who is this admin guy writing all of these blog entries?
A few months back, I added a LOT of blogs to my Google feed reader. As the months have gone on, I’ve deleted a few, and grown to love others…and I have no idea who the person behind the blog is. How is that possible?
I’ll tell you how - it’s because the authors behind those blogs have their Wordpress preferences set up incorrectly. Instead of displaying their own name along with the entry, it says “Posted by admin”. I can think of at least 10 blogs on my feed reader that this “admin” guy is writing. Maybe incorrect isn’t the right term, but there’s a better way to brand your blog and your entries, and that’s by using your own name, or a name you wish to go by on your blog.
Log into your Wordpress dashboard and click the users link. You’ll see the account that you use to make your entries there. Like most of you, mine is called “admin”, because that’s what I named it when I set it up. But that’s just the username for the blog - you can actually specify a completely different display name, which is what I’ve done. (You can click on any of the permalinks at this blog to see this in action - they all say “Author: Colleen”)
By clicking the edit link next to your WP user name, you can specify a display name to be used. When you do that, your entries will no longer be giving credit to that admin guy, and people will be able to put a name with the blog. You’ll be adding to your brand, and giving your blog a personality.
Heh, I use the Sage extension for FireFox as my feed reader/organizer. I never thought about using a different reader…but, I think I should as I am missing out on a few things like that little tid bit.
I couldn’t agree with you more. Since my blog has a team of writers, it was essential that I set this up since it wasn’t a default part of the blog theme I chose. The WP Codex helped me find the answers.
Along the same lines, I’m really frustrated with blog owners who don’t have an About page or a Contact page - or at least a way to contact the author via an email addy in the sidebar or whatever.
If I made it to your blog and I subscribe, chances are I like what you write about, I probably want to get to know more about you or what drives you to publish the site, that is what an About page is for. A contact page is a no-brainer and with so many simple WP plugins for contact forms (so you don’t have to publish an email address and nearly avoid spam), why not?
Thanks for the tip, I just figured out how to change that. Embarrassingly it was still set to the default admin.
Also a big thanks to Mike for the suggestion on the comment form, do you have any particular plug-in that you recommend? There are a huuuuge number of contact plugins on the wpplugins site…
Thanks for this! I’ve been reading in my feed reader lately, and that’s been bugging me!
Brandon,
I simply made a page for my contact me form, and people can submit a comment to contact me, which I reply to, but don’t approve to be published.
Yeah when I started my Wordpress blog, I didn’t realize I could change the display name, so I created another user. I was determined not to have all my entries credited to “Admin” lol
I thought I was the only one noticing this. Thank goodness other people have. It’s been driving me crazy too!!
umm…YOU set me up as admin!!
Cheryl,
That’s your log in name, but when you blog, you have a display name too. I set up your display name as “Cheryl”, but for some reason, your blog isn’t showing it!