Give each regular contributor a page with their name, a photograph, a short biography, what they know and how, and a list of their articles. Link every byline to it, and keep pages for former writers.

Signed with a first name

Sites with several writers often sign each article with a first name, initials or nothing at all. A trade magazine, an association's newsletter, a shop's blog: article after article with no sense of who wrote it.

A reader deciding whether to trust an article wants to know who is speaking. A nurse or a sales representative, a twenty-year member or a summer volunteer, someone who has done the thing or someone who read about it.

Without that, every article carries the same weight, which means none of them carries much.

What a contributor page holds

The fourth is what most biographies leave out. A line saying the writer spent twelve years as a site supervisor tells a reader more about an article on renovation delays than any list of interests.

Who is speaking matters

Readers judge advice by its source. The same suggestion reads differently from a dietitian, a chef and a reader who tried it once.

A page for each writer lets readers make that judgement for themselves, instead of guessing from the tone.

It helps the writers too. A contributor with a page has a reason to write carefully, because their name collects everything they have written.

This is for readers, not results

Google stopped showing author photographs and names beside its results last year, so this is not about the results page.

It is about the reader who has already arrived and is deciding whether to believe what they are reading. That decision happens on your page, and the byline is part of it.

A page for each writer also gives the site's combined knowledge a visible form, which matters to anyone weighing up whether to rely on it.

Writing the biography

Keep it short and specific: where they work or worked, for how long, what they do, and what they write about here.

Write every biography in the third person, so they read consistently, and in the same tone as the articles. A jokey biography above serious advice undercuts both.

Avoid inflated titles. A volunteer who has run the club's training program for six years has a better credential in those plain words than in an invented job title.

Read them again once a year. Biographies go stale quietly: a job changes, a qualification is earned, a role ends.

Linking it together

Every byline should link to the writer's page, and every page should list the writer's articles automatically, so nobody has to maintain the list by hand.

Most publishing systems, WordPress included, already produce an author archive. Turning it into a proper page usually means adding the biography and photograph to a template that shows only titles.

Guest writers who contribute once need only a line at the foot of their article. Pages are for people who write regularly.

A worked example

A bicycle rental shop near a seaside park rents bikes by the hour and the day, and publishes ride guides on its website: routes, distances, hills, and where to stop for coffee.

Over five summers about ten staff had written guides. Each was signed with a first name, and several with nothing.

Visitors used the guides to choose a route, and the difficulty ratings caused trouble. A family took a ride marked easy, written by a staff member who raced on weekends, and came back an hour late and unhappy.

The ratings were honest. They simply came from very different riders, and nothing on the page said which.

The shop gave each writer a page: a photograph, two or three sentences on how they ride, from a cargo bike with a child seat to weekend racing, and the list of their guides.

Each byline now links to that page, and every difficulty rating says who made it.

Former contributors

Writers leave, and their articles stay. Many sites delete the departed writer's page, leaving bylines that point nowhere, or quietly reassign the articles to someone who did not write them.

Keep the page and say plainly that they no longer write for you, with the years they did. Leave the biography as it was when they wrote, with a note if their role has since changed.

If someone else reviews and updates an old article, say so on the article: written by one person, reviewed this year by another. Readers can then weigh both.

The bike shop's seasonal staff leave every September. Their pages now name the summers they worked, and each spring their routes are ridden again and checked by whoever is on staff.

Consent and privacy

A contributor page is personal information published with the writer's agreement. Ask each one what they are comfortable sharing, and let them approve the text and the photograph.

Some will prefer a first name and no photograph, especially volunteers. A short biography that describes the expertise is still useful without a surname.

Contact details should be a choice, not a default. A form that forwards messages often serves better than a published address.

The counter-case

A site where one person writes everything needs a good about page and a consistent byline rather than a page per writer.

A small business blog where the owner signs every post is in the same position: the about page is the contributor page.

And for brief news items, a page per author may be more structure than readers need.

But wherever several people write advice that readers act on, each of them deserves a page that says who they are and why they know.

Before the next byline

  1. List everyone who has written for the site.
  2. Ask each writer what they will share.
  3. Write a short biography for each one.
  4. Say what each person knows, and how.
  5. Link every byline to its writer's page.
  6. Keep dated pages for former contributors.
  7. Review the biographies once a year.

Step four is the line that does the work. A name and a photograph tell readers who wrote the article; how that person came to know the subject tells them how much weight to give it.

Being open about what changed in an article afterwards is covered in corrections noted at the foot of the article.

Frequently asked questions

Why give each contributor their own page?

Readers judge advice by its source. A page saying who the writer is and how they know the subject lets readers weigh each article rather than guess.

What should a contributor page include?

The full name, a recent photograph, a short biography, what the writer knows about and how, a list of their articles, and a way to reach them if they wish.

Is this about Google search results?

No. Google stopped showing author photographs beside its results last year. The page is for readers who have arrived and are deciding whether to believe what they read.

What about writers who have left?

Keep their pages and say when they wrote for you. Deleting them leaves bylines pointing nowhere, and reassigning their articles to someone else misleads readers.

Do guest writers need a page?

Not for a single article. A line about the writer at the foot of the piece is enough; pages are for people who write regularly.

What if a writer wants privacy?

Ask what they will share and let them approve it. A first name with the expertise described is still useful, and contact details should be optional.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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