How to Edit a WordPress Website

Updated October 31, 2026

Nobody gets stuck on the typing. They get stuck on the hunting: the sentence is right there on the live site, and it isn't in any of the pages listed under Pages.

So if you're working out how to edit a WordPress website someone else built (a developer who's gone quiet, an agency you've stopped paying, a past version of you), start with the map below. It says where each kind of thing lives, then each section walks through the clicks. Paths match WordPress 7.1, with older versions called out where they differ.

Where everything lives

One rule saves a lot of hunting: if the thing you want to change appears on every page, it isn't on any one page. It's in the header, the footer or the theme, never in Pages.

1. Log in

Go to yoursite.com/wp-admin and sign in. If you don't have an account, ask whoever runs the site to add you under Users → Add New User with the Administrator or Editor role. Don't accept someone else's password; an account of your own can be removed later without changing theirs.

2. Edit a page or post

1. Go to Pages → All Pages (or Posts → All Posts).
2. Hover over the page title and click Edit.
3. Click the text you want to change and type. To replace an image, click it and use Replace in the block toolbar.
4. To add something new, click the + button and pick a block (Paragraph, Image, Heading, Button).
5. Click the save button at the top right. It says Save, though on some versions it may say Update once a page is published.

Not sure which page is your home page? Settings → Reading tells you. If it's set to show your latest posts, the home page isn't a page at all. On a block theme it's a template you edit in the Site Editor; on a classic theme its layout comes from theme files, and the Customizer (Homepage Settings, plus any theme panels) is where you change it.

The quicker route, if you're already looking at the page on your site while logged in: click Edit Page in the black bar at the top.

If the page was built with Elementor or Divi

You'll know because the block editor shows one big blob, a wall of shortcodes or a button saying Edit with Elementor. Use that builder's own editor. Editing a builder page's content in the block editor can break its layout, so don't.

3. Edit the parts every page shares

The header, footer and overall layout live in your theme.

On a block theme, go to Appearance → Editor. Patterns holds the header and footer template parts, Templates holds the layouts for each kind of page, and Styles holds colors and typography for the whole site. Click Save when you're done, and WordPress shows you exactly which parts you changed.

On a classic theme, go to Appearance → Customize. Change what you need in the panels on the left, watch the preview on the right, and click Publish. Nothing reaches visitors until you do.

The step-by-step versions are in our guides to the header, the footer and fonts.

4. Edit the menu

Menus are edited where the theme draws them. A block theme keeps them in the Navigation block (click it in the header inside the Site Editor). A classic theme keeps them under Appearance → Menus, where you add pages, drag them into order and click Save Menu.

Or ask your assistant

With your site connected to Claude or ChatGPT through Kitepod, the hunting becomes one sentence:

Content edits like this run straight away; they don't wait for an approval. What makes that safe is the snapshot taken before the write.

WordPress's own revisions would cover the opening hours too, because they're page content. But revisions stop there. Change a menu, a widget or a setting by hand and there's no history to go back to. Kitepod snapshots every write, menus and settings included, so you can undo one edit or the whole task for 90 days.

The assistant reads the page before it writes, so it finds the hours wherever they are (a paragraph, an Elementor widget, a Divi module) and edits them in that builder's own format. For the photo, you get an upload link that works for an hour.

What goes wrong

The page you edited isn't the page on the site

There are two with similar names (an old draft, a "Home (copy)"). Check the URL on the live page against the slug in the editor, or open it from the live page's Edit Page link.

The editor looks nothing like the site

On a classic theme, the block editor doesn't always load the theme's styles, so pages look plainer while you edit. Use Preview to see the real thing.

Text you need isn't on any page

It's in the header, footer, a widget, a template or a page builder's global section. Work through the table at the top.

You can't see Appearance at all

Your account is an Editor or Author. Ask an administrator to change your role, or to make the change for you.

Finer points

Can I edit a WordPress website without logging in?

Not through the normal screens. Every change in wp-admin, or by an assistant, goes through an account on the site. The exceptions are host-level access (SFTP, your host's file manager, the database), which is how you get back in when wp-admin itself is broken; see wp-admin not working.

How do I undo a change in WordPress?

Posts and pages have revisions: open the page, find Revisions in the settings sidebar, and restore an older one. Menus, widgets and settings don't keep revisions in core.

How do I edit my WordPress homepage?

Settings → Reading shows whether the homepage is a page or your latest posts. If it's a page, edit it in Pages. If it's your latest posts, on a block theme its layout is the Home or Index template in Appearance → Editor → Templates. On a classic theme it comes from the theme's files, so look for homepage options in Appearance → Customize first.

Do I need to know code to edit a WordPress site?

Not for text, images, menus or styles. You only need code for changes your theme doesn't offer a setting for, and even then a child theme or a custom CSS box usually covers it.

If the site came from someone who's since gone quiet, make sure there's an administrator account in your own name before you need it in a hurry.