Author pages help build trust and improve rankings by showing Google who created your content, with verifiable credentials and real expertise
They support E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), the framework Google uses to assess content quality
You can create author pages on WordPress using free plugins like Rank Math or AIOSEO, with no coding needed
Adding Person schema markup helps search engines connect your content to a real, identifiable person
Author pages are part of a wider entity-building approach that also improves your visibility in AI search results
Author pages help build trust and improve rankings by showing Google and your visitors exactly who created your content, with verifiable credentials and real expertise.
If you run a small business and publish blog posts or service pages, that question of “who wrote this?” matters more than you might think. Search engines and AI tools both look for signs that your content was written by someone with genuine knowledge and experience.
That is where ‘author pages’ come in.
An author page is a dedicated page on your website that tells visitors and search engines about the person who writes your content. It includes things like your name, background, qualifications, and links to your other work.
For small business owners using WordPress, setting one up is simpler than you might expect.
This article explains what author pages are, why they help build trust with both Google and your audience, and how to create one on your WordPress site.
You will also learn how author pages connect to E-E-A-T, how they fit into a wider entity-building approach, and why they are becoming more important for AI search visibility.
Table of Contents
What Is an Author Page and Why Does It Matter for SEO?
An author page is a standalone page on your website that provides information about the person who creates your content.
It typically includes a biography, professional background, photo, and links to published articles or external profiles such as LinkedIn.
How author pages differ from author bios
You might already have a short author bio box at the bottom of your blog posts. That is useful, but it is not the same as a full author page.
A bio box gives readers a quick snapshot, usually just two or three sentences. An author page goes deeper. It acts as a central hub where Google and your visitors can find everything they need to assess your credibility.
Think of it this way. Your author bio is like a business card. Your author page is more like your CV. Both have value, but the author page gives search engines and AI tools much more to work with.
Why search engines care about authorship
Google’s own documentation says that websites should provide clear information about who created the content.
The Search Quality Rater Guidelines, which Google uses to train its algorithms, look closely at whether content has identifiable authorship and verifiable credentials. This is especially true for topics that affect people’s money or wellbeing, known as YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) content.
For a small business owner, this means Google is actively looking for signs that a real person with real knowledge stands behind your content.
An author page provides exactly those signals.
How Do Author Pages Support E-E-A-T?
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google uses this framework to judge whether your content deserves to rank well.
Author pages support all four parts.
Experience and expertise signals
Your author page is the perfect place to demonstrate first-hand experience. If you are a plumber writing about boiler maintenance, your author page can mention your 15 years of hands-on work, your Gas Safe registration, and the hundreds of boilers you have serviced.
This kind of detail tells Google your content comes from someone who has actually done the work, not just researched it.
Expertise works in a similar way.
Listing your qualifications, training, and specialist knowledge helps Google understand that you are qualified to write about your topic. For professional services like accounting, financial advice, or healthcare, these signals carry even more weight.
Authoritativeness and trustworthiness
Authoritativeness grows when your content is consistently attributed to the same person across your site.
An author page creates a central record that ties all your articles and pages back to you. Over time, Google builds up a picture of your topical authority based on the content connected to your name.
Trustworthiness comes from transparency.
When visitors can see who wrote something, check that person’s background, and verify their credentials, they are more likely to trust the content. Google’s systems are designed to reward this kind of openness.
Google’s helpful content documentation states that websites should provide background about the author, such as links to an author page or a site’s About page, to help users assess trustworthiness (source: Google Search Central, “Creating Helpful Content”, updated December 2025).
What Should You Include on Your Author Page?
A good author page does not need to be long, but it does need to cover the right things. Here is what to include to give search engines and visitors the information they need.
Essential information for your author page
Start with your full name and a professional photo.
People trust content more when they can see a real face behind it. Add a biography that covers your relevant experience and qualifications, and keep it focused on what makes you qualified to write about the topics on your site.
Include your job title or role, the name of your business, and how long you have been working in your field. If you have professional qualifications or memberships, list them. For example, if you are a chartered accountant, a certified electrician, or a qualified mortgage adviser, say so.
How should you write your author bio?
The way you write your author bio matters as much as what you include.
Write in the third person, as this reads more professionally and matches how credentials are typically presented. Keep the tone honest and factual. Avoid exaggerating your experience or making claims you cannot back up, as both readers and search engines reward authenticity.
For example, compare these two approaches for a self-employed electrician:
Weak: “I do electrical work and have lots of experience. I’m passionate about helping customers.”
Stronger: “Mark Thompson is a qualified electrician with 12 years of experience serving homes and businesses across Kent. He holds a City & Guilds Level 3 qualification and is registered with NICEIC. Mark writes about common electrical faults, safety checks, and when to call a professional.”
The second version names a real person, states verifiable qualifications, and ties the bio directly to the content topics on the site.
