This week we have a guest blog post from Naomi Johnson of purrfectlysocial.co.uk about Google Authorship and why you need it. I’m still getting to grips with Google+, so do add me to your circles if you’re on there…
What is Google Authorship?
Simply put, it’s a system whereby an author’s Google+ profile is linked to the content they create, whether for their own or other websites. When the links are set up correctly, the authorship system makes it more likely that the author’s profile picture will show up next to their content on Google search result pages.
Links with images stand out on the page, and have been shown to result in a higher click-through rate (CTR). In future, it’s thought that Google will introduce “Author Rank”, an algorithm based on relevance of articles and popularity of authors. This will also boost search engine rankings for individual authors.
If you’re a coach, consultant, speaker, trainer or entrepreneur who writes regular blogs and articles, you absolutely need to set up Google Authorship!
Does the thought of getting to grips with a new social media channel leave you feeling like this? Fear not!
How to set up Google Authorship
Your Google Plus Profile
Firstly, you’ll need to claim your Google+ account and create your profile. If you use Gmail, YouTube, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Calendar etc. you will probably have noticed the “+ You” link at the left hand side of the top black toolbar when you are logged into your Google account.
When you click this link you are prompted to set up your Google+ profile. Make sure you fill in all the fields as fully as possible and include a good quality image of yourself. Do NOT use a logo – the image is important as this is what will show up in search results against articles you’ve written.
In your profile “About” section, you’ll notice there is a subsection entitled “Contributor To”. This is the place to add your website or blog link (URL). As well as your own site, also add the URLs of any other sites you contribute to regularly.
Method 1 – Use Your Email Address
If you have an email address on the same domain as your website or blog then you can use this method to set up Authorship. For example, my website is www.purrfectlysocial.co.uk and my email address is on the same domain - info@purrfectlysocial.co.uk.
However I know many people still prefer to use yahoo, hotmail, or gmail addresses but don’t worry, there is another option. When you write an article, add a byline with your name in the same format as it appears on your Google+ profile, e.g. “Author: Naomi Johnson”. Visit the Authorship Page and submit your email address to Google. This inserts your email address into the “Contributor To” section of your Google+ profile, but you can alter your settings to keep your address private if you so wish.
Method 2 – Edit your Website to include a link to your Google+ Profile
This method does require a bit of knowledge of HTML code but if you have a WordPress site, there are plugins that take care of it for you (more on that later).
What you need to do is:
Create a link to your Google+ profile from your webpage, like this:
<a href=”[profile_url]?rel=author”>Google</a>
Replace [profile_url] with the your Google+ profile URL, like this:
<a href=”https://plus.google.com/109412257237874861202? rel=author”>Google</a>
Your link must contain the ?rel=author parameter. If it’s missing, Google won’t be able to associate your content with your Google+ profile.
How to find your Google+ Profile URL: Go to your Google+ account and click on Profile. Your profile URL will look something like this:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/117516848743248928217/about
Instead of “about” you may notice “posts” as the last segment of the URL. Whichever it is, delete this last segment and the trailing slash; also delete the u/0/ in the middle, so you end up with something like this:
https://plus.google.com/117516848743248928217
Copy this into the link as per the example above. It is the “rel=author” parameter that acts as the link between your profile and the articles you’ve authored. The completed link needs to go into the <head> section of your website HTML.
Secondly, make sure that you’ve added all websites that you contribute to into the “Contributor To” section of your Google+ profile.
WordPress Plugin for Google Authorship
Yoast WordPress SEO will take care of your Google Authorship links for you. It also happens to be an excellent plugin for SEO (search engine optimisation) and has been recommended by scores of leading bloggers. The plugin is called and it can be found via the WordPress plugin directory, or via this link.
Testing your Authorship Setup
Finally, you’ll want to make sure that you’ve set things up correctly, and fortunately Google supplies a simple tool enabling you to do just that. It is called the Structured Data Testing Tool, and all you have to do is insert your site URL and click “Preview”. If you’ve set up Google Authorship successfully, you will see an example of what a search result would look like with one of your articles, and other notifications saying that authorship is working for your page.
I hope this article will help you to understand why Google Authorship is important – if you have any difficulties I’ll be happy to help.
Naomi is an online marketing consultant and trainer living in Notts. She also dabbles in web design and SEO. Her longterm hobby is breeding, showing and judging pedigree cats. Follow Naomi on Google+ and other social networks.