9 Top WordPress Author Bio Plugins
Author bio plugins credit the hard work of authors and help connect good content with its audience. WordPress author bio plugins can be used to proudly showcase the work of site authors. WordPress is one of the most widely used CMS platforms for blogs and web sites in use today.
High traffic blogs often have several authors. In many cases such authors build a personal connection with their readers and audience. The WordPress bio plugin is a powerful tool and anchor in that all important reader to author relationship.
This connection with writers and authors encourages post discussion, fosters respect and long term reputation. The authors connection with his or her readers via their blog is an essential part of a large sites identity and developing the brand.
WordPress can be enhanced with numerous free and premium themes. Increasingly premium themes include author biography tools that enable an author to input basic information such as experience and social networking links. Magazine themes like ‘Newspaper‘ which is a premium high rated theme for WordPress offer such functionality built into the core theme itself.
Connecting Authors With Your Readers
Included author bio support is great if you are on the lookout for a new premium theme and have lots of authors, guest bloggers and contributors on your editorial team. Even if your site is run by just one person it really does simplify things to be able to set author biographies and social network links within a stable theme code base and then forget about it.
We all like a easy life, so themes that include easy to use, simple setup functions like this are highly desirable theme features.
Of course anyone who has changed their websites core theme will know that it is not always an easy task. Changing WordPress themes can mean hours of tweaking and bug squashing and is not always a smooth process. Fortunately you do not need to change the WordPress theme of your site to add beautiful, powerful and flexible author biographies. The solution is to install a third party WordPress author bio plugin.
9 Top WordPress Author Bio Plugins
Author bio is one of the most essential sections of any professional blog and if you don’t show author information for your blog posts then it looks incomplete and sub standard. For this reason we present a choice selection of 9 amazing wordpress author bio plugins.
So if your theme doesn’t have this author functionality built in, help is at hand. You can use any of the WordPress plugins listed in this collection of author bio plugins to get started. Simply install and continue to use your existing WordPress theme.
In this feature post, we will discuss a few high quality author bio plugins for WordPress which you can use on your blog and draw well deserved reader attention to your authors.
Fanciest Author Box by Themato Soup
Fanciest author box is is of the most widely used author bio box plugins for WordPress. This is a premium plugin, there is a basic version if you prefer less features and customization options. Fanciest author box is a comprehensive author bio plugin for WordPress by developers Themato Soup.
The Fanciest Author Box bio plugin works by displaying two or more tabs within the body of the post. The first tab is for the author box and the second tab one is for the social media links such as Facebook or Instagram. You can show all the premium social media profiles to attract a user to your social network.
You have the option to show the author bio box above as well as below the post or in both positions. You can show the bio box in all content type like posts, pages and custom post types. You can also disable it on pages where you might not wish it to appear. You can further set color schemes to match the look and feel of your blog. This is a versatile, lightweight but powerful author bio plugin that will work with most recent themes.
CCR Author Bio Plugin for WordPress
The CCR Author Bio plugin for WordPress has all the desirable author plugin features to make sure that the blog writers get all the acknowledgment and credit for their work. The features included in the CCR Author plugin are many customization options, fonts and awesome icons, multi-language support.
WordPress settings for this plugin include API, a easy to use options panel, unlimited color palette options and full theme integration. You can nab this versatile but powerful bio plugin for only $14.
Elite Members Author Bio Plugin
If you’re managing a high traffic web site and working editorially with a group of many authors then this Elite Members WordPress Author Bio Box Plugin could be the most suitable author bio plugin for your WordPress install. With the assistance of this particular plugin, you can easily configure author names into a neat list, much like a team and help your visitors to find them without much fuss.
Other useful features of this Elite Members plugin include three unique author box styles, numerous listing styles, many color style options, support for custom WordPress fields, different avatar shapes, theme widgets, template tags & in content shortcodes for fine tuning placements. This Elite Members author bio plugin for WordPress is low cost also, just $11 USD which is a complete steal.
WP Author Box – WordPress Author Bio Box Plugin
The WP Author Box plugin is very useful to let the blog users and audience of your web sites find the articles of interest they seek. It does this by grouping their preferred writer or any specific topics. Such a plugin also makes a strong bond develop between authors and regular readers very easily. With this focus in mind we present WP- Author Box. This is premium WordPress plugin with many features available such as Google authorship compatibility to name but a few.
The plugin is completely versatile and customizable. WP Author box offers user role permissions, unlimited mobile responsive tabs, 6 predefined styles and many other unique features as well. You can buy this premium WordPress bio plugin for US $ 16.
Best Free Wordpress Author Bio Plugins
If you’re not wanting to spend too much money or want to try out some demo versions for these WordPress author bio plugins. Here are some recommended WordPress author bio plugins to experiment with. Some of these author bio plugins also come with Pro upgrades that offer extra functionality at additional cost.
Starbox the Author Plugin for Humans
The Starbox WordPress Author Bio Box Plugin has been developed in order to make sure that the writers do every bit of customization with their profiles. This plugin encourages author personalization so that authors become more accessible and presentable to their online audience.
This plugin can be placed above of below articles. Starbox author bio plugin works with most of the themes and has many customization features to make it look different for every individual author on your blog.
Guerilla Author Box
This plugin isn’t as dangerous as it sounds. It is a basic author bio WordPress plugin that comes for free and has decent features available to make sure that you get your authors credited and work done easily. The plugin adds weriter information at the end of your post and shows name, description, author’s avatar and, of course the website link as well. Considering that this is free software this plugin is perhaps as fully featured as many will need.
Author Box Reloaded Bio Plugin
This WordPress Author Bio Box Plugin known as Author Box Reloaded is the first freemium choice of many WordPress bloggers and site owners. Author Box Reloaded allows them to connect with their social media accounts very easily and to almost all of them.
It is equally a very intuitive plugin to work with. This is a plugin that is largely free from clut and useless options and settings that you will never use. You can now include a template tag, content shortcode or even both of them as well for laser sharp placement.
Co-Authors Plus Plugin
The Co-Authors Plus plugin is ideal if you run a website which has the content written by more than one writer. If you use teams or groups of authors then this is a decent solution for crediting authors and connecting with readers of your blog. If articles are worked on collectively or any article is done by a team, then this Co-Author Plus plugin is the best option available for you. You can easily make the contribution of one or more authors in an article and that will appear on the archived page of the authors post history.
Author Box After Posts
Finally last but not least is Author Box After Posts. This is a WordPress author bio box plugin which comes at no cost and has many useful features and functionality. The important features which make it a decent download are social media integration from over 10 networks. Social media networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, etc.
With the Author Box After Posts plugin you can set your avatar in place of registering on Gravatar which can be a nuisance. The plugin works well with YOAST and most themes that we tried. What more could you need?
Final Thought
Remember author bio functionality is probably included with most premium WordPress themes. The options are probably basic and everyone else using the theme will have sites that look exactly the same. There are two main reasons to consider a premium plugin. Firstly to add author bio support when your existing theme does not support it.
Secondly to differentiate your site if your premium theme does provide author bio support. If you are proud of your blog then stand out from the crowd with a premium author bio plugin. If money is tight try some of the freemium examples listed above. Either option will help connect your authors better with their audience and that can only be a good thing.