That is what Google and your readers are looking for.
Focus your bio on the topics you actually write about on the site. If you run a roofing business and your blog covers roof repairs and maintenance, your bio should highlight your roofing qualifications and hands-on project experience, not unrelated skills.
This keeps a clear connection between your expertise and the content Google finds on your pages. If you have team members who also contribute content, create a separate author page for each person and get their approval before publishing any personal or professional details.
Links and external profiles
Link to your professional profiles, especially LinkedIn.
Google uses these external links to verify your identity and connect you to your wider online presence.
In a 2021 Google Search Central SEO hangout, John Mueller recommended linking to a central place where everything comes together for an author, such as a social media profile. He explained that Google’s systems use this to recognise the same author across different websites through a process called “entity reconciliation” (source: Search Engine Journal, April 2021).
You should also link to your published articles on the site. This creates an internal linking structure that reinforces your connection to the content and helps search engines see the breadth of your expertise.
WordPress SEO Guide: How to Optimise Your Small Business Website
How Do You Create an Author Page in WordPress?
If your website runs on WordPress, you already have the basic structure for author pages built in. WordPress creates author archive pages automatically, but you will want to customise them to get the full SEO benefit.
Using WordPress author archives
Every WordPress site generates an author archive page at a URL like yoursite.co.uk/author/your-name. By default, this page shows a list of posts by that author.
Most WordPress themes allow you to add a biographical description through your user profile settings. Go to Users, then Profile in your WordPress dashboard, and fill in the Biographical Info field.
Default author archives tend to be quite basic, though. They often lack structured data and may not display your credentials prominently enough.
That is where plugins help.
Setting up author pages with SEO plugins
Free plugins like Rank Math and AIOSEO both offer author SEO features. These plugins let you add structured data to your author pages automatically, include social media links, and customise how your author information appears across your site.
With Rank Math, for example, you can go to the Titles and Meta settings, find the Authors section, and configure your author page to be indexed by search engines.
You can also add your social profiles and additional profile URLs through your WordPress user profile. The plugin then generates the appropriate Person schema markup for you.
AIOSEO offers similar features through its Author SEO add-on, which lets you set up author bios with credentials, experience details, and links to external profiles. Both plugins handle the technical side so you do not need to write any code.
Making sure your author pages are indexed
One common mistake is leaving author pages set to “noindex”, which tells Google not to include them in search results.
Check your SEO plugin settings to confirm your author pages are set to “index”. If Google cannot see your author page, it cannot use it to assess your credibility.
To check you can head over to Google Search Console: Indexing > Pages
There you will be able to see which pages are indexed and a section called’ Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag’.
How to Use Google Search Console: A Guide for Business Owners
What Is Author Schema and Why Should You Add It?
Schema markup is extra code that helps search engines understand your content better.
Author schema, sometimes called Person schema, tells Google specific details about the author of a piece of content. This includes their name, job title, employer, qualifications, and links to their profiles.
How author schema works
When you add author schema to your site, you are giving Google structured data it can read directly.
As of 2024, over 45 million web domains use schema.org structured data, and pages with rich results consistently see higher click-through rates than standard search listings (source: Amra and Elma, “Schema Markup Statistics 2025”).
Instead of trying to figure out who wrote your content by scanning the page, Google gets a clean, formatted set of facts. This makes it easier for search engines to connect your author identity across your website and the wider web.
Google’s article structured data documentation recommends including the author property with a Person type, along with a name and URL that links to a page uniquely identifying the author.
The URL should point to your author page or a professional profile page.
Adding schema without coding
If you are using Rank Math or AIOSEO on WordPress, author schema is generated automatically when you set up your author profiles correctly.
You do not need to edit any code. The plugins create JSON-LD markup in the background, which is the format Google prefers for structured data.
To check that your schema is working, you can use Google’s Rich Results Test at search.google.com/test/rich-results. Paste in the URL of your author page and the tool will show you what structured data Google can detect.
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How Do Author Pages Affect AI Search Visibility?
Tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity are changing how people find information online.
These platforms pull answers from web content they consider trustworthy. Author pages can influence whether your content gets cited by these tools.
Why AI tools look for authorship signals
When generating answers, these platforms need to decide which sources to trust.
They look for many of the same signals that Google uses, including clear authorship, verifiable credentials, and consistent attribution.
When your content is tied to a named author with a dedicated page and proper schema markup, AI tools have more confidence in citing your site as a source.
A 2025 study by Relixir analysing 50 domains found that sites with well-implemented schema markup achieved a median 22% increase in AI search citations (source: Relixir, “Does Updating Schema Markup Boost GEO Performance in 2025?”).
For small businesses, this means author pages are not just about standard Google rankings. They also affect whether AI tools recommend your business when someone asks a question related to your expertise.
Building your entity for AI search
Google and AI systems both try to understand ‘entities’.
