Best Tools for Multi-Author WordPress Site
Are you managing a multi-author blog in WordPress? If so, this article is for you. Meet the author: Anthony Anson is a professional academic writer and also working in the field of education for five years. Nowadays he is part of the Assignment Ace UK company. They provide the best assignment services for the students. InstantShift is leading design and inspiration related community for web designers and developers daily resource, inspiration and premium web design and development. Image courtesy of ibphoto via Bigstockphoto.
Do you manage a multi-author WordPress site? Great! You’re lucky enough that you don’t have the agitating workload and you don’t have to daily come up with creative ideas for the articles. You are able to concentrate on the bugs fixing, design updates and manage the advertisement.
At the same time, you must be facing some challenges. As more people are involved in the site, the more difficult it becomes to govern the ordeal.
But, all thanks to the WordPress tools created for the Multi-Author sites to ease your difficult tasks. It allows you to run your site smoothly.
Want to know about those problem-solvers? Here come the great tools to run your multi-author WordPress blog smoothly:
User Role Editor
It is a very useful plug-in that permits you to decide the roles and access of people. It basically informs the people of their rights when they are active on the site.Are you afraid of the damage caused by author’s mistakes? Then it’s the perfect tool for you. It allows you to outline the limit of all the people involved, even yourself.Here’s an example of a good strategy you can adopt: You can create an admin account and some editor accounts. Normally, all the people can use the editor account. But, if something important needs to be done then you can log in the admin account. This strategy makes you extra cautious when you log in the admin account because you are already aware of the consequences.
Editorial Calendar
It is vital to update the blog content on a daily basis. If you want to want to hit the deadline and manage everything effectively, you have to stick to the calendar. Here comes “Editorial Calendar” to make your life simpler.It provides a clear picture of the scheduled posts to the writer along with the deadlines. They are able to keep a check with all the covered and uncovered topics.
Edit Flow
Do you face troubles in time-management? Edit Flow tool will ease your task. It provides you with a content calendar to specify the stage and the publishing time of the posts. It also allows you to leave the editorial comments within the backend. It helps you to publish the posts on the right day!There are some basic stages and you can even distinct yourself from others by adding custom stages. Here are the 5 basic stages:
- Assigned
- Draft
- Pending review
- Pitch
- Waiting for feedback
Pre-publish reminder
Everyone forgets important things. It’s a usual process of nature. Instead of feeling embarrass about it, it’s a good idea to make a checklist in order to run through the post before finalizing anything. Some authors might forget to add a relevant image to the post.This reminder exactly does the same thing. It provides you with a complete list of all the things that makes your blog look flawless.
Cleverness to-do list
To-do lists hold a lot of importance in our lives these days. They are even important in WordPress sites. This plug-in (as it is suggested by the name) allows you to produce a to-do list for the users. You can even make use of color codes to prioritize the tasks. It also has a deadline function and progress status which makes it easier for you to track the writer’s work. It also allows personal to-do lists for individual members.
WP author report free
It is the only productivity tool that generates a detail report of the particular author’s performance, the number of posts he is making and any specific duration you want to view. You can even monitor the number of responses received by post on the daily basis.
Draft notify
It is a smashing tool that sends an email to the admin whenever a new post is drafted. The email consists of the title, name of the author and link of the post. It will assist you in speeding up the process of checking the post and approving it.
Co-authors Plus
Have you and your team collaborated on an extensive project? WordPress will only allow one author to be given credit. However, if you use “co-authors”, you are able to give credits to each and every member of the team. Co-authors allow you to allocate multiple bylines to a page or post.
Adminimize
It allows you to decide the roles of the people as well as the parts of the backend that are visible to them on the site. You are able to control the visibility of any part of the menu or sub-menu. It makes certain parts vanish from the writer’s dashboards.
Audit Trail
Want to keep a check on the behind-the-scenes happenings on your blog? Audit trail tracks the activities and informs you that:
- Who logged in your blog?
- The time that person logged in.
- The activities or changes carried out by them.
It even permits you to undo the changes made in the post. It is effective in catching the malicious damage.
Author advertising
Do you pay a percentage of advertising profit to your writers? Then it’s the best tool to help you out. You can instruct the tool to evenly distribute the generated revenue or share it on the basis of page views.
Author Recent Posts
People may find a specific writer’s blog interesting and want to read more from him. In this case, Post by Author presents a widget along with every author’s blog post. Once it is clicked, it displays the list of all the recent articles by that particular author. It acts as a support for the writers and boosts the reader engagement rate which inevitably increases the number of readers.Author Advertising works with Amazon, Allposters, Yahoo and Google Adsense. It is a versatile plug-in that directs all the advertisements on your site.
