How to Make Custom Author Pages

WordPress author pages: they’re essential for website contributors to get credit for work, and publications use them to add a smiling face to their content. Author pages link from author bios (at the end/beginning of blog posts) and often display information about the contributor, their photo, and which articles they’ve written on the website.

In this article, we break down the true definition of an author page, clear up 🧹 some confusion on what some people think are author pages, and walk you through steps 👣 on how to add WordPress author pages.

What’s an author page?

In contrast to an author website, author pages are not full websites for novelists and writers, but rather, simple informational segments of any website that has a blog.

Author pages are:

• Individual pages that display information about the author of a post.
• Often linked to from author bios in blog posts:

• Filled with some background about the author, maybe a photo, and a list of articles for which they contributed:

Author pages vs. author galleries

Many people confuse author pages with author galleries.

An author page, at least in terms of how WordPress defines it, is a single page meant for one author’s information and blog archives. You can set global styling so that every author on your website has a place to list their recent blog posts, author information, and even social media links:

An author gallery (or listing) page, features multiple contributors from one website, as a sort of showcase of all writers and content creators for visitors to click on and view more information about:

Theoretically, an author gallery would lead to author pages after visitors click on the author links.

Overall, WordPress author pages help all parties, making them ideal for improving the credibility and humanization of blog posts. And they’re easy to implement! So, keep reading to learn all about how to make WordPress author pages.

How to make WordPress author pages

By default, WordPress provides author pages, but they’re limited to whatever design was included with your current theme.

For instance, you may have something simple like this, where you see an author name, bio, and list of articles:

Or you may see nothing at all, as many theme developers leave out author pages altogether.

So, there’s a good chance you want at least some creative control over the author page, or you want to add one since your theme doesn’t have any.

You can use one of these methods to add/customize a WordPress author page:

Before anything

Before attempting any of these methods, make sure the user information for at least one author is filled in. This way, you can test to see if elements like photos and descriptions appear correctly when customizing the author page.

To complete user information, go to the Users tab on WordPress. Select a user, then fill in important fields like:

• First Name
• Last Name
• Display Name Publicly As
• Website (some themes show this in the author page):

Also add:

• Biographical Info
• A Profile Picture:

Finally, click the Update Profile button.

⚠ Note: If you have multiple contributors to a blog, you must have each of them complete their own User profile information; only then will the content show on their author page.

Method 1: Use a plugin (easy)

One way to customize elements of your WordPress author page is with a plugin. There’s no specific author page plugin, but several membership plugins allow you to create rich profiles for each of your contributors.

Install the plugin

For this method, we’ll use the Ultimate Member plugin. To begin, download and install the plugin to your WordPress site:

Create core pages

After activation, Ultimate Member displays a button at the top of the dashboard to Create Pages. Click on that to generate user profile pages (so you don’t have to do it manually):

This brings you to the automatically generated pages, which you can leave as they are.

The User page (with the User selection) is designated as the author page, so all of your WordPress author pages will now look a little different:

Access author page

To view the changes, go check one of your current author pages (by clinking through the author’s name on a blog post). You’ll now see a module from the Ultimate Members plugin with author information:

It may show up in a slightly different area depending on your theme:

Customize author page content

Some of the information typed into the WordPress User page may appear, but you can better customize the author page by clicking on the Gear icon. After that, choose Edit Profile:

Here, we recommend that you:

1. Upload a profile photo
2. Add a cover photo
3. Customize the author bio

Click Update Profile when you’re done:

The results are instantaneous, but you may notice that there’s an empty space below the bio and author menu, where it says, “Your profile is looking empty.” To add content to that section, move to the next step:

Add content to author page

Go to Ultimate Member > Forms in WordPress, then select the Profile Form button.

This is where you add extra fields that authors can fill out to complete their author pages.

Click the + box underneath the first tab:

Decide from whichever fields you want to add. Some ideas include:

Once you’ve inserted the new fields, you’ll see them in the form builder.