Entities which are recognisable people, businesses, or concepts.
Your author page helps establish you as an entity in Google’s Knowledge Graph. When you link your author page to your social profiles and other online presences, you help search engines connect all the information about you into a single, identifiable entity.
In a Google Search Central hangout, John Mueller described this process as “reconciliation”, where Google groups content by recognising which entities belong together (source: Search Engine Roundtable, April 2021).
Your author page serves as that central hub on your website for this entity-building process.
How to Optimise Your Website for AI Search Engines
How author pages fit into your wider entity strategy
Author pages do not work in isolation.
They are one part of a broader approach to helping Google and AI tools understand your entire business.
Your website contains several types of entities:
- the people behind it
- the services you offer
- the locations you serve
- the content you publish
When these are connected through internal links and structured data, search engines can build a much clearer picture of what your business does and why it should be trusted.
For example, linking your author page to your service pages, your About page, and your Google Business Profile creates a web of connected entities.
Each connection reinforces the others.
Your author page shows that a qualified person stands behind the content, your service pages show what the business offers, and your About page ties it all together. This connected approach is what helps smaller businesses compete with larger sites that have higher domain authority, because it gives search engines clear, structured evidence of genuine expertise.
What Mistakes Should You Avoid with Author Pages?
Setting up an author page is straightforward, but there are a few common errors that can reduce their effectiveness.
Common author page mistakes
Not having an author page at all is the biggest missed opportunity.
Many small business websites publish blog content without any author attribution. Every post without a named author is a missed chance to build trust with Google and your visitors.
Other common errors include using a generic company name instead of a real person, writing a biography that is too vague or too short, and forgetting to add a professional photo.
Some site owners also create an author page but never link to it from their articles. Without those internal links, Google has a harder time connecting your content to your author profile.
Leaving the page set to noindex is another frequent slip that stops Google from seeing it entirely.
Keeping your author page up to date
Your author page should not be a set-and-forget task. Review it every few months and update your credentials, experience, and list of published articles.
If you gain a new qualification, win an award, or reach a business milestone, add it. Search engines notice when content is kept current, and an outdated author page sends the wrong message about your attention to quality.
Frequently Asked Questions
An author page is a dedicated page that provides information about the person who creates content on a website. It typically includes a biography, professional qualifications, a photo, and links to the author’s published work. On WordPress sites, author pages are usually found at URLs like yoursite.co.uk/author/name and can be customised with SEO plugins.
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It is the framework Google uses to assess content quality. Author pages support E-E-A-T by clearly showing who created your content, what their qualifications are, and why they should be trusted. Google’s guidelines directly mention author pages as a way to demonstrate these signals.
Learn more: E-E-A-T Optimisation for AI Search
WordPress creates basic author archive pages automatically. To improve them, install a free SEO plugin like Rank Math or AIOSEO. Go to your user profile in the WordPress dashboard and add your biographical information, photo, and social links. Then check your plugin’s settings to make sure your author page is set to be indexed by search engines.
Related: How to Set Up Your WordPress SEO Plugin for Maximum Results
Your author bio should include your full name, job title, relevant qualifications, years of experience in your field, and a brief description of your expertise. Write in the third person, keep it honest, and focus on the topics you cover on your site. Add links to your LinkedIn profile and any other professional profiles.
Author schema markup is structured data code that tells search engines specific details about who wrote your content. It uses Person schema to provide information like the author’s name, job title, employer, and profile URLs. On WordPress, plugins like Rank Math and AIOSEO generate this markup automatically, so you do not need to write any code.
Not directly, in the way that page speed or backlinks do. However, author pages support E-E-A-T signals that Google’s algorithms recognise and reward. Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines place trust at the centre of E-E-A-T assessment, and clear authorship is one of the ways Google evaluates trustworthiness. Sites with strong trust signals tend to rank more consistently, especially after algorithm updates.
AI search tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity look for trustworthy sources when generating answers. Websites with clear authorship, proper schema markup, and strong E-E-A-T signals are more likely to be cited in AI-generated responses. Author pages help these systems verify that your content comes from a credible source with genuine expertise.
Use your real name wherever possible. Google’s systems try to identify individual entities behind content, and a real person with verifiable credentials builds more trust than a company name alone. If your business has multiple contributors, create separate author pages for each person. You can still reference your company within each author’s biography.
Install a free SEO plugin like Rank Math or AIOSEO. Both plugins generate Person schema automatically when you complete your user profile and enable author page features. Fill in your name, bio, social profiles, and any professional details in the plugin settings. The structured data is created for you in JSON-LD format, which is Google’s preferred method.
Yes, and you should. Even if you are the sole writer for your small business website, an author page adds credibility. It gives Google a clear signal about who is behind your content and provides a central place to showcase your qualifications and experience. Single-author sites benefit just as much from author pages as multi-author publications.