What does your byline say about you? Is it your name? Your identity? Or is it admin?
The byline is the author name, the name of the person who presumably wrote and published the article, who the article is “by.” In traditional media, this is a coveted credit. In traditional newspapers, a byline was a sign you’d made it into the big time, a published writer.
On most of my sites, my author byline is “Lorelle VanFossen.” On others, it’s just “Lorelle.”
What is yours?
In this Blog Exercise, I want you to check what your author display name (byline) is and consider changing it.
In WordPress, the author name is set in the Users > My Profile. It is set in Display name publicly as. Unless set, WordPress uses the user’s login name, often a funny mashed up word with no spaces, or the default “admin.”
By default, WordPress.com does not display the author’s name as a byline under the post title on most Themes until there is a second author. The assumption is that if this is your site, you’re the only author, why should your name be under every post.
As you set your author name, consider what your identity is on the site. Are you your name? First name only or both names? Maybe only your last name. Are you the administrators of the site? Are you a voice on a team with no personal identification? Is it more important you have a nickname? Do you need to blog anonymously?
NOTE: If you are on WordPress.com or working with a WordPress Theme that does not display the author byline unless there is more than one contributing user, consider adding a second user with author privileges to your site. It doesn’t have to be a real person. It requires a second email address or the use of the plus feature to change your email to appear different from the original such as with Gmail: myemail+junkwords@gmail.com. Gmail ignores everything after the plus, but WordPress considers it a different email address.
Remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.
You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.
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4 Comments
Love your posts! So are you saying if it’s my website and I author every post, that I SHOULD have a byline? I have not had one so far. What is the reason for putting it there if Im the only writer? Thanks a lot and I appreciate what you write!
I’m not saying that every post should have a byline, or that a single author site should feature bylines. WordPress.com made the decision to remove bylines on all single author sites due to the complaints people had. If a second author is added and publishes a post, the byline appears on most WordPress Themes on WordPress.com.
If you are your blog and your business, and you wish for increased name recognition – your brand – then a byline would be appropriate.
If your site has a byline on the posts, what is it? Your name? Your call sign? Admin?
This exercise is designed to draw attention to the byline and help you fix it if it says something odd, just as your Gravvatar says “girlsreturnhome” instead of Allison of Girls Return Home, a more professional presentation though your name would be just as good, then fix it.
We often ignore it. I’ve seen many long-lived sites with “admin” as the author on the posts, a rather impersonal way of naming yourself. It puts me off, makes me think they don’t pay attention to details, and distracts from the personal appeal they may have and want on the site.
You decide which way you want to go, just don’t miss the details! LOL!
You could also have different authors with variations of your e-mail address with different display names so that you can further personalize your blog. If your blog is about cooking and you write about something that bakes, you can use a “master baker”, while a salad could be by “master chopper”. Obviously, this doesn’t scale well but I thought it may be fun.
Obviously, taking into account your previous exercise about making sure that all such addresseshave gravatars enabled.
LOL! If you wanted to be known as the Master Baker, Master Chopper, etc., that would indeed be fun.
There are no right or wrong answers. It’s your blog. You make the decision. These exercises are to remind you about the details as the details make or break the cake. Hee hee!
Thanks.
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