WordPress offers a multitude of wonderful tools, but one notwithstanding is the ability to create WordPress user roles. That means the website owner has the ability to create new users who can share responsibilities for creating or editing blog posts, updating product and service pages and adding new pictures without giving full access to the core site functions.
As you create new users, it’s important to understand how much access and control each role allows so you can best decide who will have access to change or update your website.
How to Add a New User
– Make sure you are logged into your website
– Hover over “Users” on the left hand side of the dashboard
– Click “Add New”
– Next, fill out all the details associated with this user role. Carefully pick the user name. It can not be changed once you create the user. This name will appear whenever they author a blog post on the site.
– The most important part of this page is at the bottom. This is where you assign the user a specific role based on their responsibilities on your website.
Understanding WordPress User Roles
The role choices are as follows from most to least capabilities.
1. Administrator
2. Editor
3. Author
4. Contributor
5. Subscriber
As the website owner, you have the full powers of the Administrator role. In the administrator role, you have access to every feature WordPress has to offer. Plus, administrators are the only ones capable of creating other users.
The editor still has some pretty immense powers, but cannot embed code or change the structural layout of the website. They can create, edit and publish any pages and posts, upload images to the media gallery and moderate comments. In other words, the ability to alter pages and blog posts which are not their own is really what sets them apart from the author role.
Authors are only allowed to create, edit, delete and publish their own blog posts. Contributors can write and edit their own posts but are not allowed to publish them. This is nice for guest bloggers.
Last, but not least, you have the subscribers. The subscriber role has the least amount of capabilities and is mainly used to provide people who are interested with additional content such as access to a newsletter.
WordPress user roles can be changed at any time by the administrator. Do you have any questions about utilizing your WordPress site? We can help!