Click Update to proceed:

Now, when an author navigates to their author page, they can click on the Gear icon and choose Edit Profile to fill in the new fields:

As you can see, each author page is now customizable with Website URL, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn fields:

After clicking Update Profile, the author page shows links to the fields:

Finally, to view posts from that author, the user simply has to click on the Posts tab (pencil icon) for a list of post archives:

Method 2: Use a page builder (easy)

Many page builders plugins, like Elementor, Divi, and Brizy, let you fully customize every detail of your WordPress author pages by using Blog Archive templates. The Blog Archive templates are simply lists of past blog posts under a certain author. You can then add more details with the drag and drop editor.

👉 For this tutorial, we’ll use Elementor. Keep in mind, however, that you must have the Pro version of Elementor for this to work.

With Elementor Pro installed, go to Templates > Theme Builder in the WordPress dashboard.

The Theme Builder shows several templates to choose from. Pick the Archive tab, and click on one of the Add New icons:

Elementor offers a large collection of pre-made templates for archive pages. If you’d rather start from scratch, simply click on the X-out button to get rid of the template library.

Otherwise, select a layout that’s suitable for your author pages:

To start building the WordPress Author page, search for the Author Box module in the Elements section of Elementor. Drag and drop the Author Box module wherever you want it to appear on your author page:

Make sure you set the Source as Current Author.

Other than that, you can customize the Author Box however you please.

Consider including:

• Profile pictures
• Names
• Links to websites
• Biographies:

If you selected an archive template, you should already see the list of this author’s blog posts underneath the Author Box. If not, search for the Archive Posts element and drag it onto the page:

Click the Publish button when you’ve finalized the design of your author page.

Before the author page gets published, Elementor displays a popup window to specify where you want to display the template.

Click Add Condition, then select Author Archive. To activate this template as the Author Archive page for every author on your site, pick the All option.

Finally, click Save and Close to finish the process:

Now go and check one of your author pages to see the results! 🤩 You may have to go back and edit some of the design to get it just right. Otherwise, your author pages are ready to go, as long as every author completes their User page on WordPress:

Method 3: Manually create an author page in your theme files (hard)

This method offers complete control over the styling of the WordPress author page, but it’s limited to those who can handle editing theme or child theme files.

👉 To use this method, follow these steps:

1. You must first connect to your website’s server with an FTP Client like FileZilla.
2. Once connected, use the FTP Client to navigate to /wp-content/themes/(thenameofyourcurrenttheme)/.
3. Create a file called author.php in the current theme folder. (Use the current one if there’s already an author.php file):

Here’s some code you can paste into the new author.php file, which adds a nice author box and the author’s written posts to the page:

<?php
// Set the Current Author Variable $curauth
$curauth = (isset($_GET['author_name'])) ? get_user_by('slug', $author_name) : get_userdata(intval($author));
?>
     
<div class="author-profile-card">
    <h2>About: <?php echo $curauth->nickname; ?></h2>
    <div class="author-photo">
    <?php echo get_avatar( $curauth->user_email , '90 '); ?>
    </div>
    <p><strong>Website:</strong> <a href="https://themeisle.com/blog/custom-wordpress-author-pages/<?php echo $curauth->user_url; ?>"><?php echo $curauth->user_url; ?></a><br />
    <strong>Bio:</strong> <?php echo $curauth->user_description; ?></p>
</div>
     
<h2>Posts by <?php echo $curauth->nickname; ?>:</h2>
 
 
         <?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>
<h3>
<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: <?php the_title(); ?>">
<?php the_title(); ?></a>
</h3>
<p class="posted-on">Posted on: <?php the_time('d M Y'); ?></p>
 
<?php the_excerpt(); ?>
 
<?php endwhile; 
 
// Previous/next page navigation.
the_posts_pagination();
 
 
else: ?>
<p><?php _e('No posts by this author.'); ?></p>
 
<?php endif; ?>  

The main reason for using this method is to have full control over the styling. So, you can go to Appearance > Customize > Additional CSS to add CSS code for the Author page.

Here’s some example CSS you can try (feel free to customize it):

.author-profile-card 
    background: #EBE9E8;
    border: 2px solid #ccc;
    padding: 25px;
    margin-bottom: 25px;

.author-photo 
    float: left;
    text-align: left;
    padding: 6px;

Create your WordPress author pages today 🚀

Do you have any questions about any of these methods on how to make a WordPress author page? If so, share your thoughts in the comments!