Are you looking for a way to have user-submitted content on your site?
Allowing people to submit content such as guest posts, pictures, and videos helps you publish more content on your site and grow your audience.
In this article, we will show you how to allow users to submit blog posts to your WordPress site.
Why Allow Users to Submit Posts?
User-generated content is very useful in attracting new website visitors and growing your business.
You can allow users to submit guest posts, add images to your gallery, or create new business listings in your business directory.
This way, you’ll get more content for publishing on your site and cover different topics in your niche. It also helps in increasing your readership and getting different perspectives on important topics.
With user-generated content, you can even create a community and give them a platform to share their views and ideas.
Having said that, let’s look at the three ways to allow users to submit posts on your WordPress site without writing any code.
- Front-end WordPress Post Submissions with WPForms
- Accept User-Generated Content with User Submitted Posts Plugin
- Allowing Users to Register and Submit Posts in WordPress
Video Tutorial
If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.
Method 1: Front-end WordPress Post Submissions with WPForms
This method allows your users to submit posts from the front-end of your website without visiting the admin area of your WordPress site. You can even accept blog posts from users without asking them to register.
First thing you need to do is install and activate the WPForms plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
WPForms is a premium WordPress forms plugin. You will need the Pro version of the plugin to access the post submissions addon.
Upon activation, you need to visit WPForms » Settings page to enter your license key. You can get this key from your account on the WPForms website.
Once you’ve entered the key, click the ‘Verify Key’ button.
After verification, you need to visit WPForms » Addons page. Scroll down to ‘Post submissions addon’ and click on the ‘Install Addon’ button.
WPForms will now install and activate the post submissions addon for you. You will see the Status as active when it’s installed.
Now, you are ready to create a post submission form on your website.
To start, simply go to WPForms » Add New page, which will launch WPForm’s form builder interface.
First, you need to provide a name for your form and then select the ‘Blog Post Submission Form’ template under the Select a Template section.
WPForms will now load the form template in its form builder.
You can add new fields from the panel on your left, remove existing fields, and rearrange their order using the drag and drop builder.
WPForms let your users select post categories, add featured images, post excerpts, and even add custom fields.
You can also edit form fields by clicking on them. This will give you options to rename a field, change its format, add a description, edit its size, enable conditional logic, and more.
Once you are satisfied with the form, click on the Settings tab in the left menu.
Under the ‘General’ settings, you can rename your form, add a description, edit the text of the submit button, and enable dynamic fields, enable AJAX form submission, and more.
By default, WPForms will enable the option of anti-spam protection. This is because it helps prevent people from submitting spam blog posts. However, you can disable this option from the General settings tab.
Next, you can go to the ‘Notifications’ tab and edit the email on which you’ll receive a notification when someone submits a form.
WPForms will use your admin email as default. You can change that to any other email, and if you’d like to receive notifications on multiple emails, then simply separate them using a comma.
After that, go to the ‘Confirmations’ tab to set up a message your users will see when they submit a form. You can show a message, show a page, or direct users to a specific URL.
In the ‘Post Submissions’ tab, you can map each field to the respective post fields in WordPress. WPForms does an excellent job at matching the fields in the form template.
By default, user-submitted posts will be saved as ‘Drafts’ pending review. However, you can also change the post type and allow users to submit content to your custom post types.
After that, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button at the top right corner of the screen to save your form.
Now, you can click the close button to exit the form builder and add the form to your website.
You can create a new page or edit an existing one. To start, go to your WordPress editor and then click the plus (+) button at the top to add a WPForms block on your page.
Next, you can select your post submission form from the dropdown in the WPForms block.
Now, save or publish your page and then visit your website to see the post submission form in action.
Method 2: Accept User-Generated Content with User Submitted Posts Plugin
Another way to accept user-submitted content on your website is by using the User Submitted Posts plugin.
First thing you need to do is install and activate the User Submitted Posts plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » User Submitted Posts and go to the Plugin Settings to configure the plugin.
