---
title: "WordPress"
category: "Websites and media"
tagline: "Build and run your website or blog, with thousands of themes and plugins."
replaces: ["Squarespace", "Wix", "WordPress.com", "Medium", "Webflow"]
address: "www.example.com"
website: "https://wordpress.org/"
upstreamDocs: "https://wordpress.org/documentation/"
links:
  - name: "WordPress documentation"
    url: "https://wordpress.org/documentation/"
  - name: "Learn WordPress (free courses)"
    url: "https://learn.wordpress.org/"
  - name: "Block editor guide"
    url: "https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/wordpress-block-editor/"
  - name: "Theme directory"
    url: "https://wordpress.org/themes/"
  - name: "Plugin directory"
    url: "https://wordpress.org/plugins/"
---

## Overview

WordPress powers a large share of the world's websites. Use it for your organization's public site, a blog, a news section, or a simple online shop.

Main capabilities:

- **Pages** for permanent content and **posts** for news and blog entries.
- The **block editor** for building layouts with text, images, columns, buttons, galleries, and embeds.
- **Full site editing** with block themes: change headers, footers, and templates visually.
- **Themes** to change the design and **plugins** to add features (forms, SEO, shops, memberships).
- **Media library** for images, documents, and video.
- **Users and roles** (Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor, Subscriber).
- **Comments**, categories, tags, menus, and RSS feeds.

### What it replaces

WordPress replaces website builders such as Squarespace, Wix, and Webflow, hosted blogging platforms like WordPress.com and Medium, and, with WooCommerce, basic Shopify stores.

## Signing in

Go to your site's address followed by `/wp-admin`, for example `https://www.example.com/wp-admin`, and sign in. This opens the **Dashboard**.

## Create content

### Pages and posts

1. Go to **Pages**, **Add New** (or **Posts**, **Add New**).
2. Enter a title, then add content. Type `/` to insert a block, such as `/image` or `/columns`.
3. In the sidebar, set the featured image, excerpt, categories and tags (posts), and the URL slug.
4. Choose **Publish**, or **Schedule** a date. Use **Preview** first to check the result.

### Images and media

Drag images into the editor or upload them under **Media**. Add **alt text** to every image: it describes the image for screen reader users and search engines. Resize large photos before uploading to keep your site fast.

## Change the design

- **Appearance**, **Themes**: install and activate themes. Block themes are edited in **Appearance**, **Editor**; classic themes use **Appearance**, **Customize**.
- **Menus**: in block themes, edit the **Navigation** block in the site editor; in classic themes use **Appearance**, **Menus**.
- **Site identity**: set your site title, tagline, logo, and site icon.

## Plugins

Go to **Plugins**, **Add New** to search the plugin directory. Before installing, check that the plugin is actively maintained, compatible with your WordPress version, and well reviewed.

Useful plugins for Federated Core customers:

- **Connect Matomo** or the **Plausible Analytics** plugin for [Matomo](/apps/matomo/) or [Plausible](/apps/plausible/).
- A contact form plugin, or embed a [Listmonk](/apps/listmonk/) subscription form.
- A Cal.com embed for booking from [Cal.com](/apps/calcom/).

{{< warning title="Keep plugins to a minimum" >}}
Every plugin is code running on your server, and outdated plugins are the most common way WordPress sites are compromised. Remove plugins you don't use, and keep the ones you do up to date.
{{< /warning >}}

## Users and roles

Under **Users**, add people and choose a role:

| Role | Can |
| --- | --- |
| Administrator | Everything, including themes, plugins, and settings |
| Editor | Publish and manage everyone's posts and pages |
| Author | Publish and manage their own posts |
| Contributor | Write posts, but not publish them |
| Subscriber | Manage their own profile only |

Give people the lowest role that lets them do their job.

## Updates and backups

Federated Computer keeps the server and WordPress installation maintained. Check **Dashboard**, **Updates** regularly for theme and plugin updates. Your VM is backed up by Federated Computer; for an extra copy of your content, use **Tools**, **Export** to download your posts and pages as an XML file.

## Superpanel settings

{{< review "confirm Superpanel option names for WordPress, which domain the site is served on, and the update policy for plugins/themes." >}}

- **Domain**: choose which address your WordPress site is served on, such as your main domain or a subdomain.
- **Administrator account**: the first administrator account is provided through Superpanel or Federated Computer support.

{{< enterprise >}}
Enterprise customers can use **WP-CLI** (`wp`) in the WordPress container for bulk tasks such as search-and-replace after a domain change (`wp search-replace`), resetting a password, or managing plugins in bulk.
{{< /enterprise >}}