Writing an author bio can sometimes feel more frustrating than sitting in front of your word processor with no idea in your mind to fill the page. How do you structure it, what elements do you include, and what are agents, publishers, and readers looking for in your bio? It’s enough to make your head start spinning.
Fortunately, to coin a cliché, there’s an app for that. Several tech startups decided to make life easier for you with an author bio plugin for your WordPress website. Thank heavens for technology, right?
Why Use an Author Bio Plugin for WordPress?
An author bio plugin for your website displays a customized section at the footer of your WordPress pages. Surprisingly, many templates come with this feature built into the design, ready to go.
The plugin allows you to change how you position and display your bio, and you get options for including links to your social media accounts. Adding a customized author bio in WordPress benefits your blog by improving your authority and credibility with readers.
The bio establishes a connection between you and the reader, giving prospective agents the information they need on your career and what you write. Installing and using these code-free plugins is easy; let’s walk you through our top choices.
#1 All-in-One SEO
Used by over two million WordPress sites, All in One SEO offers you more than just a simple bio plugin. You get a comprehensive toolkit to improve your site’s search engine ranking without learning the technicalities of SEO.
The setup wizard lets you choose optimal SEO settings, and the built-in checklist guides you through the process with user-friendly navigation and simplistic functionality. All-in-One SEO comes with an integrated feature for improving your author profile page.
The default setting displays a list of recent posts from your author profile page, assisting readers with finding your content. If you host several authors on your site, there are options for multiple author bios. All-in-One SEO is ideal for showcasing your author bio and generating more traffic from Google.
#2 WP Post Author
If you operate a WordPress website solely for your use, WP Post Author offers you the most user-friendly option for an author bio plugin. It integrates seamlessly with any template, blending in with the design.
WP Post Author displays your author name, avatar, a short bio, company role (if you work for a publisher or company), and icons linking to your social media accounts. You get complete control over the design elements displayed in your bio and the alignment of your profile picture and text.
WP Post Author comes with three built-in widgets and a shortcode for displaying your author bio in the sidebar and other areas on your pages.
#3 Simple Author Box
This WordPress plugin is user-friendly and easy to set up in minutes. It’s a feature-rich add-on giving you plenty of customization options for your author bio box. Add your author bio, a custom Gravatar, and icons for your social media links.
You get complete control over the template typography, colors, background, and other visual design elements. We like the option for displaying your business email address, allowing your readers and prospective agents to reach out to you for inquiries.
Simple Author Box comes with a real-time bio preview allowing you to visualize the changes as you implement them. If you want to take the plugin features to the next level, a pro version offers even more utility to your author bio, but the free version is already outstanding if you don’t feel like spending the extra money.
#4 Starbox
Starbox brings you a user-friendly, feature-rich author bio plugin compatible with any WordPress theme. It has several built-in bio box templates to suit your page design and options to create unique author bio boxes for all authors on your website.
You can control design elements like author names, organizational roles, profile images, and more. There’s even an option for adding tabbed author bios, including links to the latest posts from each specific author on the site.
If your author website has an online store where you’re selling your books, you’ll benefit from Starbox’s integration with the WooCommerce plugin to display your author bio on your sales pages.
#5 Molongui Authorship
This WordPress author, bio box plugin displays an author box for co-authors and contributors to your site. It’s the ideal plugin for multi-author platforms and guest contributors, removing the hassle of creating additional WordPress accounts.
Molongui Authorship allows users to customize their bio with multiple themes, colors, layouts, avatars, typography, and social media icons linking to their accounts. You also get control over displaying the author bio box below or above your page entries.
This plugin integrates with the WordPress Customizer, allowing full control over customizing every aspect of the presentation of your bio box.
#6 Meks Smart Author Widget
With the Meks Smart Author Widget, you get full control over placing your author bio box anywhere on your WordPress site. Display your avatar, bio, icons to your social media accounts, and a link to your profile page listing all your articles.
It’s a fantastic plugin for adding a feature-rich author bio widget to the backend of your WordPress sidebar. You get a straightforward setup, including auto-detect functionality for finding the post author and an instant display of the relevant bio.
The plugin fetches author information from WordPress profiles, allowing you to edit all author profiles with comprehensive information.
#7 Branda
This white-labeled WordPress author bio plugin allows adding feature-rich bio boxes blending seamlessly with your blog theme. Branda’s full white-label WordPress solution lets authors customize the site’s front and back end with independent author boxes.
You access the settings screen on Branda through the plugin’s front end of the customization settings menu. This user-friendly tool covers all aspects of the author box design.
Branda allows authors to configure visibility, design options, and elements like avatars, template colors, social media profiles, and integration with custom CSS. Branda brings you the only premium, 100% free white-label WordPress plugin.