Under the Plugin Settings, you can select the fields you want to display on the post submission form and hide any field you don’t want users to see.
You can choose a default author for all user-submitted content. However, we recommend that you create a new Guest User on your WordPress site and assign all user-submitted posts to that user.
You can also allow users to upload images and set a limit on the number of images and maximum image size. You can even set a user uploaded image as the featured image.
After reviewing all plugin settings, click on the Save Settings button to store your changes.
You are now ready to add the user-submitted posts form to your website.
Simply create a new page in WordPress or edit an existing page where you would like to show the form. In the WordPress block editor, simply add a shortcode block and then enter this shortcode:
[user-submitted-posts]
You can now save or publish your page and visit the page to see your user-submitted posts form in action.
Method 3: Allowing Users to Register and Submit Posts in WordPress
WordPress comes with built in user roles and capabilities which allow you to run a multi-author WordPress site.
You can allow users to register on your site and create content using WordPress admin interface with limited capabilities.
First you need to enable user registration on your site. Go to Settings » General page and check ‘Any one can register’ next to Membership option. Choose ‘Author’ or ‘Contributor’ as the default user role.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your changes.
Users can now register on your WordPress site by visiting the WordPress login and registration pages. You can even create custom user registration form in WordPress.
Once registered, users can log in to your WordPress site and submit posts.
Problems with this method:
Many beginners find this method a bit difficult for different reasons.
For example, if you are using two step authentication on your WordPress site, then your users may find it difficult to login.
Many websites password protect WordPress admin directory. Allowing users to register and use the WordPress admin area means you will have to share that password with them.
Registered users with author roles can see what other posts you have on your website.
If these issues bother you, you can use methods #1 or #2 to allow users to submit WordPress posts without logging into the admin area.
That’s all. We hope this article helped you learn how to allow users to submit posts to your WordPress site. You may also want to see our guide on how to start your own podcast, or our comparison of the best business phone services for small business.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Kazim says
Does user can edit his/her post after submission??
chibuzo says
please how can i get other users comment and reply to another post made by another user in my website using the plugin.
WPBeginner Support says
If the post is live on your site it should allow your users the same comment settings as other posts on your site.
Admin
Dr. Abhijit Gupta says
Hello,
I am looking for a WP plugin that will actually help visitors to submit their post or article to be published on my website. This could be product launch or some information anyone would want to share on my website. But these contents will be published to relevant category upon admin verification and it will look like regular post. Will this plugin help?
WPBeginner Support says
To do what you’re wanting, you would follow this guide and instead of adding the form to a page, you would add the WPForms widget to where you want the form in your widgets area
Admin
neha jain says
thanks for this useful post
WPBeginner Support says
You’re welcome
Admin
Nitin Kapoor says
Please Help!
Wordpress plugin : – Want customer to submit review by clicking the button “Submit Review” and want to showcase random 10 reviews on my Home Page.
It it has stars rating that will be big plus.
WPBeginner Support says
Hi Nitin,
Please see our guide on how to create reviews site in WordPress.
Admin
Manu says
Hello,
I would like to allow users to submit posts from backend but limit the number. Do you know if they are a solution in order to limit it (for example with paid memberships pro) ?
Thanks in advance,
Manu
Olajide olabisi says
Thanks so much for this wonderful post.
But please can u recommend a theme/plugins that will allow users to upload an image and choose the category the image falls in and how they can also add location .. please help
James Lee says
nice answers!
I am actually making a website that allow registered members to upload their wedding & travel photos. can anyone recommend me any themes or plugins to do so??
Its like instagram and everybody has their own account/page to view the images.
Johnpaul Onwueme says
I use the admin area to accept guest post, I am going to change it to a plugin.
Thanks
john says
i also want this type of thing please tell me ?
Morris Ilagan says
how can i accept the user submitted posts?
