Want to stand out on Google? While it is important to write great content that is optimized for SEO so that people find it, your best bet is to use Google Authorship.
What is Google Authorship?
Google Authorship is basically a way to link your Google+ account to your blog content. In addition, it adds a photo next to your content in search results – this way it’s easy to associate a name with a face.
This is beneficial if you rank well for certain keywords for the following reasons:
- Links your content you post online back to you!
- People searching can quickly see who you are
- Identify how many people have you in their Google+ circles (a measure of influence)
- Quickly identify your content in Google search results because you have a photo next to it
Setting up Google Authorship is easy. We’ve outlined the steps you need to follow below.
How to setup Google Authorship
Step 1: Setup your Google+ Profile
In order to setup Google Authorship, you need a Google+ profile. This is so that you can associate your content back to an account.
This will also help boost your credibility so that everything you write, you get credit for.
If you don’t have a Google+ profile yet, sign-up for an account. http://www.plus.google.com
Note: Once you have your account created, be sure to save your Google+ profile URL (you need that for the next step).
Example of a Google+ Profile URL: https://plus.google.com/b/117517636978966129806/
Step 2: Sign-up for Google Authorship
Once you have your Google+ profile created, the next thing you need to do is sign-up for Google Authorship.
When signing up, be sure to if you have an email address for your business. For example, mine is christian@christiankonline.com, use your email address associated with your website instead of a personal account when signing up for Google Authorship. Google will add this address to the “contributor” section within your Google+ profile.
Note: this is a one-time process for Google Authorship. Don’t forget to check your email address you provided. Google will send you a verification email to verify your email address.
Step 3: Link your user account to your Google+ profile
If you maintain a blog, be sure you have a link to your Google+ account that contains the rel=”author” tag on your site. If you have a WordPress blog, you can go into your dashboard and update your user profile.
Users > All users > Select your profile > Edit
Note: Once you update this field, you can right-click on your website and select “view page source” and look for <link rel=”author” href=”YOUR GOOGLE+ PROFILE?”>
Here is an example of what it would look like with a Google+ profile added.<link rel=”author” href=”101529982402722005507?”> – note the question mark at the end of the URL.
Step 4: Check your Google+ contributor links
If you’ve done everything right, you’ll have a contributor link within your Google+ profile.
Edit your profile and look under “links” for a link to your website.
If you don’t see your website listed under the contributor links, click the “add custom link” and enter your website and mark it as current.
Step 5: Testing your Google Authorship setup
The last thing you need to do is to test your Google Authorship setup. Click here to test your authorship.
Enter your website address and see if Google found your authorship that you set up. If not, verify you have completed all of the above steps.
Question: Do you find yourself more likely to click on links that contain Google Authorship? Let me know! You can leave a comment here.