Multi-author blog setup with profiles and archives
How to set up multiple blog authors with profiles and per-author archives
Configure SGEN's Users and Blog features to support a multi-author blog: create one user account per contributor, build an author profile page for each, enable author attribution on published posts, and link to the per-author archive so readers can find all posts from a specific contributor.
This playbook is the standard pattern for a team-authored blog on an SGEN site. It uses three existing admin features in sequence: Users, Pages, and Blog.
No plugin or third-party author management tool required.
Total time: approximately 30 minutes for the first author setup, and 15 minutes per additional author after that. The per-post attribution step adds less than two minutes per post.
What is this for?
A multi-author blog gives readers context about who wrote what and why their perspective matters. A named author with a photo and a short bio builds credibility in a way that an anonymous "Admin" byline cannot.
The setup has four layers:
- A user account for each author, with their name and a role that controls what they can publish or draft.
- An author profile page — a public page with the author's photo, bio, and links to their work. This is a standard SGEN Page, not a special author record.
- Post attribution — each blog post is assigned to an author user at publish time. The author's name appears on the post as a byline.
- A per-author archive — a URL that lists all posts attributed to one author. Readers who want more from a specific contributor have a clear path to find it.
Good use cases
Acme Coffee Roasters team blog. The Acme team has four contributors: the head roaster, the shop manager, a wholesale account manager, and a guest barista who writes monthly. Each has a user account in SGEN, a profile page at /team/<name>, and all published posts show their name as the byline. The head roaster's posts are tagged "Roasting" and appear in the Roasting category archive as well as the author archive filtered by their user ID.
Acme Bakery multi-contributor recipe blog. Three bakers contribute to Acme Bakery's recipe blog. Each baker has an Editor-level user account so they can write and draft posts but must submit for review before publication. The site owner (Administrator) reviews each draft and publishes approved recipes. The blog homepage shows the author name and photo below each post title so regular readers can filter by their favourite contributor.
Acme Wine Studio education blog. The Wine Studio blog covers wine education, pairing, and tasting notes. Three authors contribute: the wine director, an external sommelier who writes quarterly, and the events coordinator who covers event recaps. The external sommelier does not have a personal user account on the SGEN site — their posts are uploaded by the wine director and attributed to a shared "Guest Contributor" user with a generic profile page that describes the guest contributor programme.
Acme Coffee Roasters wholesale news blog. A separate blog section targeting wholesale buyers. Posts are attributed to the wholesale account management team as a collective. One SGEN user account represents the "Wholesale Team", with a profile page that describes the team rather than a single individual. Posts written by any team member are attributed to this shared account.
Acme Studio editorial calendar. A product-led blog with six contributors covering different product categories. Each contributor has an Editor role user account. The admin uses the Blog post list, filtered by Author, to review each contributor's queue and balance the publication schedule so no single author dominates a given week.
What NOT to use this for
If a guest writes one post per year, create a post under a generic "Guest Contributor" account rather than a dedicated user account. User accounts accumulate over time and each active account is a potential login target. Reserve individual accounts for contributors who publish regularly.
Authors who only write blog posts need Editor or Author role, not Administrator. Administrator role grants access to all site settings, user management, and billing. Assign the minimum role needed for each contributor's actual tasks.
The author attribution field links to a user account in SGEN. It is not a free-text byline field. If you need a display byline different from the user's account name, add the variation to the user's profile display name rather than using a workaround in the post body.
Author profile pages are standard SGEN Pages, not blog posts. Putting them in the Blog creates confusing archive entries and affects post counts.
Deleting a user account may orphan their posts, removing attribution from published content. If an author leaves, set their account to inactive rather than deleting it.
How this connects to other features
— the user account is the identity layer for author attribution. Each author's display name, email, and profile fields flow from their user account. The user role controls what they can create, edit, and publish.
— the author profile page is a standard SGEN Page. It contains the author's photo (uploaded to Media), bio, links, and optionally a link to their recent posts.
— the post creation interface includes an Author field. Assigning a user to the Author field creates the byline on the published post and adds the post to that user's author archive.
— author profile photos must be uploaded to Media before they can be used on the author profile page. Recommended dimensions: 400 × 400 pixels, square crop, WebP or JPG.
— per-author archives and per-category archives are independent. A reader can browse "all posts by the head roaster" (author archive) and also "all posts in the Roasting category" (category archive). These two axes provide complementary navigation for returning readers.
Before you start
Suggested role assignment guide:
- You are signed in to SGEN as an Administrator.
- You have the following for each author before you start: their full name as they want it to appear publicly, a headshot photo (400 × 400 pixels, square crop), a short bio (50–100 words), the role they need (Author, Editor, or Contributor), and their email address for the user account login.
- Upload all author headshots to Media before building profile pages. This avoids interrupting the page-building flow to upload images mid-form.
- Decide the URL pattern for author profile pages before creating them. A consistent pattern like
/team/<first-name>or/authors/<slug>makes the site easier to maintain. Once a profile page is published and linked from posts, changing its slug breaks those links.
