There’s a typo on your homepage, your business hours have changed, or the team photo is now three colleagues out of date. You can edit text and photos in WordPress by opening the page in the block editor, clicking on the text or image block, making your changes, and clicking on Save Click here. It's the safest thing you can do in WordPress, because WordPress saves a revision of every version you save, allowing you to revert to a previous version.
Open a page or post to edit it
To open a page for editing, go to Pages > All Pages in the dashboard, or via the link Edit Page in the black bar at the top of your site. Of course, you'll need to be logged in first. You can find out how that works and what to do if your password no longer works in Log in to your WordPress website. If you're not yet familiar with the menu on the left, please read the Tour of the WordPress Dashboard.
A page is static content, such as your homepage, your contact page, or the page about your team. A post is a blog or news article with a date, and you can find it under Posts > All posts. The editing process itself works exactly the same in both. Personally, I usually log in to the page on the site and click at the top on Edit Page, because then I'll be sure I've got the right one.
If you can't find the text you're looking for anywhere in the editor, it's probably not on the page itself. Text in the footer, header, or sidebar is part of your theme or widgets, and you customize the menu separately, as explained in Building and Customizing a WordPress Menu.
Editing Text in the Block Editor
In the block editor (also known as Gutenberg), every paragraph, heading, button, and image is a separate block that you can click on and edit directly. Click inside the text, type your changes, and use the small toolbar above the block to apply bold, italics, or a link. To add a new block, use the plus button. When creating a heading, choose the level based on the structure of your content, not on font size, because search engines and screen readers treat your headings as a table of contents.
If your site was built with Elementor, the screen will look different. In that case, click on Editing with Elementor and edits the text in a live preview of the page. At Surver, we install WordPress on new hosting plans with Elementor and the Astra theme by default, so there’s a good chance you’re familiar with this process.
There's one more thing. After saving, you might not see your changes on the site right away. Usually, you're looking at a cached copy—the temporary memory that makes your site load faster. Refresh the page by Ctrl + F5 or clear the cache as follows Clearing the Cache in WordPress, and you'll see that the change is already there. My advice for larger changes is to first go to Example Click here before saving.
Replacing and Adding Photos
To replace a photo, click on the image and select from the toolbar Replace Select an option, then upload a new file or choose one from the media library. You can also find that library under Media > Library, with everything that's ever been uploaded. To add a new photo, use the plus button and the block Image. The large photo at the top of a post is usually the featured image, and you can change it in the sidebar on the right.
The second thing I pay attention to is the size. A photo taken directly from your phone is often several megabytes in size and many times wider than your screen. Therefore, resize photos before uploading them to roughly the width at which they will be displayed. Images that are too large are one of the most common reasons a page loads slowly; see also Making WordPress Faster. On Surver's shared hosting plans, you can use the Image Optimizer in cPanel for this purpose.
Also, be sure to enter the alternative text (alt text) for each photo. This short description is for visitors who use a screen reader and for search engines. “Bakker Jansen behind the counter with fresh loaves of bread” is a good example of alt text. “IMG_4032” is not, nor is a list of keywords.
Did something go wrong? Here's how to restore a previous version
You can undo a mistake on a page or in a post using revisions—the previous versions that WordPress automatically saves every time you save. If you’ve accidentally deleted a paragraph or messed up an entire page, here’s what to do.
- Open the page in the editor and click the gear icon in the upper-right corner to open the sidebar.
- Klik in het tabblad van de pagina op Revisions.
- Schuif met de balk door de eerdere versies. Links zie je wat er verwijderd is, rechts wat er is toegevoegd.
- Klik bij de goede versie op Revert this revision and then check the page.
If you don't see the "Revisions" option, it means the page has only been saved once, or revisions are disabled on your site. You can find more ways to go back, including in Elementor, at Undoing WordPress Changes.
Revisions apply only to the content of pages and posts. They won’t restore a deleted photo in the media library, a modified menu, or a changed setting. For that, you’ll need a backup. On Surver’s shared hosting plans, we create daily, weekly, and monthly backups on external servers within Europe, and you can restore them yourself using JetBackup 5 in cPanel. You can restore individual files or the database, as described in Restoring a WordPress Backup. Please note that your current status will not be automatically saved.
Where content creation ends and site management begins
Text and photos are safe, but as soon as you touch the structure or technical aspects of your site, a single wrong click can affect more than one page. If you delete an entire section or column in Elementor, the layout around it often shifts. Changing a page’s URL breaks links that are already in Google, in emails, or on other sites. Only do this intentionally and with a redirect; see Editing a permalink in WordPress.
Everything under "Appearance," "Plugins," and "Settings" is no longer content-related work. That's where you change themes, enable or disable plugins, and modify how the entire site works. The pillar What is WordPress, and what is it used for? provides you with an overview of that.
If you'd rather spend your time on your business than on your website, you can also outsource this work. For new pages, a new layout, or major changes, we offer our webmaster service. The technical aspects, such as WordPress updates, themes, and plugins, fall under WordPress maintenance. And launch your site on Managed WordPress Hosting, then WordPress will be ready for you right from the start.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I edit a page without visitors seeing the changes right away?
Yes. Create a new page Concept and save it with Save Draft, then it won't be visible to visitors. For a page that's already live, every save goes online immediately. So start by working with Example.
How do I replace a photo everywhere on my site at once?
WordPress doesn't have a button for that by default. You replace the image on a per-block basis. For a logo or an image in the header, you make the change once through the theme, and it will then update on all pages.
Can Surver edit my text and photos?
Yes, you can do that through Surver's webmaster service. You tell us what needs to be changed, and we'll take care of it. For a single typo, you can probably do it faster yourself, but for a series of changes, it will save you a lot of time.
