How to Add Users to Your WordPress Website

Whether you hire an employee or a writer to add content and make edits, you’ll need to create a user for them. You may be thinking, “I can just give them the login credentials,” which is insanity. Maybe you’ve never seen a disgruntled employee or you create a new password for every single application, but most of us need the security of our unique passwords to protect our applications from other people. Because of this need for security, I’m going to show you how to add users to your WordPress website.

The first thing you need to do is log into your WordPress account or wp-admin page. Once you’re logged in, go down to the Users section on the menu to the left. The picture below shows you how the page will look.

When you get to the Users page, by default you’ll land on the All Users page. However, there are 3 optional pages you can navigate to including All Users, Add New, and Your Profile. Below I’ll give you a brief overview of each page.

WordPress User Pages

User Pages- All Users

The first page you land on, as I mentioned above, is the All Users page. This is where you’ll see everyone who has access to your website. In addition to seeing the user’s username, you’ll see the following information:

• Username
• First and last name
• Email address
• Role
• Number of posts they’ve published

Now that you know what you can see on the All Users page, let’s go over the next page which is Add New.

User Pages- Add New

The second User page you can view is the Add New page. As it sounds, the Add New page is where you go to add new users to your WordPress website. This will give them individual login credentials, that can be taken away without changing the administrative password for your website. There are 8 things you need to do on that page, so let’s talk about them.

1. Username- this is where you’ll create a username for whomever you need to give access.
2. Email- use their business email address
3. First name- make sure you spell it correctly
4. Last name- pay attention to spelling
5. Website- this field is not required, but enter it if you have one.
6. Password- WordPress will give them a password, they can change it later. Or you can create a password for them.
7. Send user notification- check this box to notify the new user that they have access to your website.
8. Role- These are important so choose them wisely. Below I’ll break down the different user roles.

User Roles

WordPress knows you’ll want to give different people various levels of access to your website. As of today, WordPress has 6 different user roles for you to choose from by default. I’ll give you a brief overview of what the roles are below, but you should visit WordPress’s support page for more details.

1. Subscriber- this is the most basic role someone can have. This role is a default role and is used if you let people subscribe to your blog. They can read and comment on posts and pages.
2. Administrator- This is the highest level of access, so use this role sparingly for trusted employees and website developers. They have all the access of an editor, plus access to make account changes. They can do anything they want.
3. Editor- This role is best for your marketing team members. They have access to all posts, pages, comments, categories, tags, and links.
4. Follower-is the same thing as a subscriber, so they can read and comment on posts and pages.
5. Author- This role can write, upload media, edit, and publish their own posts.
6. Contributor- This role has no publishing or uploading capability. However, they can write and edit their own posts until they are published.

Once you save this user, you have officially added a user to your WordPress website. Now that you understand the user roles, I’ll go over the last Users page–User Profile.

User Pages- Your Profile

The third and final User page is the Your Profile page. This page is all about creating the WordPress experience that makes YOU happy. The page is broken down into three(5) main sections: Personal Options, Name, Contact Info, About Yourself, and Contact Info. Next, I’ll give you a brief overview of each of the 5 sections.

Your Profile Section: Personal Options

1. Visual Editor- unless you know HTML, you should never disable this option.
2. Syntax highlighting- Again, if you don’t know how to code, then you should never disable this option.
3. Admin color scheme- This is where you can select a color palette for your WordPress dashboard interface. I’m using coffee!
4. Keyboard shortcuts- select this option if you want to use WordPress’s keyboard shortcuts when you’re moderating your comments.
5. Toolbar- When you’re viewing your own website, a toolbar will appear at the top that will allow you to go from viewer to editor. It’s also a shortcut to get back to your WordPress Dashboard. By default, this option is checked.

The next section is the Name section which is where you’ll update, yes, you guessed it, your name.

Your Profile Section: Name

This section is obviously where you’ll enter your name. It’s also the place where you’ll decide how you want to be recognized publicly. Any blog post you write will have you listed as the author so make it a name you’re ok with using publicly. The next section is the Contact Info area.

Your Profile Section: Contact Info

The Contact Info section is where you’ll decide where you want to be contacted and all the social media accounts you want to publicize. Remember, WordPress is the most popular and widely used blogging platform. The original intention was to be a blogging social network of sorts, so they want to make it easy for you to share all your social media profiles with your network. The next section is About Yourself where you’ll add not only a picture but also a brief biography.

Your Profile Section: About Yourself

The About Yourself is important when you author blog posts. If someone were to click on the author’s name, they would be able to see all the articles the author wrote, and their biography. There are also widgets and different WordPress themes that incorporate the author info, so having this filled out will save you a step later on. The last section is Account Management.

Your Profile Section: Account Management

As I mentioned, the Account Management section is the last piece of the Your Profile puzzle. This is where you can change your password and log out of any other devices. No matter which of these pages you edit, just be sure to save your changes.

Now you know the importance of adding users to your WordPress website rather than giving them the administrator’s credentials. You also know how easy it is to create users and give them the role they need to work with you.

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