WordPress User Roles: How To Assign User Roles In WordPress
Giving someone access to your website admin area with WordPress user roles should be handled with care. Giving the wrong person the wrong access can lead to a website disaster! Today we wanted to talk about clearing up the website access methods and user roles.
The goal in this tutorial is not to mislead or complicate your online help. Rather we want to help you set rules and limitations where needed. It’s good to mention here that you should never give another user your admin login credentials to access your site. You would need to give them their own WordPress user account dedicated to their own email to keep things organized.
What is a WordPress user role?
WordPress incorporates user roles as a level of permissions that each user should have within the admin of your WordPress website. Upon creating an account for someone, you can set the role that the user will play, Instantly keeping them out of areas of your website that have no need to be in.
Let’s start by breaking down the WordPress default user roles:
- The Administrator Role
- The Editor Role
- The Author Role
- The Contributor Role
- The Subscriber Role
Some plugins can create custom WordPress user roles to be able to access content, options, or settings for that plugin.
The WordPress Administrator role
Administrative Access for your WordPress website should be a small list. This is the highest level of permission for your website. You and Your website developer or WordPress guru are usually the only people on your team that should have full administrative access. You should really trust anyone with an admin-level account as they essentially have the power to completely take over a WordPress site. Admins can write content on pages, post, add users, and any other high-level request.
The WordPress Editor role
The WordPress editor role is the second most powerful default role in WordPress. The editor can create posts and edit other authors’ posts but has no access to vitals within your website. This is to simplify what the editor’s job is within the site.
The editor creates and edits what other authors create as posts for the website. Think of editors as your managers for authors.
The WordPress Author role
The WordPress author role is dedicated to giving countless writers access to the blog. Each author has their own account allows for easy organization and accountability.
The difference between an editor and an author is authors can edit only their own post while editors can edit any author’s posts.
The WordPress Contributor role
A WordPress contributor is used to allow certain people to make content available in the back end but these users can’t publish the content to your site. A contributor would rely on either an editor, appointed author, or even an admin to publish the content they contributed. A Contributor cannot access the media library, so they cannot upload images or other files to your website.
The WordPress Subscriber User Role
A WordPress subscriber won’t have many capabilities or permissions by default. The general purpose of the subscriber is to build a faithfull following user base of folks interested in your content. With additional tweaks, you could provide some form of content that is hidden unless the visitor becomes a subscriber. They would have to create a free (or paid) account unlocking some special info on your website.
Access Your WordPress Users And Their WordPress User Roles
Login to your WordPress dashboard, in the menu on the left side, find users. Under users, you can see every person and the role they play within your WordPress site.
Let’s create a test user. At the top left click the add new user button:
Here you have the default user info that each account has such as username, email, nickname , etc.
Further towards the bottom, you will find the WordPress user role. Flipping through those you can see what options your site has. This may be a good point to note that WordPress has default user roles but plugins and custom code snippets can give your WordPress site additional user roles. Don’t be shocked if you have a few additional roles.
Example: WooCommerce is a top-notch e-commerce plugin for WordPress and after activation, you would find “shop manager” as an available user role.
The events manager includes a few for the different levels of permissions you have as an events holder.
Conclusion to basic WordPress user roles
WordPress user roles are a vital part of building a content-driven WordPress site with multiple people involved. Designate the correct role to the right users and take fewer chances.
If you have any questions on WordPress user roles feel free to leave a comment.
