How to setup Google Authorship? But first of all, what is Google Authorship?
In short, Google Authorship allows you to link your Google+ profile to the pages & posts that you create on your website.
The end result is your profile photo appearing in the Google Search results:
The benefits of doing this are as follows:
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- Identifying your content in search results
- Much higher click-through-rates to your website
- Get more followers on your Google+ profile
- Allows reads to locate your other content on your site
A Bit of Background:
Google introduced Authorship a few years back. As part of Google’s attempt to integrate its products, Authorship continues to grow its popularity. In line with Google’s progressive merging of their new and old applications and products, setting up Google Authorship is relatively straight forward and result in lots more traffic to your website.
If you are using WordPress there are plugins such as Yoast which will add the necessary markup for you.
Setting You Up For Authorship
Step 1: Set Up Your Google+ Profile
First of all, you need to verify yourself with Google through your G+ account. Ensure that the email address you used contains the same domain as your website.
Step 2: Link from your Google+ profile to your website.
Add your website to the “Contributor to” tab in your Google+ account.
Follow these steps:
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- Click on the “Profile” tab
- Select the “About” tab
- Scroll down to the section called “Links”
- Click on “Edit” and “Add Custom Link”
- Add the name and the URL of your blog
- Click “Save”
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Step 3: Link your content to your G+ profile
To finish the connection between your Google+ profile & your website, Make sure that you make good use of the “rel=author” tags by embedding them in your content.
The easiest way to do this is to install the Yoast SEO plugin.
On the “Profile Page” of Yoast, list your Google+ profile link.
When you fill this out, the plugin automatically includes the “rel=”author” tag required.
Step 4: Confirm this is working using the Google Rich Snippets Testing Tool
Hopefully Google Authorship is now setup correctly. Click here to test your website using Google’s Rich Snippet Testing Tool – https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets
If you see your handsome mug shot you are good to go!
Good luck.
