A “user” in WordPress is someone who has access to your website’s login page. The word “user role” refers to the various levels of access that people have on your site.
User roles are similar to the different levels of access that people have at school.
If you’re a visiting parent, for example, you might not be able to leave the lobby. You have access to your own classroom as a teacher, but not to other classrooms or the principal’s office.
If you’re the principal or a maintenance worker, you can go wherever you need to in the building.
What are the WordPress User Roles?
Before we get into user roles, let’s define the term “user.”
A user in WordPress is someone who has created an account on your site and can log in using a username and password. A visitor to your website does not need to be a registered user.
You’re a registered user since you own your WordPress site. Other people can be added as users with their own login credentials.
You may wish to allow people to log in to your website so that they can:
- Create a guest post for your website.
- Assist you in resolving WordPress issues.
- On your membership site, have access to special stuff.
But, as in our school example, what if you wish to restrict their access? You wouldn’t want parents to have access to the principal’s office, where they could, for example, manipulate their child’s grades.
It’s the same principle that applies to your WordPress site. Giving users complete access to your website might be dangerous. You need to know how to maintain your WordPress website secure as a site owner.
Fortunately, WordPress offers a built-in feature called user roles that allows you to limit what your users can access.
When you initially establish a website with WordPress, the user role of the admin is immediately assigned to you. You, as the administrator, get to choose who has access to your WordPress site and what they can and cannot do.
WordPress includes six user roles, each with its own set of permissions and limitations:
- Multi-site and single-site management features are available to Super Admins.
- On a single WordPress installation, administrators have access to all administration capabilities.
- Editors have the ability to publish and control their own posts as well as posts made by others.
- Authors can only manage and publish their own content.
- Contributors have the ability to write and amend their own posts, but they are unable to publish them.
- Only subscribers have access to their own profiles.
The default user roles and permissions are listed below. You may adjust their permissions just like anything else in WordPress. Let’s look at how to accomplish this.
How to Make a User Role That Is Unique
You can alter the permissions of each role, or even create a new one, even though WordPress comes with a default set of user roles.
Installing the PublishPress Capabilities plugin is one of the simplest ways to change a user role on your WordPress site.
Make sure you understand what each permission level entails before making any changes so you can keep your site safe.
What if you wish to provide select visitors access to your site’s restricted content? For example, you might want to construct a membership site and restrict access to your courses, videos, and other premium content to paying members exclusively.
You should utilize a plugin designed specifically for that purpose in that scenario. Let’s have a look at a few viable alternatives.
How to Set Content Restrictions Based on User Role
WordPress is no longer only a blogging platform. It may be used to build any type of website, including membership sites.
Creating a membership website used to take a long time and required a lot of effort. You had to find out how to manage people, create memberships, choose how to take payments, and so on back then.
Thankfully, there are numerous excellent WordPress membership plugins that make creating a membership site a breeze.
MemberPress is one of the most popular WordPress membership plugins. It comes with a robust set of tools that make creating a membership site a breeze.
You can use the MemberPress plugin to create custom user accounts, add multiple membership levels, and more.
MemberPress now includes support for the PayPal and Stripe payment gateways, allowing your members to make safe online payments.
We hope this post taught you more about WordPress user roles. You may also find related articles on WordPress tips, tricks, and ideas in our Additional Reading section below.
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