What is the WordPress Admin Area?

The admin area in WordPress is a central control panel where you can manage everything on your site.

You may simply change the appearance of your site, manage posts and pages, install plugins and themes, and add new users from here.

wp-admin, the WordPress backend, or the admin dashboard are all terms for the WordPress admin area.

How to Access the Admin Area of Your WordPress Site?

You may access your admin area on a standard WordPress installation by adding /wp-admin to the URL.

https://example.com/wp-admin

Adding /wp-login.php to your URL is another way to go straight to your login page.

https://example.com/wp-login.php

You don’t have to use your website’s default login URL. In fact, we recommend that you use a custom URL for your WordPress login.

Changing your login URL reduces the amount of failed login attempts to your website and improves the security of your WordPress site.

If you’ve changed your login URL and don’t know what it is, check out our beginner’s guide to finding your WordPress login URL.

If you’re still having issues login into your site, check out our troubleshooting article on what to do if you’re locked out of the WordPress admin.

What’s in the WordPress Admin Area?

You’ll be in the admin section once you’ve successfully logged in, where you can manage your WordPress website and access everything with a single click.

Visitors to your website will not be able to see this part. It can only be accessed by logged-in users who have permission.

The toolbar, admin sidebar, and dashboard are the three parts of your admin area.

The Admin Toolbar

You’ll see a floating horizontal black bar at the top of the screen whenever you log in to your WordPress website. This is the toolbar for administrators.

The toolbar includes shortcuts to some of the most commonly used WordPress features:

• Updates for your WordPress installation, themes, and installed plugins are available on the WordPress.org homepage.
• your site title, which also serves as a shortcut to your home page, the comments screen, and the amount of moderated comments
• generating new posts, pages, and more your user profile, as well as a logout link

Some WordPress plugins may add additional icons to the admin toolbar when you install them.

The Dashboard

The next step is to go to your WordPress dashboard, which is a large white space in the center of your screen.

Dashboard for the Admin Area
The WordPress dashboard provides a fast snapshot of what’s going on with your website. You’ll see how many posts and pages you’ve published, as well as recent activity on your site.

WordPress places five boxes on your dashboard by default:

• A content overview, as well as your current theme and WordPress version, are displayed under ‘At A Glance.’
• ‘Activity’ displays recently published or pending posts, as well as recent comments.
• You can rapidly save a new draft post and explore recent drafts using ‘Quick Draft.’
• ‘WordPress Events and News’ contains connections to the most recent WordPress projects as well as future WordPress events in your area.
• ‘Welcome’ provides quick access to specific links that will assist you in setting up your new website.

By selecting the Screen Options option in the upper right corner of your screen, you can customize which boxes appear on your dashboard.

Navigate to the Screen Options tab.
Drag and drop the boxes on your dashboard to rearrange them.

As you install new plugins, you may notice several more boxes on your dashboard. Some of them will have specific options that may be accessed by clicking the Configure link on the title bar of the box.

The Admin Sidebar

The admin sidebar, or simply the sidebar, is the large vertical black bar on the left side of your screen. It’s the WordPress admin area’s navigation menu, and it contains connections to all of your website’s management screens.

Admin Toolbar
When you hover over some of the links with your mouse, a fly-out submenu displays.

On the admin sidebar, you’ll find the following features:

• ‘Posts’ allows you to create, edit, publish, and delete articles; ‘Media’ allows you to upload, view, search, edit, and manage media assets; and ‘Pages’ allows you to see, create, and manage static pages.
• ‘Appearance’ is where you change themes, adjust menus, and widgets, and ‘Comments’ is where you moderate and manage comments left by your visitors.
• Plugins are where you install and activate apps that extend the functionality of your website.
• On your site, ‘Users’ is where you may create, view, update, and define user roles.
• ‘Tools’ is a central spot where you can configure your site’s basic settings and import and export content. ‘Settings’ is a central location where you can customize your site’s basic settings.

By clicking the ‘Collapse menu’ link at the bottom, you may make the admin sidebar smaller. Simply click on it again to restore it to its original size.

How to Customize the Admin Area of WordPress?

You may personalize your WordPress admin area in a variety of ways.

You can alter its appearance by choosing a different admin color scheme or enabling dark mode with a plugin, for example.

You may also add a notebook to the dashboard or adjust the ‘Howdy Admin’ welcome on the admin toolbar to encourage team communication.

See our beginner’s guide on customizing the WordPress admin area for more information (dashboard).

How to Make Your WordPress Admin Area More Secure?

The WordPress backend gives you access to all of your website’s features. It must be protected against unwanted access and security threats.

We’ve put together a list of 14 essential guidelines for keeping your WordPress admin area safe. If you follow this instructions, you’ll be able to stop a lot of typical security threats.

You should also be on the lookout for brute force attacks. To guess your password and gain access to your WordPress admin area, this hacking approach relies on trial and error.

A brute force attack might cause your website to slow down, become unreachable, and allow the hacker to put malware on it.

We hope that this post has given you a better understanding of the WordPress admin area. You may also find related articles on WordPress tips, tricks, and ideas in our Additional Reading section below.

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