Author+ is a premium WordPress plugin from Blogging Dojo that enhances the author information page on your website beyond simply listing an authors posts. It’s a useful plugin if you want to give more exposure to your top authors.
The plugin allows you to integrate Twitter, Google+ and Facebook into a users profile. It also allows you to include an extended bio if you want to extend the biography of an author beyond the 3 or 4 lines that fit into the regular author bio box.
Authors will see the extended profile fields at the bottom of their profile page.
Author+ doesn’t automatically insert the new profile fields into your author page so you need to manually edit the author.php template yourself. For example, if you insert the code below into your author.php template the extended bio and social media links will be shown.
The ability to add social media links to your profile is welcomed though it’s not something that you couldn’t do with alternative solutions such as Better Author Bio. What I think is the best feature is the extended bio option.
For example, the bio profile box underneath posts on the Twenty Eleven looks like this:
You don’t want to place too much information in the bio profile box underneath articles therefore it makes sense to publish any additional information about an author on their dedicated author page; rather than just listing their articles.
The plugin also allows you to insert details of your top authors on your about page using just one line of code. This gives your top authors even more exposure on your site.
If you have a lot of staff writing for you, I recommend taking a look at Author+, if only for the ability to publish extended bios for your authors. Beginners may not like the fact that they need to manually edit their templates in order to use the plugin though the documentation included with the zip file is good so you shouldn’t have any difficulties implementing it. Plus, manually inserting the content gives you more control over how the information is styled.
A license for Author+ retails for $25. The plugin includes free support and lifetime updates, usage on unlimited websites and bonus videos to help you get the most of the plugin. A lite version of the plugin is also available with less features if you want to get a feel for the plugin 🙂
Thanks,
Kevin
Link: Author+ WordPress Plugin
* Thanks to Rhys from Blogging Dojo for providing a test copy of Author+ for this review.
