How to Add a User to Your WordPress Website Without an Invite
You’ve been dreaming about this day for as long as you can remember; the day you finally get to add a user to your WordPress website. You’ve checked off all the boxes on your list of what’s important to you, designed a sweet interface around a simple layout, and are finally ready to add that extra touch that makes all the difference. While you may know what you’re doing, nothing is ever easy when it comes to website management—especially when you’re on your own. That’s where this blog post comes in. We’re going to walk you through the entire process of adding a brand-new user to your site, so you can avoid all the pain that comes with troubleshooting after the fact. Sounds good, right? Let’s get started.
Step one: Register a domain name
This step is more than just common sense. You’ll never get a chance at a happy ending if you don’t actually register a domain name first and set up hosting beforehand. It’s crucial that you do this step before moving onto the next one.
There are many reasons why you should do this. For one, you’ll need a place to store all your website content. For another, you may want to set up email delivery so you can start receiving notifications when people comment on your blog posts or subscribe to your email list.
Step two: Choose a username and password
The username and password you pick for your new user will be the credentials he or she uses to log in to your WordPress site. You’ll also need to make sure you’ve set up a new user with the right to manage pages and install themes; this is called a “super user” role. Your WordPress username and password do not have to be unique—in fact, using a simple password is highly recommended—but they should be easy for you to memorize and keep safe.
Once you’ve registered your domain name and logged in to your hosting dashboard, head over to dashboard (or admin if you’re coming from the wp-admin login screen) and click on user to view all your active users. From here, you can add a new user by clicking + in the upper-right corner of the page. Select the user radio button and then enter a form name for the new user in the following field. (We’ll discuss more about forms in the coming weeks.) For now, just call this new user “Jane Doe” and enter a password for her. Then click Add New User. Congratulations! You’ve just added a brand-new user to your WordPress website. You can test out this new feature by logging in as “Jane Doe” and checking out her page.
Step three: Activate your new user
Logging in as “Jane Doe” now, click on her profile and then on Tools near the top of the screen to access the powerful tools you’ve got at your disposal. From here, you can activate your new user by clicking Enable. This will lock Jane Doe’s account so she can’t log in as another user while you’re still logged in as “Jane Doe.” If you’d rather not activate her right away, you can select the Scheduled option and then set a date and time in the future when you’ll activate her account. It’s important to note that if you deactivate a user’s account, they will no longer be able to log in when the time comes. So, make sure you know exactly what you’re doing before doing so!
Step four: Test your new user account
Now that you’ve activated your new user account, it’s time to test it out and make sure it functions properly. From the tools menu, click on users and then on my to view all of your active users. Here’s where you can test out your new user account by logging in as her and viewing her page. If you’ve followed the previous steps correctly, you should be able to login as “Jane Doe” and view her page without any problems. If you’re not able to login as “Jane Doe” without getting an error message, take a look at the page where it says “Welcome, [insert username]!” Make sure your username is spelled correctly and that you’ve provided an email address. If you receive an error message when trying to login with your new user name and password, there’s a chance you may have done something wrong in the previous steps. Try re-doing them or contacting your hosting provider (if you use one) for help.
Step five: Backup your database and files
Last but not least, it’s time to backup all your blog content and settings. At this point, you should already have a database containing all your posts and other data. This database is what makes your blog content available to other users and visitors. If you’ve been following the previous steps correctly, you shouldn’t have any problems with this step. Simply login to your WordPress dashboard, navigate to database (or wp_database if you’re coming from the wp-admin login screen) and click backup on the left side of the page. Enter a name for your backup and then click OK. If you’d rather create a full backup of your WordPress site every week, you can enable this feature under the options menu in the dashboard. Doing this regularly will help ensure you never lose any content due to hard drive failures or other disasters that may happen.
Although this tutorial focuses on adding a user to your WordPress site, you must keep in mind that a user is essentially someone who logs in to your site. In order to ensure that no one but you can access your content, you should take the time to learn how to hide files and folders from the general public. You can do this by visiting settings (or admin if you’re coming from the wp-admin login screen) and looking under the general heading. From here, you can determine which files and folders you’d like to make publically available on your site. Simply select publish from the drop-down menu and then click Save Changes. You can do the same thing for private files and folders by selecting private from the drop-down menu and clicking Save Changes.
Now that you know how to add a new user to your WordPress website, you can continue reading our guide for more information about WordPress website management or head over to help for specific help with your blog.