How do I use the WordPress back office?

A username. A password. A quick click on the "Log in" button. And there you go, you're connected to WordPress back office. 

It is from this strategic control center that you can do almost anything on your website.

The question remains: how do you use it correctly to get the most out of it? This article will reveal everything you need to know. 

By the end of this article, you will know what the WordPress back office is used for. And most importantly,  how to use it best to manage your website, thanks to our dozens of tips and practical advice.

 

What is the WordPress back office?

The WordPress back office refers to the administration interface of your website. It corresponds to your dashboard. Accessible from a login page on which you must enter a username and password, this space allows the administrator to manage and personalize their website.

 It is from this nerve center that you can: 

• to proceed updates of your themes, extensions and the WordPress Core (i.e., its basic files and folders); 
• add content (articles, pages, media); 
• to influence the appearance of your site via your WordPress theme; 
• make various adjustments (permalinks, comments, privacy, users etc.); 
• integrate new features thanks to WordPress plugins; 
• add new users and manage them (roles etc).

A private interface with more or less restricted use

The CMS back office (Content Management SystemWordPress also has some unique characteristics: 

• no knowledge of coding is not required to administer it;
• it is, in a way, a'a private interface' which can only be accessed by people with a user account (administrator, editor, author, contributor and subscriber).
  The range of actions allowed then depends on the rights granted to the user.
  An administrator has full privileges: they can modify anything they want in the back office. Whereas a subscriber can only modify their profile;
• access to the WooCommerce back office It's done in the same way as for a standard showcase website. You access it via your login page and then find the options for your WordPress ecommerce website in your admin sidebar.

What is the difference between the WordPress back office and the front office?

Before proceeding, it is important to understand what differentiates the back office from the front office of WordPress. 

As you just read, the back office is only accessible to people with a user account. It's essentially the invisible part of your WordPress site.

Conversely, the front office – literally the front end – refers to the public-facing part of your WordPress site. This is what your visitors see when they view your pages from a web browser.

To use an analogy, one could say that The front office is like a shop window. : everyone can see it.

The back office, on the other hand, is similar to the reserveOnly authorized persons (the shop managers) may enter to manage stock, conduct inventory, etc.

In the jargon, we also talk about front-end and back-end development. Front-end development focuses on modifying the visual appearance of a website (it acts on the front office), while back-end development consists of working on the elements invisible to visitors (server or host, application, database), i.e., on the back office. 

How do I access the WordPress back office?

The standard procedure 

After this theoretical presentation, let's move on to the practical side by detailing how to access the WordPress back office (WordPress back office, in English).

In this regard, you might be wondering What is the address of the WordPress back office? Indeed, it is essential in order to be able to connect to your administration. 

By default, this address always includes your domain name (e.g., yoursite.fr). This is your website's address on the internet. 

You must then add one of the following two elements to your domain name: 

1. Is /wp-admin.
2. Is /wp-login.php.

In summary, if you wish to access the back office of your WordPress website, you must enter the following URL in your web browser: votresite.fr/wp-admin.

If you are not already logged in, WordPress will automatically redirect you to its login page, accessible via this URL (votresite.fr/wp-login.php).

You will then be taken to the page below, which asks you to enter your username or email address, as well as a password. These two pieces of information are required to access the back office.

The case of subdomains and subdirectories

The connection method via /wp-admin ou /wp-login.php will work for all sites that have not changed their back office login URL (this is a good security practice and we will explain how to implement it a little later in this article). 

If you are unable to access the WordPress login page via a default URL (e.g., monsite.fr/wp-admin), it's probably because: 

• The webmaster of the site in question changed the URL of the login page. to protect against pirate attacks; 
• The site is hosted on a subdomain. (ex: maintenance.votresite.fr) or a subdirectory (e.g.: votresite.fr/maintenance).
  In this case you will need to enter maintenance.votresite.fr/wp-admin to access the WordPress back office of a site using a subdomain.
  Or votresite.fr/maintenance/wp-admin to access the admin of a site located in a subdirectory. 

Once logged in, you can perform many operations, some more technical than others. Let's detail them in the next section.

What are the main features of the back office?

Introducing the WordPress back office dashboard

You are now on your WordPress dashboard. To simplify, it can be divided into 3 parts: 

1. The sidebar located on your left (1)It contains the different menus of your site, in order to perform basic actions (e.g. adding an article or a photo).
2. The upper bar, or top bar (2), which provides direct access to creation options (article, media file, page, account). You can also edit your profile and log out in the section on the right, under the heading "Hello, webmaster" (webmaster is the username for this test site).
3. The central part (3)organized into sections or tabs that you can move manually. Depending on the tab, you can see, among other things, the health status of your site, published content, the active theme, published comments, or recent WordPress events.

