What is an author page, and why advisors need one
An author page is a dedicated URL for the person who writes the firm’s content: credentials, experience, and a list of articles. It is not the About page and not a byline. Google and AI systems use it to decide whether the words on the blog belong to a real practitioner.
- 01About is the firm. The author page is the individual. You need both.
- 02A byline without a destination is a label. Link the name to a page with Person schema.
- 03YMYL categories get less patience for anonymous content. Advice about money needs a named expert.
- 04SameAs links to LinkedIn, Kitces, and SEJ are how the entity resolves across the web.
Author page versus About versus byline
If these three collapse into one “Meet the team” block with no URL of its own, neither Google nor ChatGPT can attach the article to a person they already know from LinkedIn or Kitces.
| About page | Author page | Byline | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | The firm: clients, philosophy, history | One human: credentials, experience, articles | The pointer from an article to that human |
| Schema | Organization | Person, linked to the Organization | author property on the Article |
| Has its own URL | Yes | Yes, one per author | No. It links to the author page. |
| What breaks without it | The model cannot place the firm | The articles belong to nobody | The name is a label, not an entity |
Three pages that get confused for each other
What to put on it
- 01
A photograph and a short bio
First person or close third person. The MBA, the years in the category, the topics they write, the podcasts they have been on.
- 02
Credentials, spelled out
CFP, CFA, MBA in Financial Planning. The designations a YMYL page needs a named expert to carry.
- 03
A list of their articles
Every post they wrote, linked. This is what makes the page an author page and not a bio.
- 04
SameAs links to the profiles that already exist
LinkedIn, a Kitces byline, a Search Engine Journal contributor page. That is how the entity resolves across the web.
- 05
Person schema, connected to the Organization
Then use the exact same name string on every article. Nickname drift is how entities split.
The About page is the firm. Brent’s credentials and the sameAs links live there today; author-level article lists belong on a dedicated URL as the library grows.
See how we present BrentAsked and answered
Does every advisor in the firm need an author page?
Every person whose name is on published advice should have one. A ghostwritten firm blog with no person behind it is the thing these pages exist to fix.
Can the author page be a section on About?
A section is better than nothing. A dedicated URL is what other sites and schema can point at. Use a real page.
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