Your Profile Section lets you configure your name and how to display it on your website or blog, your e-mail address for admin purposes, and additional information and personal options associated with your WordPress user account.
In this article you will learn about editing WordPress user profiles.
We will also show you how to create a user information box that will display in 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 WordPress User Profile
On 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 links to your “Profile Screen” and a “Log Out” link …
Select Edit My Profile…
You can also edit your user profile using the dashboard navigation menu by going to Users > Your Profile …
This brings you to the Profile section …
The Profile page contains a number of subsections that let you manage information about your user account.
These include:
- Personal Options
- Name
- Contact Info
- About Yourself
- Password Settings
Let’s now review each of these options …
User Profile Fields
Please refer to the screenshot above as you work through the descriptions below.
Main User Profile Screen
1 – Accessing Your Profile
As mentioned previously, you can always access your profile by clicking on the “Howdy, User Name” section at the very top right hand corner of your dashboard 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 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
Checking this box disables the visual editor and uses the plain HTML editor instead.
Tip: If you experience issues when trying to insert code into your pages or posts (e.g. HTML), try disabling the visual editor checkbox in this section.
3 – Admin Color Scheme
WordPress lets you customize the look of your WordPress Dashboard by changing the default WordPress color scheme …
WordPress User Profile: Customizing Your Default WordPress Color Scheme
You can select a new color scheme for your WordPress administration area from the default choices provided, or add a custom color scheme using various WordPress plugins …
Although this will not affect what your blog visitors see (the external design of your site is controlled by your theme) or the functionality of your site or blog, this feature can be used for branding the dashboard with your corporate colors, or allowing other site users to personalize their own dashboard.
To learn how to further customize your WordPress dashboard, see the tutorial below:
Customizing Your WP Dashboard Screen
4 – Keyboard Shortcuts
Checking the “Enable keyboard shortcuts for comment moderation” box allow you to navigate quickly and perform actions on comments using keyboard shortcuts.
5 – Toolbar
The WordPress Toolbar is located at the very top of your Administration screen and provides you (and your users) with access to various admin 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 WordPress dashboard area.
To learn more about the uses of the WordPress toolbar, see the tutorial below:
Understanding The WP Dashboard
Profile > Name
6 – Name > Username
Your username cannot be changed in the Profile screen by anyone, including the site admin.
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 WordPress database.
Changing your username will affect your login, as this username is required for logging into your WordPress site!
We have created a step-by-step tutorial that shows you how to do this here:
Changing Your WordPress Admin Username
6 – Name > First Name / Last Name
You can change your 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 one you originally registered for your site or blog on your posts, then change the Nickname (required) field and select another nickname from the Display name publicly as drop down menu …
You can add multiple nicknames to your profile section.
Once you select a new nickname, all your posts, comments, etc. will appear with the new nickname, instead of the one that you originally registered 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 address 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 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, see the “Your Profile: Useful Tips” section below.
12 – About Yourself > Password Settings
Here you can change your login password details.
Use this section only if you need to change your login password. You will need to confirm the new password before the system can accept the password change.
For a tutorial that teaches you you reset login passwords in WordPress, go here:
13 – Log Out Of All Other Sessions
WordPress lets you log out of all current sessions 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.
For more information about logging out securely in WordPress, see this tutorial:
14 – Update Profile
Don’t forget to click “Update Profile” if you change any details in your profile to update your profile settings …
Notes: User Profile
- WordPress only requires your e-mail address and a nickname.
- Your email address is used only for your site administration.
- Your email address is never sent to any other site (including WordPress) and it is never displayed on your site (unless you display it, or use a specific WordPress theme that has been encoded to display your email address).
- Only registered users of your blog can access the email address you have entered.
- Every email address must be unique.
Also …
Adding certain plugins to your site (e.g. for adding social media features), may add or remove fields in your User Profile screen (e.g. add a Twitter username field, display extra fields related to the plugin, etc…)
There are a number of plugins that allow you to change user profile fields. You can find a number of free plugins by going to Add Plugins and searching for “user profile fields” inside your dashboard …
See Tip #3 in the “Useful Tips Related To Your Profile” section below for an example of a free plugin that lets you remove unnecessary fields in your Profile area.
User Profile: Additional Contact Information
As mentioned previously, your 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
Most users simply ignore these fields. 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 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”, 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 …
Tip: If you plan to run business webinars on your site using Google Hangouts, then see this article we’ve written about a great plugin that lets you manage a professional video conferencing platform on your WP site with Google Hangouts:
RunClick – Webinar And Video Conferencing Plugin For WordPress
Useful Tips Related To Your User Profile
Tip #1: Make sure that Show Toolbar when viewing site is enabled in the Toolbar section of your Profile page …
Tip #2: Your user profile gives you an additional opportunity to promote your business to your site visitors.
As mentioned earlier, you can add a Nickname and/or select a different name to display as the author on your blog posts …
Once you have set this up, a link to the author displaying your chosen nickname gets added to every blog post published on your site …
Clicking on the author link takes your site visitors to the Author Archives section, where people can learn more about you (or about other authors registered as users on your site) and see what other blog posts that you (or your guest authors) have published …
You can include hyperlinks and text formatting like bold and italicized words to improve your author description and promote yourself, your services, products, other websites, etc. to your site visitors …
This can be easily done by typing HTML formatted text into the About Yourself > Biographical Info text area in your Profile section …
Tip #3 (Advanced User): How To Hide User Profile Fields
If you plan to run a website that restricts what users can do, you can install a simple plugin called Hide User Profile Fields that automatically hides a number of fields when activated, such as:
- Color Scheme
- Keyboard Shortcuts
- Toolbar
- AIM
- Google Talk
- Yahoo IM
- Website field
- Biographical Info field
- User Role (every new user is registered as “Subscriber”)
To learn more, visit the plugin page here: WP Plugin – Hide User Profile Fields
Congratulations! You have just learned how to edit your user profile and personal options in WordPress.
[su_shadow style=”right”][su_panel shadow=”none”]
Do You Need Help To Manage Your WordPress Site?
The WordPress Maintenance Plan will take the stress out of running your site, allowing you to take care of business…
[/su_panel][/su_shadow]
Disclaimer: This site is not associated with WordPress or any of the WordPress products written about on this site. We may derive a financial benefit from sales of products advertised, reviewed or linked to from this site. The product images used in this review have been sourced from the plugin’s own website.
