Understanding WordPress Dashboard Basics – Step 2

There is so much to learn about WordPress and Blogging. But working over your blog is an easy task . You just have to follow the step by step procedure of running it properly. If you wander here and there in the web world of WordPress and blogging. You wont be able to understand what you need to do first. So do read and learn before you login and start using wordpress dashboard.

In one my last post I gave a short introduction about How to make your Blog in less than 15 minutes using Blue host.  So when you are done with

1. Selecting your wordpress domain,
2. Making the payments and
3. Than installing wordpress site in your Bluehost hosting serivce (by logging into bluehost and Installing WordPress, Blue host will do the rest itself)

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You will than have to write your URL as www.yourwebsitename.com/admin which will make you reach to a page somewhat like this :

You  will use the USERNAME and PASSWORD that you have given in BLUEHOST Cpanel details while installing your wordpress platform there. And yes ! Remember that you will only have to recall this only URL for loging into your wordpress site.

[box] Note : If you dont have a self-hosted domain and hosting service. You can simply go to www.wordpress.com and get yourself registered for a free blog. The Dashboard for the free blog is almost the same that of a self-hosted WordPress Blog. Its just that you dont have enough control over your free blog as much as you have in a self-hosted one.[/box]

When you sign in , You will get to the WORDPRESS DASHBOARD main page which will show you the current improvements and updates about its development. Off course you dont have to get into those details. It is just the WordPress.org news about its Updates.

As you can see from the image above that wordpress has improved to 4.2.2. Every now and than you will see further improvements in it platform. So this will be the first thing that you will see after you LOGIN. What you need to next is just Click on the DASHBOARD  in the left menu at the top. And this is what you will see :

Now this might look confusing to you at the first sight but I have mentioned every portion of it with arrows and text. So in wordpress, the dashboard is the whole picture of your website that includes:

1. On the Very TOP MENU, you can see the NEW option which will than open another sub menu that asked you to create a new page, post, media or user.  This Menu also lets you Sign out of your website site which you can see at the Right corner of the menu. It will either ask you to edit your profile or Sign out.
2. You will see the WELCOME TO WORDPRESS BOX which has alot of options for you to start. This includes:
   • CUSTOMIZING YOUR SITE: Which is basically talking about making changes in your CURRENT THEME. or below that you can see it also says CHANGE YOUR THEME COMPLETELY.
   • Next, it says WRITE YOUR FIRST POST . Note that this option is different than the QUICK DRAFT BOX which is just below it. Write a new Post includes a lot of features in it. The Quick Draft box is just a DRAFT. It wont publish anything.
   • You can Add an ABOUT PAGE. (There is a difference between a page and a post)
   • You can View your site. Which means View your Existing theme. Note that whatever you are doing here is the BackEnd and this VIEW your site option show you the FRONT END of your website.
   • Don’t bother about the MENU and WIDGET section at the moment i will be discussing that in my coming posts.
   • You can also turn your Comment on or Off.  I would recommend it to leave it ON
   • The LEARN MORE ABOUT GETTING STARTED is a guide for the beginners in case if they have no idea about where to start.
3. The AT A GLACE BOX has details about How many posts , pages and comments you have in total. Since it would be your new blog so it will only have first sample post , page and comment that you will have to remove when you begin with your first post.
4. It has ACTIVITY BOX which shows the recently published posts of yours and the comments received. Since we havent done anything yet. So it is showing that sample post and comment.
5. The QUICK DRAFT BOX where you can just start writing about anything that comes up in your mind. This does not published your post. It only drafts it. So you can edit it later on.
6. The WORDPRESS NEWS BOX which are the updates about the WordPress Platform.

When you click over the VIEW YOUR SITE option, this is how your site will look at the front end with its default theme .

I think its enough for a beginner to understand WordPress Basics. There is much to be said about the whole platform in the coming Posts. Subscribe to my website to receive all the How-to details about WordPress.