Wordpress is a powerful CMS that has an inbuilt User system which controls how the users can access your WordPress website.
Sometimes you may want to give access of some of the WordPress Admin Features to other users like your writer. But you would not want them to have complete access to your WordPress website. This is where the WordPress User Roles and their permissions come in very handy.
Using WordPress Users system you can assign different permissions to different users that access your website.
Wordpress has a User Role Management system which allows you to set different roles for each specific users that access your WordPress Admin panel. It defines the roles of each different users like: what they can do in your WordPress, which areas they can view etc.
You can create the users according to your need and provide them different roles. You can only create WordPress Users if you are the Administrator of the WordPress.
Why use WordPress User Roles & Permissions
WordPress User Roles is a very important feature in WordPress.
Imagine if you have a WordPress website where you have many writers working under you. You may not want each writer to have complete access to your Admin Features. You would want to give only Limited access to each of your staff.
For Example: You may want to give your Junior Writers the rights to just save their posts as drafts, whereas your Senior writer could have both Publishing and Editing rights.
Good News! WordPress gives you all these options.
Various WordPress User Roles
In WordPress you can create the following users:
1. Administrator
2. Editor
3. Author
4. Contributor
1. Administrator:
In WordPress “Administrator” is the main user that has control over all the features in WordPress. Administrators can do everything in WordPress.
The Administrators can also Add new users or Remove existing users and manage the information of other user accounts like changing password of a user’s account. Only Administrator have the authority to add or remove the users.
Administrators can add new posts, Edit any existing post added by any user and delete any post also. They can install, Edit and remove any plugins or themes for a WordPress website.
Generally the Administrator Role is for the owner or main user of a WordPress website as the Admin can control every feature in WordPress.
2. Editor:
“Editors” in WordPress can add, edit, publish or delete any post on your website. Editor can also edit, publish and delete the posts published by other users. Editors can also moderate and reply to comments on your website.
But Editor in WordPress cannot change the core WordPress design & functionalities of a website. They don’t have the right to change, delete any theme or plugins in WordPress.
3. Author:
“Authors” only have the authority to add, edit, publish and delete posts in WordPress. They can’t modify any posts which are added by other users.
Authors basically have the right to only modify their own posts. This role is recommended to be assigned to your writer.
4. Contributor:
“Contributors” have the rights to add and edit their own posts. But they can’t publish any post even if the post has been added by them.
This role is recommended if you have a Blog where you accept guest Posts. You can assign your guest author the “Contributor” roles so that they cannot publish any post without the approval of the Editor or the Admin.
5. Subscriber:
“Subscriber” is the most Basic user in WordPress. They can only login to your WordPress website and manage their profiles inclusing changing the profile passwords.
Subscribers can be useful if you want your regular readers to have their profiles on your website. Your reader can use their profiles to leave their comments from their own users.
Thats It! I hope you can now use WordPress User roles to assign Users for your blog.