How to Create a New Admin User in WordPress

A WordPress website can be viewed by anyone with Internet access. But if someone wants to add content, or make changes to the content on the site, then they will need to have a certain user role type.

If you allow people to register for your WordPress site, then they are probably doing so with subscriber credentials. That means they can view content, and possibly even make comments, but they don’t have access to the admin section of the site.

Occasionally if you take on a partner, hire an employee, or start working with a new company, they might request administrator credentials for your site. Our guide below will show you how to create a new administrator user in WordPress.

You can read our WordPress disable user registration guide if you would like to completely turn off user registration for your site.

Creating a New User in WordPress and Giving Them Admin Credentials

Step 1: Sign into the Admin section of your WordPress site.

Step 2: Hover over Users in the left column, then click the Add User option.

Step 3: Complete the fields on this page, then click the drop-down menu to the right of Role and choose the Administrator option. Click the blue Add New User button when you are finished.

Providing someone with administrator credentials to your website is not something that you should take likely. An administrator can delete user accounts, add and delete comments, edit theme files, and effectively render your website useless. if you are going to allow someone to be an administrator on your site, be sure that you can trust them, and that they have some familiarity with WordPress. Or at least that they have sense enough not to delete or change information that they don’t understand.

Administrators can add plugins to their WordPress sites, and it is definitely a good thing to know how to do. One of the more commonly used plugins, Yoast SEO, can be installed using the steps in this article. Installing the Yoast plugin is a great way to ensure that you are taking care of many of the SEO basics that your site will need to have for people to find it in search engines.

Matthew Burleigh

Matt has been working with WordPress and creating content using this powerful content management system for years. While he has written about many other tech topics, WordPress is one of his favorites.

You can read his full bio here.