Do you wish to have the Twitter and Facebook links of your author to be displayed on the WordPress profile page?
By default, user profile pages in WordPress do not include sections for users to add their Twitter or Facebook accounts. However, this post will provide a step-by-step guide on how to easily display the Twitter and Facebook profiles of authors on WordPress.
Why Show the Twitter and Facebook Accounts of Authors on Your Site?
Your WordPress website receives a lot of traffic from social media sites. We created a social media cheat sheet as a result, which will assist you in properly setting up your social media platforms.
Your authors will also have their own social accounts, which you may post on your site to increase credibility with your users and reinforce the authority of your site.
In order to find new articles on your website faster, your readers will be able to follow their favorite authors on social media. You may also include their social media profiles in your site’s schema, which can increase your site’s trust score on Google and other search engines.
With that said, let’s look at how to show an author’s Twitter and Facebook connections on their user profile page.
Method 1: Include Social Media Links in the Author’s Bio
Some of the top WordPress themes will include a box with author information underneath each article. This function can be used to provide easy connections to your author’s social profiles.
Simply navigate to Users » All Users in your WordPress admin panel and click the author’s name or the ‘Edit’ link to open the Edit User page.
Then, go to the ‘About the user’ area and look for the ‘Biographical Details’ box.
If it’s there, your theme has author box support built in.
You can enter a text or HTML description of the author here. You can add HTML links to the author’s Twitter and Facebook profile URLs manually, as seen below:
ADD BIO HERE. Follow them on <ahref="https:/twitter.com/USERNAME">Twitter</a> and <ahref="https://facebook.com/USERNAME">Facebook</a>. |
Make sure to provide a brief biography of the author and replace ‘USERNAME’ with their actual Twitter and Facebook IDs.
When you’re ready, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the ‘Update User’ option to save your preferences.
Twitter and Facebook links will now appear alongside the user’s bio on their postings. Here is how it appears on our demo website:
Method 2: Using an Author Bio Box Plugin to Show Social Icons
If your theme does not include an author bio box, or if you prefer one that is more configurable and shows social icons rather than links, you can install a plugin.
The greatest free author bio box plugin is Simple Author Box. It allows you to personalize almost every part of your author bio box, including adding social network connections for your authors.
You must first install and activate the Simple Author Box plugin. For more information, visit our step-by-step guide to installing a WordPress plugin.
There is a pro edition available if you wish to display an author box before or after content, add website links, obtain more social icon styles, include guest authors and co-authors, and more.
When the plugin is activated, it adds social networking fields to each user profile. Simply go to your WordPress admin area’s Users » All Users page and click on the author’s name or the ‘Edit’ option underneath.
Tip: Go to the Users » Profile page to rapidly change your own user profile.
When you scroll down to the bottom of the author profile, you’ll find some additional fields that the Author Bio Box plugin has added.
Go down to the ‘Social Media Links (Simple Author Box)’ section. Now, from the drop-down menu, pick ‘Facebook,’ and then paste the Link to their Facebook profile into the next field.
You can now click the ‘+ Add new social platform’ button.
A new drop-down menu and box will be introduced to allow you to enter their Twitter Link.
After that, make sure you click the ‘Update User’ option to save your settings.
Don’t be concerned if the Facebook and Twitter URLs vanish after you press the button. There is a tiny problem that hides the URLs at the time of writing, but the settings have been stored.
At the bottom of their posts, Facebook and Twitter icons will now be displayed beside the author’s profile. When your readers click these symbols, they will be taken to their social profiles, but these links will open in the same window as your blog.
If you want the links to open in a new tab, go to the Appearance » Basic Author Box page and then click on the Elements tab. Once there, look for the option that says ‘Open social icon links in a new tab’ and turn it on.
The author’s social media profiles will now open in a new tab.
Method 3: Entail Social Accounts in the Schema of Your Website for SEO
All-in-One SEO (AIOSEO) is the original WordPress SEO plugin, with over 3 million installations. It can also be used to populate the author’s profile page with social profile fields.
This method, unlike the others, will help your website’s SEO because AIOSEO adds these social accounts to your site’s schema markup.
The issue is that AIOSEO does not include them in the author bio automatically. Don’t worry, we’ll show you how to accomplish it.
We’ll use the free edition of All in One SEO for this lesson because it allows you to add social profiles for your website and each user. Nevertheless, AIOSEO Pro includes even more capabilities to assist you in ranking higher in search engine results pages.
The first step is to download and install the free All-in-One SEO Lite plugin.
Once you’ve installed the AIOSEO plugin, navigate to the Users » All Users page and click on the author’s name or the ‘Edit’ link directly below.
The author’s Edit User page will appear after you click this.
At the top of the screen, AIOSEO has introduced a Social Profiles tab. You must now click on that tab.
In the given boxes, you can now insert the URL of the user’s social profiles, such as:
https://facebook.com/johnsmith345https://twitter.com/johnsmith345 |
It should be noted that simply entering the username is insufficient.
Alternatively, if the author uses the same username across numerous social networks, check the option next to ‘Use the same username across multiple social networks.’
The author’s Edit User page will appear after you click this.
Entering that username will allow you to see which social networks it is used on. For other social networks, just provide the whole URL as before.
When you’re finished, go to the bottom of the page and click the ‘Update User’ button to save your changes.
Pro Tip: If your company or website has Twitter and Facebook profiles, you can add them to your site’s schema in a similar way by going to All in One SEO » Social Networks and adding the links under the Social Profiles tab.
The author’s social media profiles have been added to your site’s schema, which will help search engines better comprehend your site. Nevertheless, they are not yet visible on your website.
AIO SEO Author Twitter and Facebook Links Displayed in Your Theme
These fields must now be displayed as links in your theme.
Note: You can display links from All in One SEO’s social profiles if you are an expert user by changing your WordPress theme files. If you’ve never done this before, see our article on how to copy and paste code in WordPress.
Advanced users can add the following code to their theme files wherever they wish the author profile links to appear.
| 1 2 3 4 5 | <?php$twitter = get_the_author_meta( 'aioseo_twitter', $post->post_author );$facebook = get_the_author_meta( 'aioseo_facebook', $post->post_author );echo '<a href="' . $twitter .'" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a> | <a href="'. $facebook .'" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Facebook</a>';?> |
Save your modifications and visit your website to view a post.
Wrapping Up
Showing your Facebook and Twitter accounts on your WordPress profile page is a great way to connect with your readers and promote your social media presence. By using the Social Icons Widget plugin and following the steps outlined in this blog post, you can easily add social media icons to your author bio and make it easy for your readers to find and follow you on their favorite platforms. So don’t wait any longer, start implementing these steps today and watch your social media following grow!
