you want to use your WordPress as a blog. You can create and edit posts here, and manage categories and keywords.

If you want to create a post, just click on "create". The editor is also the Gutenberg editor, as described above in the pages section.

Categories

Under the item "Posts" you will also find the setting "Categories". Here you can sort your posts and assign them to different topics you want to blog about. When choosing a category, I recommend that you tend to use fewer. Of course, you can change categories later. However, you should think carefully about which categories you want to use. Because if the category is part of your URLs (see my explanation above about permalinks), the links will also change when you change a category. In this case, you should set up redirects so that your old links don't lead nowhere.

The categories of your site are clickable and have their own URL, like for example this site of the category "Online Marketing". This way, your visitors can view and read all posts of a certain category.

Tags

Keywords are welcome to be used in a larger number and are individual per blog post. While a post is usually only assigned to one category, it can have several keywords. Keywords are also called "tags" or "hashtags". Keywords are also clickable and have their own URL, such as this subpage with the tag "WooCommerce".

Categories versus tags

What's the difference? In short: Categories are topics of your blog. Keywords are then the specific keywords for them. For example, if you have a travel blog, then the categories would be round trip, city break, and at sea. These categories apply to the entire blog. If you now write a post about a trip with the Aida, the category might be "at sea" and the associated keywords for example Aida, Mediterranean, vacation, sun and ship.

But don't worry, you don't have to read too much into it right now and these definitions aren't set in stone. Especially at the start you can just spend time here trying things out. It's likely that you will develop the right sense for it over time by yourself.

Which brings us to the...

Plugins

With WordPress plugins you can extend the functionality of your website. Similar to themes, which we will discuss later, you can choose between free plugins, commercial plugins or have plugins developed. There are also plugins which are a mix of these categories, for example ones which have only limited free features and all other features need to be unlocked for a charge.

Via the submenu item "Install" you can install plugins, either directly from the WordPress plugin directory or by uploading a ZIP file. The latter is often the case if you have purchased a plugin. If you install from the plugin directory you can also see reviews and comments from other users, when the last update was made and other relevant information. Make sure that the plugin has good ratings and has been installed by plenty of other users.

Spoilt for choice

WordPress -Developer Torsten Landsiedel has 13 valuable tips for you in a further article on how to choose the right Plugin .

Comments

If you have allowed comments in the settings, you can view the individual comments here, approve them or mark them as spam. If you only run a website without a blog, I would disable the comments, i.e. do not allow commenting.

Media

Here you can see an overview of all your media such as photos, documents, videos, etc.. Everything you have uploaded appears here sorted by date. I recommend adding a description to each photo. This will increase the accessibility of your website and make it accessible to more people. I've described more about this in the post "Accessible websites benefit us all" here.

Design

Here you set the design (theme) and make adjustments to it. The nice thing about content management systems is that they manage and organize content and design templates separately from each other. That means you can manage the content by creating pages and blog posts and customize the design as you like and independently of the content. Managing design and content separately - that's a great thing. 

At WordPress there are thousands of free templates in the official Theme directory. You can also buy Themes or have one programmed directly. I use the terms Theme and template synonymously in this case; both refer to the design of your website. 

Finding the right theme

Due to the huge selection, it is not so easy to find the right WordPress -Theme . What you should consider, you can read in this article.

Customizer

In the Customizer you can customize your WordPress theme to your exact requirements. For example, you can adjust colors, layout or logos. The customizer looks different with every template, however, so I can't go into much detail here. But almost all themes come with instructions to guide you. 

Widgets

Widgets are comparable to small tiles that have a specific function. If you're using Windows 10, you might know the tiles from the Start menu.

Widgets can have a variety of different content:

  • Static, like text or an image.
  • Dynamic, such as your Twitter feed or an automatic listing of your most read posts.
  • WordPress content, for example an individual menu.

Sidebars

Sidebars are a type of area in the theme. Many WordPress themes have different sidebars, i.e. areas where widgets can be "dropped" into. Often sidebars are only on the side of the page, but they can also sometimes be in the header or footer area of your website.

Widgets and sidebars

Sidebars are certain areas of the website. Widgets are placed into the sidebar. Simply drag the desired widget with the mouse and drop it into the chosen sidebar.

Menus

Here you can create individual menus and display them in widgets, in the header or in the footer of your website. In combination with the hierarchical order of pages (the "parent pages" mentioned above) you can further individualize your site with custom menus. 

In my opinion, this feature is the most underestimated in the whole system.

Admittedly, it's quite confusing and seems pointless at first, but once you've played around with it a bit and tried it out, you'll really appreciate it.

For example, a good idea for a custom menu is to move the legal notice and data protection to a special menu that appears in the footer instead of the header section of your website. This way you don't "spoil" the main navigation and the legal notice is still visible. In addition, you can also put pages, categories or external links in individual menus.

Theme-Editor

If you are familiar with code, in the "Editor" section you can also work with every page

of the theme directly in code. Please only do that if you know what you're doing! You can do a whole lot of damage to your website otherwise.

If you want to change your Theme in the code, please read up on the topic "Child-Themes", otherwise the changes will be overwritten with the next Theme-Update.

Tips, security and updates

Homepage - WordPress Backend

This is where you will always land after login. In the overview you can see, for example, if you have received comments, whether updates are pending or if your blog is linked somewhere.

The updates are important. Please check your system regularly for updates if your hoster does not do it for you already.

Updates

My tip, if you prefer to take care of it yourself: do plugin and theme updates immediately but wait at least 2-3 days before completely updates of the WordPress core software.

Here you should also observe the WordPress community and determine whether a core update (update of the entire system) is wise or not. Usually these core updates work very well. In the past, however, some updates have led to massive errors. As with all updates, the same applies here: make a backup of your site!

You should delete unused plugins rather than simply deactivating them. This reduces the area on which your site can be attacked. Every additional plugin adds code and is therefore a potential security risk for your site.

One last tip: Professional WordPress hostas well as Raidboxes will gladly take care of these updates for you. Just adjust your hosting package and you don't have to worry about it anymore!

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