(1) The first screen you see when you log in is the Dashboard. In the menu on the left the tabs you will use most are Pages and Appearance.
(2) Click on Pages – All Pages. You will see a list of all the published pages on the site. Hover over a particular page, and you will be given several options, one of which is Edit.
(3) Find Test Page 1 in the pages list, and choose Edit. You will be taken to a new page with details about editing techniques, and a chance to practise. This page is not listed in the published menu, and therefore not on view to anyone else.
(4) When you are bored with editing, choose Appearance – Menu from the left hand menu. This takes you to the editing page for the main navigation menu. On the left you can see a list of all the published pages on the site, and you have the chance of selecting an item and adding it to the menu on the right of the screen. Here you can alter the order of the menu items by clicking and dragging. The indented items belong to drop down menus which are easy to manipulate in the same way.
If you make any changes you want to keep, be sure to press Save Menu on the right of the screen.
(5) WordPress comes with many Themes which you can install to govern the general appearance of the site. I’ve chosen Vantage Premium, which allows a certain flexibility in the design of the header: you can choose a logo and a background which can be plain or an image of your choice. It also performs the neat trick of keeping the navigation menu in view as you scroll down the page. You can explore the various settings under Appearance – Customize or Appearance – Theme settings.
I have also installed a couple of Plugins recommended by Vantage: the Page Builder and Meta Slider. Page Builder is discussed on Test Page 2, while the Meta Slider settings can be modified by clicking on the last item in the Dashboard menu. Here you can alter the displayed images, or choose whether you want the slider to Fade or Slide.
(6) WordPress started life as blogging software, and this is reflected in the way it is set up. Still on the Widgets page, you will see Sidebar on the right, with various subheadings to organise your blogs. By default each page will show this sidebar, and to turn it off you need to scroll down to Page Attributes – Templates, and choose Full Width Page. By default also, each page comes with a Reply box at the bottom, which again I have turned off for each page. For some reason you need to do this in the Quick Edit link, where there is a check box to turn off Comments.
These details become relevant if you want to publish new pages.
Go to Test Page 1