Syazani says
Hi,
I want to know about the second method, is there a way to make the content field appear larger, without the user having to make it larger himself.
I mean some user may don’t know how to do that and even with an instruction provided it might be unclear. Thanks
JASSIM says
Hi there,
thanks for this great article as usual from WP beginner,
i am facing question regarding bbPress – now when members try to add topic they can do it without any visual editors appear in thier browsers,
i need to let them create topics via WP dashbaord so they can be easily to customize thier topic and add media if needed.
2- how to restric specific forum in bbpress for specific members who only can add topics while other users can only replay.
Thanks
miracle ofodi says
please, at the moment, i have followed your instructions, still my front end post does not submit to the site automatically, it still has to be published by the admin, what should i do? please help.
Mushiii hussain says
Wpbeginner Thanks for great helping Platform i am biggest visitor from many years and i did many blogs from you tips thanks you so much for this
Well, I want to know about submit link form? like i want to make website like Delicious or youmob etc where users can add there links like a bookmarking website so please let me know which Plugin i can use for that
Thanks
Regard
Ayo says
I have an issue which i hope gets resolved soon! I have people submitting articles however we have an editor who edits before we post them. So therefore we do not need the actual writer to upload the article. We prefer to do it ourselves but still want to add the writer as the contributor with bio and picture without giving them the full “Contributors” rights in word press. How can we add the informaiton without sending out an email to the writer?
WPBeginner Support says
Hi Ayo,
You can create a custom user role in WordPress with specific permissions.
Admin
Alesh001 says
how can i create a link on my write up so that the reader can easily click on it to know more on that site. Thanks
Virgilio Sanchez says
Hi I’m working with an app, for promote cars sales , and I need people upload their offers, they only will post a foto and description of their car. What plugin can I use for it. Thanks
Babafemi says
Urgent sir, please help , I have a custom plugin for charity donation connected to local gateway. I will like all users to submit form without registering. i currently have these settings but its not working:
form action='”.get_admin_url().”admin-post.php’ method=’post’
The form above is supposed to call :
add_menu_page( ‘Confirm’, ”,’read’, ‘iswform/webpay_confirm.php’, ”, ”, 6 );
This is only working for loggedin users, please how can I make it work for ALL users.
Thanks
Marissa says
Great post! Just wanted to thank you for your comment
on my recent blog post! Appreciated!
Steve says
Hi is there any way that you can update this vid and screenshots for 2016 as the dashboard walk through and screenshots looks nothing like the video now so doesn’t help much. Thanks
Mike Berra says
It does not appear on my blog the same as your image on top. Am I doing something wrong? Here is the link to my page
Thanks for your help
MB
WPBeginner Support says
It seems like your theme CSS is affecting the form. Please contact your theme developer for support.
Admin
Kay says
Please can someone who is knowledgeable about WP, tell me how i can redirect authors to a payment page when they click publish. I am thinking if i allow all default users to register as Authors, i want them to be able to get a feel of using WP and after they have composed new post, and they are ready to publish, to redirect them to my payment page when they click “PUBLISH”.
alexh says
Hi I am trying to build a multi-step form where the user can add as many steps as they like on the fly. Each step would have its own heading, description and set of images. Can you provide some tips on how to do this?
Thanks in advance!
Kelly says
Is there a way to set up the User Submitted Video uploads to work with registered users? Also, could these registered users edit the videos they’ve uploaded?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Elsie says
Hi there
I have been looking for a widget that allows me to create a page where my readers can submit their favourite baby photos to a guest page. I believe I have found what I am looking for!
Could I please make one suggestion? Your information is excellent and thorough – however, I do think the video is too fast for a newbie to follow. You need to slow it down and add a little more explanation about what you are doing. I’ve had to watch it a few times to really make sure I do the right thing.
Thank you and I’ll be back to get some more tips. This is a top site!
Regards
Elsie
Michelle says
Did you figure this out? I too want to have users submit photos daily with a little description on a fitness accountability page.