Gravatar
It is a super easy and useful tool that provides a unique headshot and short bio to your every writer. Gravatar will follow your writers over the internet. If they comment on any other blog, the Gravatar system will make their headshot visible. It assists your writers in improving their online presence.
The user submitted posts
Are you acquainted with the word “Guest Post”? It is just that. Guest Posts are the best way to enhance your online presence, increase the output, generate top-notch content and meet new dexterous writers. However, the editing and formatting of the post require an immense effort. But, you don’t need to worry. The plug-in allows the community to submit the content easily. The plug-in negates the chances of user access to the backend of your WordPress site.
Simple Local Avatars
If you wish to not use Gravatar or you don’t have its setup, then you can use simple Local Avatar. It allows the users on your WordPress sites to upload their pictures.
Restrict Author posting
Do you have a multi-author blog with a variety of categories? With this plug-in, you’re able to restrict some specific authors from posting in certain categories. Moreover, you can even assign certain topics or categories to specific authors to limit their access. It allows you to assign permissions in the specific categories. It negates the chances of editors publishing in the wrong section.
TinyMCE Spellcheck
Even the best writers can make and overlook an unintentional mistake while writing a blog in a hurry. This spellchecker double-checks and polishes the content before it gets published. It helps you to avoid the embarrassing moments of silly mistakes.
Author Spotlight (Widget)
It gives the well-deserved credits to the writers. There are many blogs which can’t afford to pay an amount to the writers, but they can provide them with a platform to publish and flourish their efforts.But, what basically Author Spotlight does? It draws special attention to such writers by offering them a short byline on the site. It also allows them to insert their website and social media links for promotion. The widget identifies the logged-in writers and gives them their proper credits.
Good Writer Checkify
It offers the checklist with a complete range of items to improve the flow and quality of the blog. It includes photo credits and outbound links. There are many things that the writers unintentionally forget to include in the content. Therefore, this list is present at the end of each post to remind them. You can even customize the list as per your requirement.
Dashboard Notepad
It allows the editor to leave small notes on the dashboard of WordPress within the backend. These notes are easily accessible to users but, only for reading. Only you have the power to edit them. They can be used to instruct the writers or remind them of an upcoming event.
Revisionary
Can changes be made to a published content in a multi-author blog? No! It is not possible. But with the help of Revisionary, it is possible. The writers can submit the alterations in published content for the editor’s approval without disturbing the editor. Revisionary simplifies the task of editors.
Peter’s Post Notes
It offers you the ability to leave editorial notes for your writers. As the owner of the blog, it is imperative to make changes and leave notes for the editor. The notes can simply be a piece of instruction or full detailed note.
Authors Widget
It allows you to have a list of all the blog authors in the sidebar. Once any name is clicked, the user is directed to the author’s PHP page. It works best if you have a significant number of authors.
Author Exposed
The name says it all! But, it really does not expose the author. It offers a little pop up to the author of the post. Author Exposed provides a better insight to the users about the author. It makes the process a bit smoother for the users.
Email Users
It allows you to send emails or post notifications to all the users which are registered on your WordPress site or blog respectively. It can also be used to send an email to individual users or users with a specific user role.
Post Forking
Post forking permits the authors to create the alternative version of a blog or an article. The author can either use some part of the post or the entire post to replace the original post with it. It is useful when you want to submit the proposed revisions to a writer’s article. It helps you to expand the already existing work by your writer.
Moderator Role
It will allow you to add the users with the moderate user role. These users will only have the ability to moderate the comments.
WP User Frontend
Don’t want to grant the admin areas access to the authors? It’s okay. This tool allows the user to submit their posts directly at the frontend.
Content Progress
Content Progress permits you to view the progress of the content, insert flags and add quick notes on the posts. Flags can also be used to show the status of content such as done, incomplete and in progress.
Error notification
All of us make mistakes. Error notification allows the visitors to catch the mistakes in the post and easily report it in the comments.
Cimy User Extra Fields
It allows you to easily insert extra fields in the user profile or registration.
Forbidden Author words
Do you want your authors to avoid certain phrases and words? It’s the excellent tool for that purpose. It restricts the authors to use some of the words that are inappropriate. You have the option to either restrict the usage in title or content or both.Are you ready to use some of them? With these tools, you’ll be quite certain that your blog runs smoothly and effectively. You’ll be able to track the authors, limit their access, make your blog error-free, and give proper credits to the authors and much more. Hasn’t your life as an editor and owner become easier with these tools?
