Unlock Multiple Blog Authors on Shopify Basic: A Community-Tested Guide

Hey there, fellow store owners! It's your Shopify migration expert here, fresh off diving into some really insightful community discussions. Today, I want to chat about a common question that popped up recently, one that many of you on a budget might relate to: how do you showcase multiple authors for your blog posts when you're on a Shopify Basic plan? It sounds simple, right? You write great content, and you want to give credit where it's due, perhaps you have guest bloggers or different team members contributing. But as Zeus4, a store owner in our community, discovered, it's not always straightforward. On the Basic Shopify plan, you're typically limited to one staff account. This means when you go to select an author for your blog post, that dropdown menu only shows... well, you! Zeus4 was clear: "I’m only allowed to set that to myself. I would like to add other users. I’m aware of that dropdown box. that’s not the issue." The real issue wasn't finding the dropdown, but the lack of options within it. And like many of us, Zeus4 wasn't keen on upgrading plans just for this feature, especially when sales were just starting to pick up.

The Community Steps Up: Unpacking the Solutions

This is where the power of the Shopify community truly shines. When a challenge like this arises, folks jump in with creative workarounds. We saw a couple of excellent suggestions, but one, in particular, stood out for its elegance and accessibility for those who aren't super technical: using metafields.

Solution 1: The Metafield Magic – Your Go-To for Flexible Authors

Both Akshay and Mastroke quickly pointed towards metafields as the 'best way' or 'right approach.' And they're absolutely right! Think of metafields as extra, customizable data fields you can attach to various parts of your Shopify store – in this case, your blog articles. Instead of relying on the default 'author' field, which is tied to staff accounts, you can create your own author fields. This allows you to display any name you want, along with bios, avatars, or anything else, without needing to add more staff accounts or upgrade your plan. Here’s how you can implement this, step-by-step:

1. Access Your Shopify Admin & Define a Metafield:
   • From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Custom data.
   • Under 'Metafields,' find and click on Articles.
   • Click Add definition.
   • Give your metafield a clear name, like "Custom Author Name" (the namespace and key might look something like custom.author_name).
   • Choose the content type. For an author's name, 'Single line text' is perfect. You could also add 'Multi-line text' for a bio, or 'File' for an author avatar.
   • Save your definition.
2. Add Author Data to Your Blog Posts:
   • Now, go to Online Store > Blog posts and select the article you want to edit.
   • Scroll down to the bottom of the article editor. You'll see a new section for 'Metafields.'
   • Find your newly created "Custom Author Name" metafield and enter the author's name you want to display for that specific article.
   • Repeat this for all relevant blog posts.
3. Update Your Theme Code to Display the Metafield:

   This is where you tell your theme to show your custom author name instead of the default one. You'll need to edit your theme's Liquid code. Always make a duplicate of your theme before making code changes!

   • From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes.
   • Find your current theme, click Actions > Duplicate.
   • Once duplicated, click Actions > Edit code on the duplicate theme.
   • Look for files related to blog articles, often something like article-template.liquid, blog-post.liquid, or within a sections/ or snippets/ folder. You're looking for where the current author name is displayed (it often uses {{ article.author }}).
   • Replace the existing author display code (or add this if it's missing) with Akshay's brilliant snippet:

     {% if article.metafields.custom.author_name %}
     
       {{ article.metafields.custom.author_name }}
     
     {% else %}
     
       {{ article.author }}
     
     {% endif %}

     This code checks if your custom author metafield (article.metafields.custom.author_name) has a value. If it does, it displays that. If not, it falls back to the default article.author, ensuring your blog posts always have an author displayed.

   • Save your changes and preview your duplicated theme to ensure everything looks correct. Once you're happy, you can publish the duplicated theme.

That's it! With these steps, you've effectively decoupled your displayed author from your staff accounts, giving you full control over who gets credit for your amazing content, all without touching your plan subscription.

Solution 2: The Advanced Path – Shopify Flow & API

For those who are a bit more technically inclined, or if you have a very specific need to actually update the article.author field in the backend (not just what's displayed on the storefront), Tim offered a more advanced solution involving Shopify Flow and the Admin API. Tim highlighted that while the dropdown is limited, the API does allow updating the author name. His suggestion was to set up a Shopify Flow that runs daily or hourly. This Flow would identify newly published articles and then use an API call to update their author name to a desired value. This could even be randomized if you wanted! Here's a glimpse of what that Flow might look like (thanks, Tim!):

This approach is definitely more involved and requires familiarity with Shopify Flow and potentially some API knowledge, but it's a powerful option for automation if you need it. For most store owners simply wanting to display different authors without the technical heavy lifting, the metafield solution is usually the sweet spot. So, there you have it! Thanks to the collective wisdom of the Shopify community, Zeus4 (and hopefully you!) now has a clear, actionable path to managing multiple blog authors without breaking the bank or getting bogged down in overly complex development. It just goes to show that often, the best solutions are already out there, just waiting to be shared. Happy blogging!