Once you’ve signed up with WordPress.com, you’re ready to start customizing the way your site looks and functions. Here are some tips on finding your way around.
The WordPress.com home page
When you’re logged in, you’ll see the following tabs on the home page, which provide handy links to the things you’ll need to access most:
- New Post: Publish a new post.
- Reader: Read new posts across all the blogs you follow.
- Freshly Pressed: Browse the best of WordPress.com.
- Topics: View popular topics that people are blogging about.
- My Blog: Visit your blog’s dashboard, where you can access all its settings. Click the name of your blog to see how it appears to the world.
- My Stats: See how many people have visited your site.
- My Notifications: View latest blog activity, like new comments and followers.
- *: Update your account settings and public profile.
- ?: Review WordPress.com homepage navigation.
The dashboard
Each blog has a dashboard, a behind-the-scenes control panel where all the settings are managed. You can access your dashboard from the My Blog tab on the WordPress.com home page. It looks like this:
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the menus here, don’t worry – you only need to know your way around a few key parts of the dashboard to start publishing content and personalizing your blog’s appearance.
As you get more familiar with WordPress.com and want to extend your blog in new ways, we have support documents that explain each of the dashboard menus, so you can learn at your own pace, and get answers whenever you need them.
Toolbar shortcuts
The toolbar that appears at the top of your screen (while you’re logged in) also provides a few handy shortcuts.
Clicking New Post from the toolbar allows you to create and publish a post without leaving the page you’re currently viewing. The orange notifications icon will update you of new activity on your blog.
To access your dashboard from the toolbar, click your name, then hover over your blog’s name:
