How to Add A New User to Your Website

At some points, it can be helpful to add a new user who has access to certain parts of your website. This simple guide will show you how to add a user with just a few clicks.

1. Login to your website.
To add a new user, first login to your website. Once logged-in, you'll see the WordPress dashboard with a number of panes and options. To navigate to your website's list of users, look in the left hand menu

2. Create the user.
In the "Users" admin page, click the "Add New" button in the top left next to the page title.

3. Fill in the user details.
You'll be presented with several user fields, which you'll need to fill in for your new user. Below is an explanation of each field:

The Username is the name the person will use to login to your site. Because of how WordPress stores information, the username cannot be easily changed later. So you'll want to make it something simple and memorable for your user. I like using {First Initial}{Last Name}—i.e. jmuller—as a standard. Thankfully, even if they forget their username, users can always use their email to login instead.

The Email is the other method for users to login to your site. You can easily change this later as-needed.

First Name and Last Name are self-explanatory. These may be used in different places of your site, such as an author box on a blog post, if the user creates any posts on the site.

The Website field is intended for the user's personal website. The main purpose of this field is to display alongside the user if they author a post. It's helpful for "guest posts" so that contributors can point readers to their own site. Depending on the nature of your site, this field may not be used at all.

Password is the user's password. By-default WordPress will generate a strong, secure password, but you can override this by typing in your own password in the box. There's a checkbox beneath this field asking whether or not you'd like to email the new user about their account—the decision is up to you!

User Role is an important field which sets the user's capabilities on your website. I'd recommend reading WPBeginner's helpful guide on user roles and permissions to help you. Some sites are built with custom user roles, if you have questions about what a role is and does, email support@outstandbrand.com. Or, if you're on a care and maintenance plan, Outstand Brand can create any users or even custom roles/capabilities for you!