Speaking of which, we're going to take a look at the different menus offered in the sidebar of your back office. 

Tips Remember to update your plugins, themes, and WordPress core as soon as updates are available. You can access them via the Dashboard > Updates menu. 

Trick If you click on the "Screen Options" menu located at the top of your administration interface, you can choose to show/hide the panels of your choice. To do this, simply check or uncheck the boxes corresponding to the tab of your choice. 

Articles and Pages

It is from your back office that you can add or modify articles and pages.

To add a post, click on Posts > Add. To organize them, you can also add categories and tags. 

To add a page, click on Pages > Add. 

Tips Articles and pages are two different types of content. A post contains dynamic content, linked to a publication date. This is the format you would use to publish on your blog, for example. A page contains "cold" content, meaning timeless content. Unlike articles, "pages are designed for non-chronological content." explains the official WordPress documentationIf you want to present your company's service offerings, for example, you will write a page. 

If you go to the Articles > All articles or Pages > All pages menu, you will have an overview of the different content you have published. 

Several pieces of information will be displayed, such as the publication date and the author of the content. You can also perform several actions: edit, delete, view content, etc.

Practical tip If you want to easily customize the columns in your administration interface, use the extension Admin ColumnsThanks to it, you can display many additional options such as a Featured Image in the list of your articles/pages, the number of words and the excerpt of a content etc.

Media

Using the "Media" menu, you can add different types of media, such as images, sounds, videos, documents, spreadsheets, etc.

To do this, upload the files of your choice or drag and drop them via the Media > Add menu.

You can change their display mode by clicking on one of the two icons below:

Trick To avoid significantly impacting your website's page load speed, compress your images using a plugin like ImagifyIf you plan to add videos, try not to upload them directly to your site. This will overload your database and slow down your site's speed. Instead, add a direct link within your content from a video hosted on a platform like YouTube or Vimeo.

Comments

As its name suggests, the WordPress "Comments" menu lists all comments (published or pending publication) on your site.

Specifically, you can approve them, mark them as undesirable, or delete them. 

Trick To limit spam comments, activate the essential extension Akismet on your administration interface. 

WordPress Appearance Menu

The Appearance menu allows you to install or modify a theme. WordPress requires a theme to function. A theme controls the visual appearance of your site.

By default, WordPress will activate one of its native themes when you install it. These themes begin with "Twenty" something. 

For example, while writing this article, We used WordPress version 6.2.2, which came with the Twenty Twenty Three theme.. 

The native themes are very well designed, lightweight, and efficient. However, they offer limited customization options for a beginner.

If this is your situation, we recommend that you opt for one of the themes below, which will be more comprehensive: 

• Astra ; 
• cadence ; 
• GeneratePress ; 
• Blocky ;
• Neve.

Furthermore, you can easily integrate it with a page builder such as the Divi Builder ou Elementor to create even more advanced layouts.

If you are using a block-based theme, i.e. one compatible with the Site Editor, you will have direct access to this editor via the Appearance > Editor menu.

From there, you will be able to modify all areas of your site, from the header to the footer, including the body of the page.

You can also Customize your page templates and menus with this editor.However, we primarily recommend this editor to people experienced with WordPress and with a solid foundation in web design.

For beginners, it's best to use one of the themes mentioned earlier. If you use one of them, such as Astra, your Appearance menu will be more comprehensive. 

You will have options for creating menus, and the theme's visual customization will be done using the Customizer. This can be accessed via the Appearance > Customize menu.

Extensions

Let's continue our guided tour of the back office with an introduction to the "Extensions" menu. An extension, or plugin, allows you to add features to your site without coding.

There are nearly 60,000 of them on the official WordPress directory in multiple areas (SEO, security, performance, design, etc.).

As with articles and pages, you can find the list of all your extensions (active or inactive) in Extensions> Installed Extensions.

You can access their settings, disable and remove them, or enable automatic updates.

To help you see things more clearly, here are some essential extensions to activate on WordPress: 

• an SEO extension as SEOPress, Yoast SEO ou Rank Math ; 
• un security plug-in as Wordfence, IThemes Security ou SecuPress ; 
• an anti-spam extension like Akismet; 
• an extension to speed up loading speed of your pages as WP Rocket ; 
• a backup extension as UpdraftPlus ; 
• an extension to reduce the size of your images like Imagify. 

Tips If possible, avoid activating too many extensions on your site. The more extensions you host, the more likely you are to negatively impact your page load speed, which is bad for user experience (UX). At the same time, remove extensions you no longer use to avoid overloading your database. Finally, don't install duplicate plugins. For example, use only one SEO, security, or backup extension at a time to avoid compatibility issues. 

Accounts

The "Accounts" menu lists the different users who have access to your site, along with their respective roles. 

As a reminder, WordPress offers different roles : 

• the administrator accesses all administrative features; 
• publisher can publish and manage publications, including publications from other users;
• the author can publish and manage their own messages;
• the contributor can write and manage their own articles but cannot publish them;
• the subscriber can only manage their own profile.

In the Accounts > Profile menu, you can modify certain information on your profile, such as your password, your photo, your email or the name to be displayed publicly on your site.

Tips If you manage a WordPress multisite networkYou will have the role called "Super Admin", which has the power to administer the entire network.  

Tools

Let's move on to the second-to-last menu in your interface: "Tools". This is where you can import or export data. 

Also note that you have access to your site's Health. WordPress informs you of critical issues and recommends actions you can take to improve performance or user experience.

Settings

Let's finish this section with the "Settings" menu. This is where you can configure many options related to comments, permalinks, media, and the privacy of your site. 

We won't go into the details of each setting; that's not the purpose of this article. However, here are some best practices to adopt at home: 

• Choose a default category for your articles in the Settings > Writing menu. And most importantly, Remove the "Uncategorized" category which is of no use to your visitors or search engines; 
• Do not check the box "Ask search engines not to index this site" in the Settings > Playback menu. Otherwise, your site will not appear in search engine results pages and will be invisible;
• to combat comment spam, check the following boxes in Settings > Comments: "The author of a comment must provide their name and email address" and "The comment must be manually approved". Finally, uncheck the box "Enable nested comments up to X levels";

• check the structure of your permalinks either set to "Post title" (in Settings > Permalinks).

By now, you should be much more familiar with the WordPress back office. You know how it's organized and have the basics to manage and administer it correctly.

To go further, we will now reveal tips to strengthen its security and personalize it to your liking. 

How to customize your website's back office?

How do I change the URL of the login page to my WordPress back office?

A good practice for securing access to your administration is to change the URL of your login page (votresite.fr/wp-admin ou votresite.fr/wp-login.php).

This will help limit brute-force attacks. These are automated login attempts made by bots.

These individuals enter combinations of usernames and passwords to try to access your dashboard and hack you. 

If your login page is not accessible via the default WordPress URL, you will make their lives much more complicated. 

In addition, the fewer brute-force attacks you experience, the more bandwidth you save on your hosting server. In terms of performance, this is always a significant advantage.

Tips To limit brute-force attacks, you can either take advantage of an option offered by a general-purpose security plugin like iThemes Security or SecuPress, or opt for a dedicated plugin like Limit Login Attempts Reloaded.

Activate the WPS Hide Login plugin to limit login attempts to the WordPress back office

To protect access to your WordPress admin panel, you can of course use code. However, this remains a technical solution.

You need to be sure of what you are doing and make the changes in the right place to avoid errors that would make your site inaccessible.

The safest and fastest way is to use a plugin called WPS Hide Login. 

Once you've activated it, go to Settings > WPS Hide Login. At the bottom of the page, you'll find a section called "WPS Hide Login". In this section, enter a new login URL after your domain name.

Choose something incomprehensible, for example with a combination of numbers and letters (lowercase and uppercase):

In the box below, you can also enter a redirect URL for when someone tries to access the page. wp-login.php and in the repertoire wp-admin while he is not connected.

Because this plugin renders the directory wp-admin and the page wp-login.php If they are inaccessible, remember to note your new login URL in a text file on your computer and add it to your browser's favorites.

If you ever find yourself unable to access your new login page, disable or remove the WPS Hide Login plugin from your preferred FTP client (e.g., FileZilla). 

Tips Some general-purpose security plugins, such as iThemes Security, also allow you to change the URL to access the WordPress admin area. If this is the case with your plugin, there's no need to use WPS Hide Login.
While you're at it, take advantage of your security extension to enable two-factor authentication, as well as an application firewall if these features are available. 
Finally, remember to use strong passwords, for example using a free online password generatorThis will strengthen the security of your WordPress website. 

How do I customize the back office login page?

Once your new WordPress admin login page is more secure, you can start customizing it. 

By default, this page lacks personality and identity, with its gray background and WordPress logo. If you ever create websites for clients, You can design a custom page for them. using one of the following extensions: 

• Login designer ; 
• Custom Login Page Customizer ; 
• LoginPress.

Login Designer, for example, offers ready-made templates for the WordPress login page. 

You can also customize each section of the page to adapt it to your overall communication and brand image: 

• the background;
• the username and password fields; 
• the different texts; 
• the login button; 
• the site logo;
• the error messages that will be displayed.

It's also possible to add a language switcher and Google reCAPTCHA. Next, we'll show you how to customize the style (colors, etc.) of your WordPress back office. 

How do I change the style of my WordPress back office?

With the WordPress Accounts menu

By default, the creative options offered by WordPress are quite limited for designing an interface that reflects your style. 

However, you still have the option to change the color scheme of your administration interface. 

To do this, go to the Accounts > Profile > Colors menu in the administration interface. You can choose from 9 different communication options:

With an extension or theme

To go further, you can, as is often the case, use a dedicated plugin. We already mentioned the excellent Admin Columns at the beginning of this article; it's not the only one. 

To customize the appearance, display, and communication of your administration panel to your liking, we recommend you take a look at the following plugins: 

• Ultimate Dashboard, to design a personalized dashboard; 
• White Label CMSto add your brand to the header and footer, customize the dashboard and control the menus that are displayed to your client; 
• Admin Menu Editor et WP Custom Admin Interface, to manually edit your dashboard menus (reorganize menus, show/hide certain menus, modify permissions etc); 
• Adminimize, to remove certain menus depending on the user's role.

Tips Note that there are also WordPress back-office themes that include multiple features to customize your WordPress back office. This is the case, for example, with the premium theme. Adminify. 

How do I share my access to the WordPress back office?

To conclude this article, we will show you what options are available to you if you wish to share access to your administration interface with a third party.

This is a procedure that will be... Essential if you work with other collaborators (e.g., writers) or with clients. 

Methodology for a production site

Let's first consider the case of a site that is already online (in production).

Let's imagine you are the site administrator and you need to grant access to your back office to a technician, for example for an operation of WordPress support.

First of all, never share your administrator username and password with anyone, even if you trust the person.

A good practice is to create a new user, assigning them the role of your choice. 

Create a new user 

To do this, go to the Accounts menu > Add. Fill in the requested information and remember to include:

• create a strong passwordWordPress has a very handy automatic generator for this; 
• Check the box "Send an email to the person about their account" so that she receives a notification to be able to log in;
• choose the appropriate user roleFor a writer, the role of contributor or even author (if you want the person to be able to publish) is sufficient.
  For an external service provider (such as a maintenance or support technician), you may sometimes need to consider creating an administrator account so that they can access all WordPress options.

Once the person has completed their task or no longer needs to log in to your site, you take control of the next steps. Therefore, remember to delete their account in Accounts > All accounts.

Tips : The plug-in Temporary Login without Password This allows you to configure temporary access to WordPress. The extension generates a link that lets you log in to WordPress without a username or password. As an administrator, you can, for example, set how long someone can log in to your site without needing to create an account for them. You can also assign them the user role of your choice. This is a great solution if you don't want to create accounts for different users for very occasional use (e.g., when a developer or agency is working on your website). 

Method for a locally installed website

If you create websites for yourself or your clients (as an agency or freelancer), you may be used to working locally. 

It's convenient for creating your layouts without any hassle. And if you run into any problems, you're working on your own machine, so there's no risk of crashing a live website. 

Yes, but here's the thing. What happens if your client (agency or individual) asks you to access your back office, for example to see the progress of your work... and their future website? 

At first glance, this seems impossible, unless you use the tool Local News (e.g., Local by Flywheel). 

Okay, let's be a little more measured. Technically, you won't be able to grant back office access to your client (and/or their team if it's an agency).

However, the person will be able to see see what the front-office rendering looks like thanks to a feature called Live Link. An explanatory tutorial is available here.. 

That's already pretty good, and it's actually impossible to do with tools like MAMP or XAMPP. So take advantage of it!

Summary

Thanks to your WordPress back office, you can manage and customize your site as you wishThroughout these lines, you have discovered: 

• What is the purpose of this interface? 
• how to access it; 
• What are its main features?
• how to customize and secure it;
• how to share your access with a third party. 

Thanks to our practical tips and tricks, you now know how to make the best use of your administration interface. 

Are you experiencing a bug, a display problem, or facing a hack that prevents you from accessing your back office?

Contact the WP Maintenance teamAvailable 7 days a week. our WordPress support service will offer you a tailor-made solution that will meet your needs with speed, professionalism and efficiency.