The information about the author of the content is displayed in a wide range of ways in WordPress, depending on the theme you use. There are some themes that display the content author info in a box beneath the article. If you want to display the content author info beneath the article yet the theme you use displays it in a different way, you can use an author box plugin. Using an author box plugin, you can display pieces of information about the authors on your site. Such as name, biography, social media accounts, profile picture, and so on. We have collected the best WordPress author box plugins to narrow down your choices.
Displaying the information about the author of the content itself is crucial enough to develop readers’ trust. From the authors’ side, it can be a nice promotion medium.
Some WordPress themes like Newspaper and Divi allow you to create a custom single post template and display the author box on the single post template you create. Or, if you use Elementor, you can also create a custom single post template and use the Author Box widget to display the author info box beneath the content section or any area you like.
If you keep wanting to use your current theme and want to display the author’s bio box, here are some plugins you can use.
Best WordPress author box plugins
1. Simple Author Box
Simple Author Box is one of the most popular WordPress author box plugins. This plugin is developed by WebFactory, a WordPress developer that also develops plugins like Maintenance (a maintenance plugin), 301 Redirects, and so on. Simple Author Box is a responsive author plugin. Once installed and activated, it will automatically display the author’s bio box beneath the article based on the information provided by the associated author. Simple Author Box allows you to display the following information on the author box:
- Author name
- Author bio
- Author profile picture
- Author social media icons
Simple Author Box itself is released as a freemium plugin. The pro version of the plugin comes with extra features such as the ability to set the author box above the content, ability to add rotate effect on profile picture hover, ability to apply effects to social media icons, and so on.
2. Ultimate Author Box Lite
Ultimate Author Box Lite is an author box plugin developed by AccessPress Themes, a website that sells WordPress themes. Even so. you can use it on any WordPress theme (we tested it on Hello theme, a free WordPress theme for Elementor). Ultimate Author Box Lite offers 4 different author box layouts you can choose from. You can display the author’s bio box whether on the single post, page, or custom post. The author box can be displayed whether before or after the content. The information you can display include:
- Author name
- Author bio
- Author profile picture
- Author social media icons
- User role
3. Fanciest Author Box
Unlike the first two plugins above, Fanciest Author Box is a paid plugin (costs $17). You can get it on CodeCanyon. The plugin will also automatically add the author’s bio box beneath the article once installed and activated. You can also display the author’s bio box on other locations (such as sidebar) using either widget or shortcode. In Fanciest Author Box, every piece of information about the author is displayed in a tab, including social media accounts. When you click the Twitter tab, for instance, the tab will display the latest tweet of the associated author. The information you can display on the author box with Fanciest Author Box are:
- Author name
- Author bio
- Author profile picture
- Social media accounts
- Latest articles
4. Molongui Authorship
Molongui Authorship is another WordPress author box plugin that you can use to display the author’s bio box of your website. Be it above the content or beneath the content. The plugin also allows you to display the author box bio on other locations to your liking using a shortcode. If you use a page builder plugin that offers no feature to display the author box, the ability to display author box via shortcode is especially a great feature.
Molongui Authorship is a feature-rich author plugin. In addition to allowing to display information like author bio, social media accounts, and so on, the plugin also offers an SEO setting to enable the author meta (not necessary if you already install a dedicated SEO plugin that gets the job done). Molongui Authorship itself is released as a freemium plugin. If you want to display social media accounts, you need to upgrade to the pro vesion.
5. Ultimate Author Box Pro
Ultimate Author Box Pro is the pro version of Ultimate Author Box Lite. You can get it on CodeCanyon for $17. As a pro version, Ultimate Author Box Pro offers more advanced features than its free version. For instance, it supports integration with LinkedIn. The integration will load your authors’ LinkedIn bio to the author box. Ultimate Author Box Pro also offers 19+ pre-designed templates as well as guest author support.
6. Starbox
Starbox is another feature-rich enough WordPress author box plugin that allows you to display the info of your authors’ bio in a box. You can set the author to be displayed on the top of the content or beneath the content. You can also display the profile picture, latest articles, bio, and social media accounts. However, you can only add two social media accounts if you use the free version: Twitter and Facebook. You need to upgrade to the pro version to add Instagram, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms.
Startbox offers 6 different author box themes you can choose from. Plus, you will be able to set the size of the profile picture and text. Furthermore, Starbox also allows you to display the authors’ box anywhere using a WordPress widget or shortcode.
7. Booster Extension
Booster Extension is not merely an author box plugin. It is a great plugin to increase your visitors’ interaction with your content. The plugin allows you to give a thumb, star rating, and reaction to your posts. Also, you can enable the social sharing button. If you don’t need those elements and want to display the author box only instead, you can also do so. Regarding the author box, Booster Extension also allows you to display the following information:
- Author name
- Author bio
- Author email
- Author site
- Profile picture
- Social media accounts
8. Author Box for Divi
Just like the name suggests, this WordPress author box plugin is designed specifically for Divi theme. Even so, it also works on other WordPress themes. We tested it on Hello theme and everything went well. Once installed and activated, Author Box for Divi will automatically add the author box beneath the article. You can set things like the profile picture, author name, author bio, and social media accounts to be displayed on the author box. There are also options to set the color of the box background, text color, and border color. However, you need to enter the hex code of each color manually. Author Box for Divi offers very minimal customization options.
The bottom line
For most authors, the information about themselves matter as it makes it easier for their works to be recognized by visitors. So, if you have a WordPress-based website with multiple authors, it would be great to display the authors’ bio box on the single posts to respect your authors. If the WordPress theme you use offers no feature to do so, you can use one of the WordPress author box plugins we have collected above.
