Category: WordPress • Est. reading time: 2 minutes
You are in. Welcome to your first look behind the curtain of your WordPress website. The screen that greets you after you log in is called the Dashboard, and if it feels like a lot at first glance, take a breath. By the end of this guide it will feel like your own kitchen: you will know where everything lives and what it is for.
The Dashboard Home Screen
The main Dashboard is your at-a-glance view, made up of small panels called widgets: site activity, a quick-draft box, WordPress news, and a Site Health summary. You can rearrange or hide these using Screen Options in the top corner.
The Left Menu, Top to Bottom
Dashboard is home base plus Updates. Posts is your blog articles. Media is your uploaded files. Pages is your standalone pages like About and Contact. Comments is where you moderate. Appearance is your themes and design. Plugins are your add-ons. Users manages accounts. Tools handles import, export, and Site Health. Settings is the control room, with a separate guide for each screen.
The Content Types You Will Work With
Posts vs. Pages is the one that confuses everyone. Posts are dated and stack up in your blog feed, using categories and tags. Pages are timeless and standalone and do not use them. If it is news, it is a post. If it is a permanent part of your site, it is a page.
Categories and tags sort your posts: categories are the chapters, tags are the index. You will also work with images and galleries, other media like PDFs and video, and eventually custom post types as your site grows.
A friendly nudge: the fastest way to get comfortable is to click around on a site that is not live yet. Nothing publishes until you tell it to.
Want a Guided Tour Instead?
Having someone walk you through your own site beats reading about it. That is what our live, one-on-one classes are for. Grab a spot at allydrez.com/learn-how-to-use-wordpress.