If you run a multi-author WordPress site, then you’ll quickly discover a frustrating problem.
Visitors would search for their favorite writers by name, only to find empty results or irrelevant content. The built-in WordPress search completely ignores authors.
But adding authors to WordPress search results can help your visitors find more content from their favorite authors and allow you to get more pageviews.
In this step-by-step guide, we’ll show you how to include authors in search results on your site, no coding needed.
Why Add Authors in WordPress Search Results
By default, WordPress ignores any data about post authors when performing a search. It makes finding posts from specific authors a real hassle for your site visitors.
The only option they have in this case is to check the authors’ archive. That’s not convenient, not to mention that not every site has such an archive.
By making authors’ data searchable, you can resolve this issue and help your visitors find the right content faster.
It also boosts your content discoverability and allows your authors to increase their online presence.
Now that you know why adding authors to search results can be beneficial, let’s see how you can do that.
How to Add Authors to Search Results on Your WordPress Site
The easiest way to include authors in search results on your site is to use the SearchWP plugin.
It is the most powerful WordPress search plugin which you can use to make anything searchable on your site.
It not only allows you to make WordPress index authors’ data, but also custom fields, tags, categories, and other helpful information.
Beyond that, you can use this plugin to completely customize how search works on your site.
For example, you can customize your search results page, exclude a specific post category from the search, and more.
But that’s not all the features this plugin comes with. You can also use SearchWP to:
- Create custom search fields: Do you want to have a search field with a unique set of settings? With SearchWP, you can create a search form, customize it to meet your needs, and place it anywhere on your site.
- Change the order of search results: SearchWP allows you to change your search results order with just a few clicks, no coding needed.
- Track the most popular searches: Do you want to know what users are looking for most often on your site? SearchWP gathers data on all search activity on your site, allowing you to understand your audience’s needs better.
- Limit search to specific post types: Using SearchWP, you can limit search on your site to specific post types, categories, or anything else.
There are over 50,000 website owners who already use SearchWP to deliver the most relevant search results to their visitors.
Are you ready to become one of them and add authors in search results on your WordPress site?
If so, follow the step-by-step guide below.
Step 1: Install and Activate the SearchWP Plugin
First, you’ll need to visit the website and create a new SearchWP account.
Once that’s done, the next step is to install the plugin on your site.
To get started, you can log in to your SearchWP account and click on the Downloads tab.
To download the plugin, go ahead and click the Download SearchWP button and save the ZIP file to your computer.
You should also copy your license key on the same page. You’ll need it on one of the following steps to activate your plugin copy.
The next step is to upload the downloaded ZIP file to your site and install SearchWP. You can follow this guide on installing a WordPress plugin if you need help.
After the plugin installation is complete, you’ll see the setup wizard. Simply click the ‘Start Onboarding Wizard’ button to configure the plugin.
Now, you’re ready to move on to the next step and customize the search engine to include authors.
Step 2: Customize Search Engine to Include Authors
To get started, you’ll need to navigate to SearchWP » Algorithm from your WordPress dashboard.
Here, you can customize the search engine for your website or create new ones.
SearchWP allows you to add multiple search engines and link them to separate search forms. This way, you can place fully customized search forms with a unique set of settings anywhere on your site.
But since we want to add authors to search across the whole site, we will customize the Default search engine.
First, you will need to press the ‘Sources & Settings’ button.
Next, a popup window will open with different sources used by the search engine.
By default, it will include posts, pages, and media, but you can add more sources. For example, if you’re running a WooCommerce store, then you can also include products as a source.
When you’re finished, simply click the Done button.
Next, will notice that SearchWP will include ‘Author’ as an attribute for all the sources, along with title, content, slug, and excerpt.
However, if you want to customize the source attributes, then simply click the Add/Remove Attributes button under any source.
This will open a new window where you can see all these attributes. Besides that, you can also add custom fields and taxonomies in the search process.
Go ahead and click ‘Done’ when you’re finished.
SearchWP also lets you change the relevance weight of attributes by moving the slider next to them left or right.
The further to the right the slider is set for an attribute, the more influence that attribute has on the position in the search results.
Next, you can scroll to the top of the page.
From here, simply click the ‘Save’ button to store all your changes.
That’s it. Now, your visitors can search for posts written by specific authors.
Let’s make sure and try out your new search.
Step 3: Test Your New Search by Authors
To do that, simply visit your website and head to the search bar or search form.
Then enter the author’s name whose posts you want to find into the search bar on your site.
For example, we have an author named Henry Turner on our test site. Let’s try to find posts written by him.
As you can see, we successfully found the posts written by Henry Turner.
It means that now search by author works on our site.
FAQs About Adding Authors to WordPress Search
Here are some queries users ask when it comes to including authors in WordPress Search.
1. Can I add authors to search results without using a plugin?
While it’s technically possible to modify WordPress search through custom code, we don’t recommend this approach for most users. SearchWP provides a much safer and more reliable solution that won’t break when you update your theme or WordPress core.
2. Will adding authors to search slow down my website?
SearchWP is optimized for performance and shouldn’t noticeably impact your site speed. The plugin creates its own search index that runs efficiently alongside WordPress. However, if you have thousands of authors, you may want to monitor your site’s performance after installation.
3. Can I create a separate search form just for authors?
Absolutely. SearchWP lets you create multiple search engines with different configurations. You can set up one search engine specifically for finding authors and another for regular content, then use different search forms on your site.
What’s Next…
Allowing users to search by authors helps them find posts from specific writers faster and increase the number of pageviews you get.
We hope this article helped you learned how to add authors in WordPress search results. You may also want to see our guides on how to prioritize specific search results in WordPress and how to add fuzzy search to your WordPress site.
Are you ready to include authors in search on your site and start delivering more relevant search results to your visitors? You can grab your copy of SearchWP here.
