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Editing text is the single most common thing site owners need to do in WordPress — and one of the most common questions in our tutoring sessions. Here's exactly how to change the words on any page or post, whichever editor your site uses.
Edit text in the block editor (Gutenberg)
WordPress has used the block editor as its default since version 5.0, so this is what most sites run today.
From your dashboard, go to Pages → All Pages (or Posts → All Posts), hover over the one you want to change, and click Edit. Even faster: while logged in, browse to the page on your site and click Edit Page in the black admin bar at the top.
Click directly on the sentence you want to change. WordPress text lives in blocks — usually a paragraph block or a heading block — and clicking places your cursor inside that block. Now just type: delete, add, or rewrite text like you would in any document.
Select the words you want to style and a small toolbar appears above them: bold, italic, links, and more under the ⌄ arrow. Colors and font sizes live in the right-hand sidebar under Block → Typography/Color while the block is selected.
Click the blue Update (or Publish) button at the top right. Your change is live — open the page in a new tab to confirm. If you don't see it, refresh the page; if you still don't, your site may be caching pages (clear the cache in your caching plugin or host).
Edit text in the classic editor
Some sites still use the classic editor plugin. The flow is the same — Pages → All Pages → Edit — but instead of blocks you get one large text area, like a familiar word processor. Click where you want to type, make your change, and hit Update.
When the text won't edit this way
If you can't find the text inside the page editor, it's almost always in one of these places:
- Header, footer, or sidebar — that text belongs to your theme. In a block theme, edit it under Appearance → Editor; in a classic theme, try Appearance → Customize or Appearance → Widgets.
- A page builder — if the edit screen shows an "Edit with Elementor" (or Divi, Beaver Builder, etc.) button, the page was built with that tool and text edits happen there.
- Theme options or a plugin — phone numbers, announcement bars, and copyright lines often live in a settings screen. Check your theme's options page.
Not sure which situation you're in? This is exactly the kind of question we answer in minutes during a one-on-one tutoring session — live, on your own site.
Keep learning
- How to use the paragraph block
- Creating a new page in WordPress
- The WordPress Manual (PDF) — every editing basic, in one book
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