WordPress Tutorial - The Admin Panel

Home >> Blogging >> WordPress Tutorial

Installing WP | Admin Overview | Editing Your Design | Plugins

Now that you've installed WordPress, it's time to get familiar with the Admin panel. Start by navigating the main tabs on the left side of the screen.

The Dashboard

This is where you can get a quick view of what's happening with your blog. View recent comments, traffic stats, any theme updates, WordPress news and more.

Posts

Posts are the primary content of your blog and where you go to add new content. With most WordPress themes, Post content is sorted by date and category by default. So before you begin writing, you may want to take some time to setup some categories for your blog.

Let's say you have a fashion blog. You could go to the "Categories" section under "Posts" and setup 4 categories - Casual, Formal, Business Casual and After 5. Now when you begin creating new content, you can select which category the post will fall into.

When you're ready to create a new post, simply click "Add New" under the "Posts" category. (Make sure the section is expanded by clicking the drop-down arrow next to the category title.)

Media

The media section is where you go to upload images and video. You can either upload them from this area or you can do it directly from the "Edit Post" area when you're creating a new post or page.

Links

You can use the Links feature to further organize your content. Let's say you want 3 of your posts to appear under a heading called "Fashion No-No's." You plan to highlight these 3 posts in the navigation of your blog using that heading.

First, you would create a "Link Category" for these pages called "Fashion No-No's".

Now go to "Add New" under the "Links" category. For each post you want to appear in this category, you paste the full URL/address of the post and assign it to the "Fashion No-No's" category.

Now you'll be able to display this grouping of posts in the navigation of your blog very easily by using the Widgets feature (more on this in a bit.)

I am using the Links feature on my blog. Look in the right column (scroll down) where it says "Must Reads." This is a Link Category I created for my important posts.

Pages

You may remember that Posts are automatically displayed on your blog in chronological order. Pages are for timeless content that you want to display indefinitely. An About Me or Contact Us page would be an example of an instance when you'd want to create a page.

Comments

The Comments area allows you to view, edit, and delete visitor comments.

Appearance

This is where you manage the overall and look and feel of your blog.

Themes
Go here to find a new theme design for your blog.

Widgets
Widgets allow you to easily arrange various elements of your blog. Remember when I explained how to create the Link Category of "Fashion No-No's" above? Well you can look for the "Links" Widget and drag it onto your sidebar to display this link category on your blog.

You can do the same for other widgets such as the Calendar, Categories, Archives, etc. Once you drag the widget over to the sidebar of your blog, you can edit the title, text, etc.

Menus
Your theme probably comes with a default navigation menu, but you may want to create a customized menu that consists of various posts, pages, categories or links outside of your blog. For more details on how to setup your menu, see the WordPress Codex site.

Editor
This is where you can manually edit the actual files of your WordPress theme. Say you want to edit the header of your WordPress blog. You would need to edit the header.php file to make these changes.

Note: Always make a backup of the code before editing and saving your files.

Plugins

Plugins are scripts that give your blog additional functionality. Let's say you want a widget that will allow you to display your most commented posts on your blog's sidebar.

You can click the Plugins tab and select "Add New." In the search box type "most commented widget." You should see a list of plugins. View the details and when you find one you want to install, select "Install Now."

Now when you go to your Widgets area, you should see the "Most Commented" widget available for you to drag onto your blog sidebar.

I am using this widget on my blog. See the right hand column.

Note: Some plugins may require activation or recommend that you edit personal settings before they work properly. Many plugins automatically create new categories or sub categories in the left navigation of the WordPress Admin panel.

Plugins are a great way to enhance your blog. There are thousands of free plugins for you to choose from.

Users

WordPress allows you to create additional authors/contributors for your blog. This is where you go to create their account and set appropriate permissions.

Tools

You can export or import posts from this area. If you are moving from Blogger (or another platform) to WordPress and need to import your posts, click the "Import" link and follow the instructions.

If you are leaving WordPress and/or switching web hosts and need to export all your blog posts and comments, select the "Export" feature.

You may also find links to plugins you have installed in the Tools category.

Settings

This is a very important section of the WordPress Admin panel because you will setup basic information about your blog such as: your blog title, description, link structure (permalinks) privacy settings, comment settings and more.

Continue to Customizing Your WordPress Theme Design

Installing WP | Admin Overview | Editing Your Design | Plugins

More Blogging & RSS Articles

Read my Blog Posts About Blogging
Create RSS Feeds for a Static Website
My Review of the WordPress Thesis Theme
How I Doubled my Blog Traffic in 2 Months

If you liked this, please share. Thanks!