The Complete Guide to the WordPress Editor User Role

Are you looking to expand your WordPress site‘s content team, but aren‘t sure which user role to assign? The Editor role is a smart choice for many sites, but it‘s important to understand exactly what Editors can (and can‘t) do before handing over the keys.

In this in-depth guide, we‘ll cover everything you need to know about the Editor user role in WordPress, including:

• A detailed definition of Editor capabilities
• When to assign the Editor role (and when not to)
• Best practices for managing Editors on your site
• How to customize Editor permissions to fit your needs
• Real-world examples and expert tips

By the end, you‘ll have all the information you need to make the right call for your site. Let‘s dive in!

What Exactly Can a WordPress Editor Do?

The WordPress Editor role is a step below Administrator in the user role hierarchy. It allows users to manage all the content on your site, but not other key areas like settings and users.

Here‘s a full breakdown of Editor capabilities:

Essentially, Editors have free reign over your site‘s content – they can add, change, and remove any post, page, or media file. This makes them a powerful asset for sites that produce a high volume of content.

However, there are a few key things Editors can‘t do:

• Change site settings, including general settings, reading settings, permalink settings, etc.
• Install or update themes, plugins, or the WordPress core
• Add, remove, or change user roles and permissions
• Edit theme or plugin code files

These limitations are what separate Editors from Administrators. Admins have full control over every aspect of the site, while Editors are limited just to content.

When Should You Use the Editor Role?

So when does it make sense to assign someone the Editor role in WordPress? Here are a few common scenarios:

1. You need help managing a high volume of content.

If you have a site that publishes new posts daily or even multiple times per day, a single Administrator can quickly get overwhelmed. Assigning one or more Editors gives you a team to share the workload of creating and managing all that content.

2. You want to implement an editorial review process.

On a multi-author site, you may not want every Author to have the ability to publish their own posts without oversight. Assigning Editors allows you to implement an editorial workflow where Editors review, provide feedback, and approve Authors‘ drafts before publication.

3. You need to delegate content management without giving up full control.

If you‘re the site owner, you may want to delegate day-to-day content management tasks to someone else, but aren‘t comfortable giving them complete Administrator access. The Editor role allows you to hand off content responsibilities while still limiting overall site access.

According to a survey by WP Engine, 26% of WordPress sites have between 3-5 user accounts, and 33% have over 11 accounts. As your number of users grows, delegating roles becomes more and more important for security and efficiency.

Tips for Managing WordPress Editors

If you do decide to bring Editors onto your WordPress team, it‘s important to put some guidelines and processes in place to ensure a smooth working relationship. Here are some tips:

1. Create a content style guide that covers your brand voice, formatting, image use, SEO guidelines, and other key standards. Share this with your Editors and make sure they understand and follow it.

2. Use an editorial calendar tool like CoSchedule or Trello to plan out content in advance and assign clear due dates and responsibilities. This keeps everyone aligned and avoids last-minute scrambles or dropped balls.

3. Schedule regular check-in meetings with your Editors to provide feedback, answer questions, and keep a pulse on the content pipeline. Open communication is key for maintaining content quality and consistency.

4. Implement a content approval process that requires Editors to get final sign-off from you or a senior team member before publishing new or significantly changed content. This adds an extra layer of oversight.

5. Regularly audit your content metrics like traffic, engagement, and SEO rankings. Share this data with your Editors and discuss areas for improvement or new strategic opportunities.

By setting expectations upfront and maintaining open lines of communication, you‘ll set your Editors up for success and ensure your content stays on track.

Customizing Editor Capabilities

If you find that the default Editor role permissions aren‘t quite right for your site, you have the option to customize them using code snippets or plugins. Here are a few common customizations and how to implement them:

Allowing Editors to Add or Remove Users

By default, only Administrators can add new user accounts or modify existing ones. If you want to allow Editors to do this as well, you can use a code snippet like this:

function add_theme_caps() {
    $role = get_role( ‘editor‘ );
    $role->add_cap( ‘create_users‘ ); 
    $role->add_cap( ‘delete_users‘ );
}
add_action( ‘admin_init‘, ‘add_theme_caps‘);

This snippet uses the add_cap() function to give Editors the create_users and delete_users capabilities.

Preventing Editors from Deleting Published Posts

On the flip side, you may want to prevent Editors from being able to delete posts once they‘ve been published. To do this, you can use a snippet like:

function remove_theme_caps() {
    $role = get_role( ‘editor‘ );
    $role->remove_cap( ‘delete_published_posts‘ );
}
add_action( ‘admin_init‘, ‘remove_theme_caps‘);

This removes the delete_published_posts capability from Editors. They‘ll still be able to delete drafts, but not published content.

If you‘re not comfortable editing code, you can use a plugin like User Role Editor or PublishPress Capabilities to customize roles and capabilities through a user interface instead.

Real-World Example: HubSpot‘s Multi-Author Blog

To see the WordPress Editor role in action, let‘s look at a case study from the popular marketing blog of HubSpot. HubSpot‘s blog has over 1 million subscribers and publishes upward of five posts per day across multiple topic areas.

To manage this high volume of content, HubSpot has a team of staff writers with Author capabilities, who draft posts and submit them for review. Multiple Editors are then responsible for reviewing, editing, formatting, adding images, and scheduling the drafted posts.

Using this multi-step editorial workflow with clearly defined roles helps HubSpot maintain a high level of content quality at scale. Individual writers can focus on content creation without worrying about formatting, image sourcing, or promotion. Those tasks are handled separately by Editors and other team members.

This separation of concerns is a smart way to manage any site that produces a large volume of content on a regular basis. Clearly defining roles and responsibilities – and choosing the right WordPress user roles to support them – is key for keeping your content engine running smoothly.

Conclusion

The WordPress Editor role is a versatile and powerful tool for expanding your site‘s content capabilities while maintaining control and security.

With full management over posts, pages, and media files, Editors can shoulder much of the content creation and management burden, freeing up Administrators to focus on higher-level tasks. Editors are a smart choice for sites that produce a lot of content, want to implement an editorial review process, or need to delegate content management tasks.

To get the most out of your Editors, be sure to:

• Establish clear content guidelines and quality standards
• Use editorial calendar and project management tools to coordinate content planning and production
• Schedule regular meetings to provide feedback and stay aligned on priorities
• Customize Editor capabilities as needed using code snippets or plugins

With the right processes and people in place, Editors can take your WordPress content efforts to the next level!