Mark says
Same exact situation for me… I want users to be able to do this too: annotated photos on my home improvement site. Can anyone point specifically to well vetted and secure WP plugins? Many thanks!
rajat says
after creating a new page how i add it on my website ????
chfakht says
so how can i let user to add their own product in my e-commerce site using this plugin
thanks
Debadi Roy says
If some one post a duplicate content than what to do for that.
So you just give him your Email and get a Doc. file from his/her and verify first and than submit it on your own website
Gene says
My blog theme allows featured photos. I’m using the “User Submitted Posts” plugin but when someone uploads a photo(s) along with their post I haven’t been able to locate it (them). All that I am seeing is the pending post in my Post file. I’ve also been checking my Media files and my email but there are no photos being sent there either. Where should I be looking?
Matt says
Hey there everybody, I’m looking for something extremely simple that i can’t find anywhere. I need to allow users to add content to pages only, not in the form of posts. I want them to be able to go to a specific page i have with content and allow them to add to the content using a form submission and let it add to the page under the current content.
Anyone know where to find something like that?
Attiq Haroon says
there should be a reCaptcha authentication in User submitted posts plugin. The default “Challenge Question” spam protection is simply not enough.
WPBeginner Staff says
No you are at the right place. The only major change since this article was first published is that WordPress admin interface is changed. However, you will find most widgets, settings, and menus exactly as we have shown in the video.
Emily says
Hello,
I’ve been looking through your post, and I think that the settings have changed fairly recently, meaning that these instructions don’t help very much. Do you have a walkthrough available for this? If I’m simply looking in the wrong place, please let me know
Thanks
Luc says
hi there, trying to figure where and how to allow this in a multisite network, when i go to general on of my sites in the MU network i dont c the button ” anyone can register” where i can allow people to post in the blog !, any ideas how to do that, this site in the network is also bb press enabled btw,
looking forward for a reply,
kind regards
Luc
guest says
So I’ve created the form… Once the user submits a post from the form, where do they go to view it? How do i make a list of all the different posts by people?
WPBeginner Staff says
You will find them in your posts with the status Pending Review
Paul says
Hi. Where do I moderate from? I can’t seem to find the area where user submitted content awaits my yay or nay. Thanks
Mike Mike says
I would like to ask you that does it work well with hide my wp plugin? Now I upload images via user submitted plug in but I couldn’t find the images. So where could I find it? please kindly give me any solution..Thanks.. Mike Mike
yash says
Thanks for the above information. But is there anyway which can allows users yo post an entire galley or more than 1 pictures in one step?
WPBeginner Staff says
Yes you can do this by creating a custom user role. Checkout our guide on adding or removing capabilities to user roles in WordPress. Once you have created a user role with your desired capabilities. You can then go to Settings and under Any One Can Register field, select your custom user role as the default role.
ForumWebUser Sir says
hello,
But the problem that I see is that using a form outside the admin pages even an anonymous user will be able to use it. Are you telling me that if I dont automatically assign all user submitted posts to a specific user, the post will fail to anonymous users? Is that it?
Because if not, I believe anonymous users will be able to post.
And I dont want anonymous users to be able to post.
thank you,
fwu
ForumWebUser Sir says
hello,
I understood the two ways to empower users to post. One is to automatically give users the role to be able to do it, and then the user uses the admin page to post. The other is to enable a post page so that any user can post.
What about a middle term? Only a register user may be able to post, but this user should have only the subscriber role and not use the admin page, so that the post should be made using a psot page created with any of the cited plugins.
I believe that what Im trying to achieve should be more easily to accomplish, but dont have sure.
any help on this?
ps: another requirement: any post must be approved before be posted.
thank you,
fwu
Arosh Khan says
Can i change the page or can i make a new form Where to show the submitted posts instead of showing it to the default wordpress recent page?
Jason says
Do I need a plugin if I want to add a “new post” button and an “update by email” button that will direct visitors to where they can register or log in, if they haven’t already done so?
