Admin Panel

When you created the wordpress install you were given a username and password. In order to access the log in screen all you have to do it type /wp-admin after your URL. For example your site name is www.yoursite.com just add that after for www.yoursite.com/wp-admin in your URL bar and go(or enter). If you installed your wordpress into a folder such as blog ex: www.yoursite.com/blog then you have to add /wp-admin after. www.yoursite.com/blog/wp-admin.
Enter your username and password into the fields and you will be going into the dashboard, this is where all the editing begins. Why wordpress is so popular is gives you the ability to “build” a website without knowing any code. The popularity has driven developers to create plugins and widgets that you “add on” so that you can do almost any function on your site that you want without knowing a single bit of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP or JQuery.

At the top is the admin bar that says your sitename, and some other info we will go over later. Most times if you go to your site you will be automatically logged in and see this bar above and your “admin” name to the top right. If you hover over the site name at the top left in dashboard mode it gives you the option to view the site as it looks. If you hover over the same name in “visit site” mode it gives you options to go back to the dashboard and some other settings. In the latest wordpress update it changed the appearance slightly, but most of the functionality is the same. Down the left side of the dashboard are options that we will go over one by one in further articles. If you hover over them it gives you options for each menu item and if you click on the menu item it brings up the same options in a full screen mode.

Appearance

 

We are going to skip down to the menu item “appearance” on the admin page because this is where you should start. If you hover over it you see some items, themes, customize, widgets, menus, header, background, editor. This is probably where you will spend the most time customizing the appearance. The reason we are starting here is you are going to want to find a theme for your site. I am going to use breadcrumbs so that you always know where to go when i reference a screen, so now you are going to click appearance and themes, breadcrumb version is appearance>themes it will now show you all the installed themes. These are basic and actually usable if you like them. For now i want you to click add new at the top. It brings you to the install themes screen with options of search|upload|Featured|Newest|Recently Updated at the top. Make sure you are in the search screen, I recommend searching with a few options checked off and seeing whats out there. Also google wordpress themes free or premium to see some of the themes available to download. The reason we are starting here is you dont want to customize a theme and the next one doesnt have the same placement options, so its a good idea to get a theme in place of something that you like as a jumping off point. Find a theme you like and bookmark it or write it down, because next article will be on how to upload and install the theme you want and look at its options.