Where to go
The recipe touches three admin areas in this order:
- Users → Add New — create a user account for each author (5 minutes each)
- Pages → Add New — create an author profile page for each author (10 minutes each)
- Blog → Edit Post — assign the Author field on each post (2 minutes per post)
Steps — Set up multi-author blog with profiles and archives
1. Create a user account for each author
Open Users → Add New. Fill in the following fields for each author:
- First Name and Last Name — as they want to appear in the byline.
- Username — a lowercase, no-space identifier for login. Cannot be changed after creation. Use a consistent pattern:
firstname.lastnameorfirstnamelastname. - Email — the author's email address. They will receive login credentials here.
- Role — choose the appropriate permission level (see the role guide in "Before you start").
Leave Send the new user an email checked so the author receives their login credentials automatically.
After creating each user account, note the user ID from the URL bar (/sg-admin/users/edit/<ID>) — you will use this ID to construct the per-author archive URL in step 5.
2. Upload author headshots to Media
Before building profile pages, upload all author headshots in a single session.
Open Media → Upload. Toggle Format to WebP if your images are in JPEG or PNG format — WebP reduces file size significantly without visible quality loss at headshot dimensions. Upload each headshot. After each upload, click the file to open the detail panel and rename it to match the author: james-okafor-headshot.webp. Note or bookmark each file URL from the detail panel. You will paste these URLs into the profile page image fields.
3. Create an author profile page for each author
Open Pages → Add New. Set the page title to the author's name: "James Okafor". Set the Slug to the profile path you decided on: team/james-okafor.
Write the profile page body in three sections:
Author name and role — H1 with the author's name, followed by one line of their role.
Author photo and bio — insert the headshot image from Media using Insert Image. Follow with two to four paragraphs: current role and expertise, background and relevant history, and what they write about and why.
Archive link — a clear link to their post archive: "Read all posts by James Okafor →" pointing to the archive URL you will construct in step 5.
Set page Status to Publish when the profile is ready.
4. Assign author attribution on blog posts
For each blog post, open Blog → Edit Post and locate the Author field in the sidebar. The Author field is a dropdown listing all users with Author role or higher. Select the correct author for each post.
For posts published before you added the author accounts, edit the post, update the Author field to the correct user, and save. The byline on the published post updates immediately.
For posts with multiple contributors, choose the primary author for the Author field. Add a credit line at the end of the post body for secondary contributors: "Edited by [Name]."
5. Link the author archive from the profile page
Each user account has a built-in author archive URL:
yourdomain.com/blog/?author=<user-id>.
Replace <user-id> with the numeric ID noted in step 1. For user ID 8 (James Okafor), the archive URL is yourdomain.com/blog/?author=8.
Open the author profile page from step 3. Confirm the archive link at the bottom of the bio section points to the correct URL. In a private-browsing window, click the archive link and confirm the page lists only posts by that author.
6. Maintain authors over time
Ongoing maintenance for a multi-author blog involves four recurring tasks:
- Adding a new contributor — create their user account (step 1), build their profile page (step 3), and link the archive from their profile page (step 5). Attribution on new posts starts immediately after account creation.
- Updating a bio or photo — edit the author's profile page in Pages. The user account display name also flows to the byline — update Users → Edit as well if the author's name changes.
- Deactivating a contributor who has left — open Users, find the account, and set it to inactive rather than deleting it. All published posts retain their attribution and remain live. Set their profile page to Draft so it is no longer publicly accessible.
- Reassigning orphaned posts — if a user account must be removed, SGEN will prompt you to reassign their posts to another user. Assign to an appropriate active account before confirming the deletion.
What success looks like
At the end of setup, every component of the multi-author blog should be in the following state: Specific checks before going live:
- Open a published post URL in a private-browsing window. Confirm the author byline appears showing the correct author name.
- Navigate to the author archive URL (
yourdomain.com/blog/?author=<ID>). Confirm only posts by that author appear in the list. - Open the author profile page URL. Confirm the headshot, bio, and archive link are present and functional.
- Click the archive link on the profile page. Confirm it loads the correct author post list.
What to do if it does not work
Confirm the user account you are editing the post with has Administrator or Editor role. Contributor-level users cannot change the Author field on posts.
The Author field was not updated on the post. Edit the post, change the Author field to the correct user, and save.
Confirm the user ID in the URL is correct. Navigate to Users → Edit for the author and check the numeric ID in the browser URL bar. Update the archive link on the profile page if the ID was wrong.
Check the user's Role in Users → Edit. Contributor role cannot publish; Author role can publish their own posts. If the contributor is listed as Editor, downgrade to Contributor and save.
Confirm the image source URL in the page body matches a file that exists in Media. If the file was deleted from Media, re-upload the headshot and update the reference in the profile page.
SGEN uses the user's display name in the Author dropdown. If two users share a first name, add a surname or initial to each display name in Users → Edit so the dropdown is unambiguous for editors assigning attribution.