The WordPress Users Profile Section lets you specify your name and how to display it on your site, your e-mail address for administrative purposes, and other personal information and optional settings associated with your WordPress user account.
In this post you will learn how to change your WordPress user profile and configure optional contact information.
We will also show you how to set up a user information section that will automatically link your published content to the Author Archives section of your site and how to use this feature to better promote yourself and your business online.
How To Change Your User Profile And Personal Options In WordPress
At the far right-hand side of the Admin Toolbar is the Howdy, User Name section …
If you hover your mouse over this area it will expand with your Gravatar image, your name and username, and also links pointing to your “Profile Screen” and a “Log Out” link …
Select Edit My Profile…
Another way to edit your user profile from the main navigation menu is to go to Users > Your Profile …
This open up the Profile area …
The Profile area contains various subsections that let you view and edit information about your user account.
These include:
- Personal Options
- Name
- Contact Info
- About Yourself
- Password Settings
Let’s review each of these sections …
User Profile Fields
Please refer to the above screenshot as you go through the descriptions below.
Profile Section
1 – How To Access Your User Profile
As we’ve already explained, you can access your profile by clicking on the “Howdy, User Name” section 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 wouldyou would 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
Ticking the Disable the visual editor when writing box disables the visual editor and uses the plain HTML editor instead.
Tip: If ever you experience problems 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
In version 3.8, WordPress introduced a new design feature that allows you to customize the look of your WordPress Dashboard by changing your default WordPress color scheme …
WordPress User Profile: Changing Your Default WordPress Color Scheme
You can select a new global color scheme for your WP administration area from the default choices, or customize the color scheme using various WordPress plugins …
Although this will not affect what your site visitors see (themes control the external design of your website is controlled by your theme) or the functional aspects of your site, this feature can be used to brand the admin area with your corporate colors, or allowing users to personalize their own admin area.
To learn how to customize your WordPress dashboard, see the tutorial below:
4 – Keyboard Shortcuts
Ticking this box allow you to moderate comments using keyboard shortcuts.
5 – Toolbar
The Toolbar is located at the very top of your Administration screen and provides you (and your logged in site users) with access to a number of useful administrative functions, features, information and “quick links” to other areas of your site …
Important: Leave the “Show Toolbar when viewing site” checkbox enabled to display the Toolbar in your WP dashboard.
To learn more about the uses of the WordPress toolbar, see the tutorial below:
Profile > Name
6 – Name > Username
Your username cannot be changed in the User Profile screen by anyone, including the site administrator.
You can, however, change your username if you know how to edit your WordPress database.
You can also change the username from your WordPress Dashboard using an easier method that requires no code editing or messing around with your WordPress database.
Changing your username will affect your login, as this username is required for logging into your site!
We have created a tutorial that teaches you how to do this here:
Changing Your WP Username From Admin
6 – Name > First Name / Last Name
You can edit your First Name and Last Name data in this section.
Just type the first name and last name into the name fields …
7 – Name > Nickname / Display Name Publicly As
If you want a different author name other than the name you originally set up for your site to display on 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 in your profile section.
Once you select a new nickname, all your blog posts, published comments, etc. will appear with the new nickname, instead of the one you originally installed WordPress with.
Profile > Contact Info
8 – Contact Info > Email
Ensure that your correct email address is entered in the Email (required) field. This field is required (see “Notes” section below for more information).
9 – Contact Info > Website
Enter your website or blog URL into the Website field (optional).
If you have another website or business blog that you want to display in your profile, then enter the address 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 “WordPress User Profile: Additional Contact Information” section further 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 “User Profile: Tips” section further below.
12 – About Yourself > Password Settings
This section lets you change your login password details.
Use this section only if you are required to modify or reset your login password. You will need to confirm your new password before the system can accept the password change.
To learn more about what to do if you lose or forget your password in WordPress, go here:
What To Do If You Have Lost A Password In WordPress
13 – Log Out Of All Other Sessions
WordPress lets you log out everywhere except your current browser. This is useful if, for example, you have left your account logged in at a public computer, or if you’ve lost or misplaced your phone.
To learn more about how to log out of WordPress, see the tutorial below:
14 – Update Profile
Click “Update Profile” before leaving this section to save your changes …
Notes
- WordPress only requires your e-mail address and a nickname in your Profile section.
- Your email address is used only for admin purposes.
- Your email address is never sent to any other site (including WordPress) and it is never displayed on your site (unless you decided to publish it, or use a theme that has been encoded to display the email address).
- Only registered users of your blog can access the email address you have provided.
- Every email address must be unique.
Also …
Adding certain plugins to your site (e.g. for adding social media features), may insert or remove fields in your User Profile screen (e.g. add a Facebook URL field, display additional functionality fields related to the plugin, etc…)
There are various plugins that let you modify user profile fields. You can find a number of free plugins by typing in keywords like “user profile fields” in the “Add Plugins” section inside your dashboard …
See Tip #3 in the “Your Profile: Tips” section further below for an example of a free plugin that lets you hide unnecessary fields in your Profile area.
WordPress User Profile: Additional Contact Info
As mentioned earlier, your User Profile screen has a number of fields that allow you to enter extra contact information such as:
- AIM screen name
- Yahoo! Messenger ID
- Jabber / Google Talk name
Normally, most users just ignore these fields. Some WordPress theme developers, however, may choose to display this and other contact information in their themes.
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.
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 allows you to connect and chat with friends from any web browser or mobile device …
Jabber / Google Talk
Although this field says “Jabber / Google Talk”, clicking on the link actually takes you the Google Hangouts website.
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 …
Tip: If you plan to run webinars on your website using Google Hangouts, then check out this article we’ve written about a great plugin that lets you create a business-level video conferencing platform on your website with Google Hangouts:
RunClick – WordPress Video Conferencing Software
WordPress User Profile: Additional Information
Tip #1: Check the “Show Toolbar when viewing site box is ticked inside the Toolbar information area 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 of your blog posts …
After you have set this up, a link to the author displaying your specified 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 publishing content on your site) and see other blog posts that you (or your guest users) have published …
You can even include hyperlinks and simple text formatting like bold and italicized words to improve your author description and promote yourself, your services, products, other websites, etc. to site visitors …
This can easily be done by typing HTML formatted content into the About Yourself > Biographical Info box in your Profile section …
Tip #3 (Advanced User): Hide User Profile Fields
You can install a simple WP plugin called Hide User Profile Fields that automatically hides the following fields from your site’s user profiles and creation pages when activated:
- Admin Color Profile
- Keyboard Shortcuts
- Toolbar
- AIM
- Jabber
- Yahoo IM
- Website
- Biographical Info field
- User Role (every new user is added as “Subscriber”)
To learn more, visit the plugin page here: Hide User Profile Fields – WordPress Plugin
Congratulations! Now you know how to change your user profile in WordPress.
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