This is the 5th in the series of (that’s 5ive in a row!)
20 Secret Blogging Tips in 20 Days!
I’m getting dizzy with so many topics spinning about. Check out the bottom of this post to see the rest.
Yesterday we worked on your Byline. Today we’ll setup the Author Box and even give you a bonus sidebar widget to add!
The Author Box is that place at the end of the post where people can get to know you better. It’s like a mini bio.
The first step would be to head back over to your profile settings… Remember how to get there?
Dashboard > Users > Your Profile 🙂
Scroll down a tad and find the Bio Info Box
Type your bio in there, click save, and you are done!
UNLESS
There’s always more isn’t there? If you look closely at my bio box you’ll see a bit of css and a smidge of html. If you want to better style your box and you know a little of both you can do it IF you have the right plugins.
Start with WP About Author – it’ll create that box at the bottom of the post. The plugin has
-
Three border styles to match any theme
-
Change background color with easy to use color picker
-
Display settings allow you to control when to display author bios
-
Display text links or icons to a users social media profiles
Woo Hoo!
Next add Allow REL= and HTML in Author Bios – it’ll allow you to put css and html in the bio box to really jazz it up!
They say…
This is a non-configurable plugin which enables the use of Rel=”author”, primarily created to enable Google+ author search functionality to display author information in Google search results.
I don’t use it for Google Authorship as much as I do for the html functionality.
You can see what my Author Box looks at the bottom of this post. Above you can see what Ken’s looks like (He’s a contributor here).
See those links? Not only do they look good and drive human traffic to his site, they flow PageRank too!
Having a complete Author Box also leads people to follow you in other social media networks. You never really know who’s reading and what Soc Net they adore. If they are a die hard Twitter user, that link will take them right to your profile.
As a bonus I also like giving the Author a sidebar snippet. Besides, who wants to have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the post just to find out more about the writer? Are we really that lazy?
For the sidebar I use a plugin called About the Author Advanced. I could put it up at the top of the sidebar and often do for clients but for right now it sits right below my 3 Calls to Action.
They say…
Configurable settings include:
-
Adds contact fields to the user settings page including phone number, facebook, twitter and linkedin
-
Toggle user fields to display including email address, website, bio, phone, company and social media links
-
Configurable gravatar image display
-
Display widget on posts, pages or both
-
Text labels for various fields
So that’s it – go make your Author Boxes pretty – or at least informational.
Ready for a killer wordpress website? Click HERE. Read the rest of the series…
[listly id=”5A5″ layout=”full”]
- The Ultimate Guide to Writing the Perfect Blog Post - March 14, 2023
- 8 Questions Your Web Developer Should Have Asked - April 27, 2021
- Slack, Chat or Discord? - April 6, 2021