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Logging In

Let’s get started.

Begin by logging in to the Administration Panel. The Administration Panel is the brain behind your website, and the place where you can let your creativity explode writing brilliant prose and designing the best and most interesting website possible. This is also where the organization of your site begins.

Type http://www.yourwebsite.com/wp-admin in your address bar. Replace www.yourwebsite.com with your website’s domain name. If this produces an error, try http://www.yourwebsite.com/wordpress/wp-admin.

You will be presented with a window similar to the following:

Type your Username and Password, and click Login.

If all went well, you will now be looking at the Dashboard in the Administration Panel. The Dashboard displays links to frequently used tasks, as well as interesting website statistics. Think of the Dashboard as the Home Page for the Administration Panel.

The first thing you’ll notice is your website name (WOUR in the image below) in the upper-left corner of the Administration Panel.

For starters, click the View Site link directly to the right of the website title.

You are now viewing your website just as a visitor would see it. The View Site link is a quick way to get to the home page of your website (instead of needing to type out the URL in the address bar). The View Site link is always present in the upper-left corner of the Administration Panel.

Let’s return to the Administration Panel. You can click the back button in your web browser, or type http://www.yourwebsite.com/wp-admin (or http://www.yourwebsite.com/wordpress/wp-admin) again. You shouldn’t need to log in again, since the Administration Panel keeps you signed in until you sign out, or until you close the web browser.

Note the Main Menu across the top of the Administration Panel, the leftmost item being Dashboard. Dashboard should now be highlighted, indicating your current location in the Administration Panel.

To the right of Dashboard in the Main Menu, note that the next two items are Write and Manage. These two items represent the main content management areas of the Administration Panel, where you’ll spend the most time managing your website.

In the next section, we’ll discuss Posts and Pages, the two main types of content that can be published on your website.

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