WordPress Author Pages: 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.

This article breaks down the true definition of an author page, clears up 🧹 some confusion on what some people think are author pages, and walks you through steps 👣 on how to add WordPress author pages, with methods for both block themes and classic themes.

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.

The right method depends on your theme. With a block theme, the Site Editor is the fastest route: you redesign the author template visually, with no plugins or code. On a classic theme, a plugin, a page builder, or a custom template file will do the job. All four methods are free, except the page builder route, which requires Elementor Pro.

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

• Method 1: Edit the author template in the Site Editor (easiest, block themes)
• Method 2: Use a plugin (easy)
• Method 3: Use a page builder with custom archive templates (easy)
• Method 4: Manually create an author page in your theme files (hard)

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 Users → All Users 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):

💡 The Display Name Publicly As setting deserves extra attention: it’s the name that appears on posts and author pages, so most authors pick their full real name.

Also add:

• Biographical Info
• A Profile Picture:

ℹ️ Note: WordPress pulls profile pictures from Gravatar, so each author needs a free Gravatar account connected to their user email for the photo to show up.

Finally, click the Update User button (or Update Profile when you’re editing your own account).

⚠ 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: Edit the author template in the Site Editor (easiest, block themes)

If your site runs a block theme, this is the method for you. The Site Editor lets you redesign the template behind every author archive, so you set the design once and it applies to all of your contributors at once. No plugins, no code.

Block themes are the standard type of WordPress theme these days: Twenty Twenty-Five comes bundled with WordPress, and Neve FSE, a free block theme from ThemeIsle (the company behind this blog), is built specifically for the Site Editor. Not sure what you have? If you see Editor under the Appearance menu in your dashboard, you’re running a block theme. If you see Customize instead, skip to the classic methods below.

Open the author archive template

Go to Appearance → Editor, then open the Templates section. This lists every template your theme uses for different types of pages:

Many block themes ship an Author Archives template out of the box. If you see it, click to open it. If not, click Add New Template (the + button next to Templates) and pick Author Archives from the list: WordPress creates the template for you.

Build the author box with blocks

The template usually contains a title and a Query Loop block, which is the part that lists the author’s posts. Click where you want the author info to appear (right under the title works well), open the block inserter, and add these blocks:

• Avatar: shows the author’s profile picture (the one from Gravatar).
• Post Author Name: displays the author’s public name, with options to link it and style it as a heading.
• Post Author Biography: prints the Biographical Info from the user profile.

💡 Tip: place the Avatar and the text blocks inside a Row block to get the classic “photo on the left, bio on the right” layout, then adjust colors and spacing in the block sidebar.

If you’d rather not assemble the blocks one by one, open the Patterns tab in the inserter and search for author or profile patterns: some themes bundle pre-designed sections you can drop in and restyle.

One honest limitation: WordPress user profiles only hold a bio, a website, and a photo by default. If you want social media links or other custom fields on the author page, you’ll need a profile plugin (Method 2) to store that extra data.

Save and check the result

Click Save in the top right corner, then open an author page on the front end (the easiest way is to click the author’s name under any blog post title). Every author on the site now gets the same design, and each page automatically shows that author’s own photo, name, bio, and posts. 🎉

And because it’s a template, you can come back and tweak the design anytime: every author page updates automatically.

Method 2: Use a plugin (easy)

If you want richer author profiles than WordPress offers by default, a plugin is the way to go. There’s no dedicated author page plugin, but several membership and profile plugins allow you to create rich profiles for each of your contributors, and they work with classic and block themes alike.

Install the plugin

For this method, the tool of choice is the free Ultimate Member plugin. It’s actively maintained, and it adds profile pages, custom profile fields, cover photos, and more. To begin, install and activate the plugin on your WordPress site:

Create core pages

After activation, Ultimate Member offers to create its core pages automatically (User, Account, Register, Login, and a few more). Accept the offer, so you don’t have to generate user profile pages manually:

The User page (assigned under Ultimate Member → Settings → General → Pages) is the one that powers author profiles, so your WordPress author pages get a new look right away.

Access author page

To view the changes, go check one of your current author pages (by clicking through the author’s name on a blog post). You’ll now see a module from the Ultimate Member 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 appears automatically, but each author can better customize the author page by clicking on the Gear icon on their profile. After that, choose Edit Profile:

Here, each author should:

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. To add content to that section, move to the next step:

Add content to author page

Go to Ultimate Member → Forms in WordPress, then edit the Default Profile form. This is where you add extra fields that authors can fill out to complete their author pages.

Click the + box underneath the first tab, and decide which fields you want to add. Some ideas include:

• Website URL
• Email Address
• Country
• Social media links like Facebook, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn

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:

After clicking Update Profile, the author page shows links to whatever the author filled in. Finally, to view posts from that author, visitors simply have to click on the Posts tab for a list of their articles:

Method 3: Use a page builder (easy)

Many page builder plugins, like Elementor and Divi (a premium-only builder), include a theme builder that lets you fully customize every detail of your WordPress author pages by using archive templates. The 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, the examples use Elementor. Keep in mind, however, that the Theme Builder and the Author Box widget are Pro features, so you must have Elementor Pro for this to work.

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

The Theme Builder shows several template types 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 close 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 widget 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, so each author page shows the right person. 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. Elementor then 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.

Divi users get the same result through Divi’s own Theme Builder, which also assigns templates to author archives. And if you’re still comparing builders before you commit, take a look at the Elementor review and the Brizy review here on the blog.

Method 4: 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 classic themes (block themes handle templates in the Site Editor, covered in Method 1) and to those who can handle editing theme or child theme files. Whichever route you take, make the changes in a child theme: a theme update would otherwise wipe out your author.php file.

👉 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):

WordPress automatically uses author.php for author archives when the file exists (that’s the template hierarchy at work). 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
// On an author archive, the queried object is the author.
$curauth = get_queried_object();
?>

<div class="author-profile-card">
    <h2>About: <?php echo esc_html( $curauth->display_name ); ?></h2>
    <div class="author-photo">
        <?php echo get_avatar( $curauth->user_email, 90 ); ?>
    </div>
    <p><strong>Website:</strong> <a href="<?php echo esc_url( $curauth->user_url ); ?>"><?php echo esc_html( $curauth->user_url ); ?></a><br />
    <strong>Bio:</strong> <?php echo esc_html( $curauth->user_description ); ?></p>
</div>

<h2>Posts by <?php echo esc_html( $curauth->display_name ); ?>:</h2>

<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>
<h3>
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>">
<?php the_title(); ?></a>
</h3>
<p class="posted-on">Posted on: <?php echo get_the_date(); ?></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;
}

Save the file, refresh an author page, and the new card should pick up your styles.

Create your WordPress author pages today 🚀

Still not sure which method to pick? For most sites on a block theme, Method 1 is enough and keeps everything inside WordPress. Add the Method 2 plugin when authors need extra fields like social links, reach for the page builder when you already build the rest of the site with one, and only open the theme files when you want total control over the markup.

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!

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