WPBeginner Support says
You can just add a link to register/login page and use CSS to style those links as buttons.
Admin
younes says
hi…
i created a custom theme …
after install User Submitted Posts plugin, its rich text editor not show…
but in other theme show
(please look bottom of home page in my web site )
my site address : http://www.w3-farsi.com
pls help me
WPBeginner Support says
Younes it seems like someother plugin or some functionality in your WordPress theme is causing a conflict with user submitted posts plugin. Please test by switching to a default theme and by deactivating all plugins except user submitted posts. If it starts working correctly, then turn on your plugins one by one until you find the one that is causing the conflict. If no plugin is causing the conflict, then switch to your current theme. This way you can troubleshoot the issue. Let us know if this resolves your issue.
Admin
younes says
hi…
tanx for answer…
I’ve disabled all plugins except user submitted post… and switch to defult theme… the plugin fully working and then swich my theme but dont work…
i think my theme functionality is incomplate….
can i send my theme to your email for troubleshoot that.
please help me…
Manish says
Hello,
Is there any WP plugin which allow user to register as author and Post airtcle from frontend.What i need is no other user can see post of another expect admin and post should appear on website only after admin approve post.
david says
Hi, I’m in the process of setting up a wordpress site for people to publish natural cures that worked for them (in the form of a post) , and make those posts accessible to others that are looking for a cure. One of the requirements is that only the author of the post (and the site admin) can edit their content, but other users of the site can view and comment on the post.
I would like adding/editing a post to be a user friendly experience where the author just has to register/login to add/edit a post – without having to access the admin area.
I would also like to collect the post content in a mysql table. Is this possible? Or can you suggest another way I do this?
Thanks for your help
David
WPBeginner Support says
We think that the methods described above should work for you. All your posts are already stored in a MySQL table for posts in your WordPress database. You can export just a single table using phpMyAdmin and then import it in a different database or as a different table.
Admin
Meret says
Hi,
Thanks for the article. I’m working on a project and wish for people to post their experience on my blog. Therefore I do not want to invest too much money for now. Can I use Contact Form 7 instead? Or perhaps another reliable free plug-in?
Thank you.
WPBeginner Support says
user submitted posts is a free plugin.
Admin
Meret says
Yes, it is
Thank you. And it works fine. Now I am trying to find a way to make some adjustments such as language & css. Wish me luck!
kamal says
hi i m beginner of word press, i want a user to post in my site, according to i follow all steps but in between short code , that means after option for image uploads , my wordpress showing short code and template tag its final option anf after than restore and save settings option there. i need a user to post on my site..
Grzegorz says
Why featured image doesn’t display in post? How to fix it?
WPBeginner Support says
Does your theme supports featured images? make sure you have the_post_thumbnail() template tag in your theme’s single.php or relevant template file. If this does not help, then please contact the plugin support.
Admin
Grant says
Hi I recently got an email saying that I received a new user submitted post, I went in to my /wp-admin to check and there were no new posts in the Posts section. Does anyone know where the post might be? Thank you ver much!
WPBeginner Support says
By default the posts should appear as draft. If it does not then test your plugin settings by adding a couple of dummy posts.
Admin
Jonny says
Is there a way to set up the User Submitted Posts to work with registered users only (instead of using the default WordPress admin interface)? Also, could these registered users edit the posts they’ve uploaded?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
WPBeginner Support says
It is possible though User Submitted Posts is probably not ideal for that. No users can not edit the posts they have submitted unless they have author or editor privileges on your site and can access the admin area.
Admin
Jonny says
Thanks for the reply.
What would you recommend as an ideal solution for users to register in order to upload and edit their posts (but allowing admin to moderate these uploaded posts and whenever they edit them)? It seems like the best solution would be WP User Frontend, although I’m not sure if the admin can moderate a post if it’s been edited.
Thanks in advance for any feedback.