You got access to the website, logged in — and the left menu has ten items with names that don’t say much.
This is an overview of all of them. Of the ten, you will use three all the time, three occasionally, and four almost never.
How to log in
your-site.com/wp-admin
If you don’t remember the password, there is a reset link. If even that email doesn’t arrive — that is a separate problem with sending email from the server.
The ten items
📊 Dashboard
The start page. An overview and notifications about updates. This is also where Updates lives — the place worth opening every week.
📝 Posts
Blog articles and news. Everything that has a date and is listed chronologically.
🖼️ Media
All the images and documents you have uploaded. A library, not folders.
📄 Pages
The permanent pages: Home, About us, Services, Contact. They have no date and are not listed chronologically.
💬 Comments
If they are enabled. For most business websites they are not, and that is fine.
🎨 Appearance
Themes, menus, widgets, the Customizer. This is where you change how the website looks.
🔌 Plugins
Add-ons that bring features. The most powerful and the most dangerous part.
👥 Users
Who has access and what they are allowed to do.
🔧 Tools
Import, export and a health check of the website.
⚙️ Settings
Site name, address, link format. Set once.
The ones you use every day
Pages — when you change text.
Posts — when you add news.
Media — when you upload an image.
If you only produce content, those three are enough.
The ones you use occasionally
Updates — once a week.
Appearance → Menus — when you add a new page to the navigation.
Users — when someone joins or leaves.
The ones not to touch without a reason
Appearance → Theme File Editor and Plugins → Plugin File Editor. They change code directly in the browser. One wrong character and the website goes blank.
If something in the code has to change, it is done over FTP, with a backup and a child theme.
One rule above all
Back up before every bigger change. An update, a new plugin, a theme change — backup first.
That is ten seconds now versus a whole day later.
The series
In the following articles each part is covered separately — what is inside, what is used most and where people most often go wrong.
Don’t want to maintain WordPress yourself — updates, backups and security? We take care of it.
WordPress maintenance →