By Philip Yiga | July 27, 2017

Most websites today often have multiple authors working on the same article and this implies that such website may want to give credit to all the authors that contributed towards the published posts. For example, most news-websites use multiple journalists who contribute to a single story and this means that all these journalists should be added to the authors-list of particular-post on any news-website. So, in this article I will show you how to add and show multiple authors to a particular post within your WordPress website/blog:

Steps on how to add multiple authors for a post under WordPress:

 

1. Locate the WordPress plugin-marketplace and search for the “Co-Authors Plus plugin”: after logging into your WordPress-account, you will now need to go to the Dashboard >> Plugins >> Add New in order to gain access to the WordPress plugin-marketplace. in fact, different plugins will appear in the opened window and you will just need to search for the “Co-Authors Plus” plugin using the integrated search-box as shown in the illustration below:
2. Install the “Co-Authors Plus plugin”: after searching and getting the “Co-Authors Plus” plugin, click on the “Install Now” button in order to begin the installation-process and below is an illustration on how to install this plugin.

3. Activate the “Co-Authors Plus” plugin: after the installation-process, and activation button will appear just below the plugin. So, just press on the “Activate” button in order to make the Co-Authors Plus plugin activate and ready for use as shown in the illustration below;

4. Open a new-post or an existing-post where to add the multiple-authors: you will now need to open-up either a new-post or existing-post where you would like to add the multiple-authors. So, in order to open-up a new post you will need to go to Posts >> Add New and then a new blank-post will appear as shown in the illustration below;

On the other hand, if you want to open-up an existing-post then you will need to go-to Posts >> All Posts and then select the post where you want to add the multiple-authors. In fact, you may just click on the heading of the post to open it up or just click on the “Edit” button as shown in the illustration below.

5. Locate the Authors-option within the open-post: after opening up your post, scroll downwards below the post-edit screen and you will actually notice a new “Authors” box where to add new-authors. In fact, the authors-option only shows you the original author of the post by default but you can add other authors by simply entering their names in the search-box below as shown in this illustration.

6. Search and add new authors: although the authors-option shows only the original-author of the post, you can actually add other authors by simply entering their names in the search-box below and then the plugin will begin showing the available as you type. So, you will need to select the user that you want to add into your authors-list by simply clicking on their names. In fact, after selecting and clicking on the authors-name, it will appear just below the original author’s-name as shown in the illustration below.

 

Below is a list of all the added authors on a particular-post. In fact, you can remove some authors if you want by simply clicking on the “Remove” button or add more authors by simply typing their names in the search-box.

 

 

Note: the authors you add on a particular-post should first be added as users to your WordPress-account so that their names can appear in the Authors search-box when searching and adding new-authors.

 

7. Edit you theme-files to view display multiple-authors: although the Co-Authors Plus plugin helps you add multiple authors into a particular post, this plugin won’t automatically display the multiple authors on your website. So, you will need to edit your theme-files most especially the code responsible for showing the author-name for posts. In fact, the code could be a single.php, content.php or even a template-tag within your theme’s function.php file. However the only thing I will need to-do is locating for a code with a template-tag of “the_author_posts_link ()” and then replace it with another author-code that for multiple display of authors. So below is an example of the code that will enable you theme to display multiple-authors.

 

8. Preview the added authors: after adding the required theme-code, click on the “Update” button in order to save changes and after click on the “Publish” button to save a new-post. Afterwards, go to your website and scroll downwards to check whether the all the authors you added are being listed. In fact, incase all the authors have been listed then you would have successfully configured the “Co-Authors Plus” plugin. So, below is an active illustration authors-list on a WordPress website/blog.

Conclusion: there are many plugin that can help you add multiple-authors but the “Co-Authors Plus” plugin is one of the best. However, you should very careful when using this plugin especially when adding the author-code into your themes Php-file (theme.php) because if any mistake when pasting your author-code then you website/blog will experience an internal-server error which is hard to fix and may require professional web-developers to solve it. On the other hand, you may decide to install a theme that supports multiple authors in order to save yourself from trouble when associated with using author-plugins.