Google Authorship and Author Rank

Google Authorship and rel=”author” – You’ve probably heard about it right?

You’ve almost certainly seen some people’s faces show up in search results and wondered “how do they do that” and “how can I set this up for my website or blog?”

They do it by linking their Google Authorship in Google+ to their content on their website. This is called a “rich snippet” and is set to be huge in terms of Search Engine Results.

This is how it looks

Stands out doesn’t it?

And here’s the killer. Because it stands out, users are more likely to click on it.

In fact, some companies have seen a 150% increase in click through rate since implementing Google Authorship and that’s a figure you’d be daft to ignore.

Well, sit back and relax as we are going to run you through the basics of what Google Authorship is, how to link your Google+ account to your blog and how to use rel=”author”.

What is Google Authorship?

Google Authorship is a way to link content you create on your or others websites and blogs with your Google+ profile using a rel=”author” tag. You become the author whether you post on your site or another blog.

It allows you to extend your credibility to your content and is amazingly powerful.

Top 3 benefits of verifying your Google Authorship

1) SEO benefits of Authorship

Content is King and Google loves good quality content. Authors of good quality content who generate traffic and social buzz will develop an Author Ranking which will give a boost to all the content they write. Note Author Ranking is not the same as Google Authorship. Author Ranking is where, over time you build up a ranking as an expert in your industry who writes good quality, relevant content that people read and link to.

2) Improved engagement between you and your audience
Your company shouldn’t be a faceless corporation and customers love to deal with real people and your website or blog shouldn’t be any different.

3) Name awareness/Industry Expert
Google Authorship allows you, the person to be the author and as time goes on and as you continue to write good quality content, you may become an industry expert.

Ok… enough already, you’re sold! Why don’t we just get on and tell you how to add Google Authorship to your page….

Setting up Google Authorship

Your first step is to create a Google+ profile. We hear lots of people saying “We don’t get Google+” or “it’s useless, there’s nobody there” but we love it. Ok it isn’t Facebook but it isn’t trying to be.

The key to Google+ is to join communities related to your interests. For example we belong to and contribute to  several communities related to WordPress, Genesis Framework, PHP and Search Engine Optimisation and it is now our go source for tips, hints and answers when we are stuck.

Anyway, we digress. Let’s move on to setting up a Google+ profile.

How do I set up Google+ page?

The first step is to join Google+. If you have an existing Google account (Gmail, Google docs, Google Webmaster Tools, etc) then you already have a basic stub account you can use.

Browse to https://profiles.google.com/ login with your username and password. If you don’t have an account you can create one. If you can, make sure to use an email address on the same domain as your website or blog. It makes the whole process much easier. For example for us our website domain is digitalessence.net so we would use an email like our_name@digitalessence.net.

Don’t have an email address on the same domain? Use this link to link your content to your Google+ profile and select Option 2.

When prompted, upload a clear facial headshot for your profile. Don’t use art, cartoons etc. make sure your image is at least 250×250 pixels or it will fail the upload.

Once you are happy, click next step and then Continue to Google+. Continue to fill out your profile and add communities or people you might know and follow through the hints and tutorial as Google shows you how to use Google+

In the meantime, Google will have sent you a verification email. Make sure you click the link in this email and verify your account so that Google knows you are legitimate.

How to set up Google Authorship in Google+

Now you have your page set up it’s time to set up your Google Authorship.

On the left hand side of the Google+ page, hover over the Home > icon under the Google+ logo and your dashboard will slide out. Select Profile.

At the top of the screen just above your default cover image (you can change this later) select About and scroll down to the links Section and click Edit

Now from the Links section, select Contributor to > Add custom link

And give your site a label and the url. For instance we added Digital Essence and the url: https://digitalessence.net/

Click Save.

You are now set up as a Contributor to that website. If you write for more than one site/blog then add the other url’s in here as well as you can be a contributor for many sites.

Before we move on, grab the 21 digit ID from your address bar. Eg:

[code]https://plus.google.com/103629750031267776626/posts[/code]

NOTE: Don’t use this ID, it is ours and will add us as a contributor to your site!

Keep this safe for now as we are going to use this in a Meta data tag on your site.

You can optionally complete all the other sections of your Google+ profile to include your location, occupation and other information. While these details aren’t required for Google Authorship, we are sure they add some credence to your reputation.

Now we move on to your website.

How to set up Google Authorship on your website or blog

The methods for adding the next step depends on the type of website you have.

Written By

Firstly, make sure you have an author mentioned on your site. Something like “Written By…” and then your name. If you are using WordPress this is added automatically.

Name Match

The name in your byline should match the your Google+ name exactly. If you have a hyphen in your Google+ name then use it in your website byline. Make sure the names are identical!

Mark up

Open up your website html files in your favourite text editor and search for the <head> tag.

You want to place the code between the opening <head> and closing </head> tags. There will more than likely already be a few other meta tags there so just pop it in. Anywhere between the two head tags is good.

The line of code you want to add is:

[html] <link href=”https://plus.google.com/103629750031267776626/posts” rel=”author” />[/html]

Substituting your Google+ url and ID for ours. Please do make sure you enter your 21 digit ID and not ours or it won’t work!

Here’s an example of our rel=author code in place.

WordPress using the Genesis Framework

If you are using WordPress with the Genesis Framework then as with most things, this is going to be very easy to do!

Just add your Google+ url to your user profile in WordPress by clicking on Users > Your profile, scroll down to Contact Info > Google+ and past the full url into the text box and press save.

Simples. But that’s why we use Genesis and you should too.

To confirm this has worked you can view the source of an individual post or page and look for the rel=”author” tag and it should show as per the example code above.

Testing your Google Authorship

Ok, so you’ve worked your way through all of these steps and we know you are itching to see if it works but please be patient. You will not see your avatar or image showing up in the Google search results for at least a couple of days. But don’t despair, there is a way you can test  all your hard work and make sure that at least your Google Authorship set up and rel=”author” tag are correct.

Thankfully, Google have provided a handy tool to do the checking for you and it’s called the Structured Data Testing Tool.

Click on the link to the tool and enter your website url into the text field and click PREVIEW. You should see something similar to this:

Once this is all set up you will see your profile headshot, name and number of Google+ circles you appear in alongside all of your search results. Give Google at least a couple of days to show this in the search results as it’s not instant. But if you have followed our instructions and have tested everything with the Google Structured Data Testing Tool then you will show up.

Troubleshooting Google Authorship

Ok, so you have been through our post and it just isn’t working for you and you are scratching your head wondering where you went wrong.

Firstly what does the Google Tool say? Are there any clues as to what you’ve missed out? If not then let’s run through this checklist and make sure everything is ticked…

• You’ve set up a Google+ profile
• You uploaded a profile picture with a recognisable headshot
• Your pages/posts have an author byline containing your full name exactly as it shows in your Google+ profile
• You’ve added your blog or website to the Contributor section in your profile
• Have you verified your email? *
• Have you connected your content to Google+ by adding the rel=author tag?
• Is your Google+ profile set to public?
• Have you tested your page in the Google Tool?

* Confirming your email address is just an alternate verification method, and only works for sites on which you have a domain email address.

If all your answers are yes then you are all set up and you just need to wait a few days for Google to pick up on the changes.

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