If you are new to blogging, you may be unaware of Google Authorship and how important it is to set up. You may have been blogging for quite some time, but not really given much attention to it. This is a HUGE mistake, and if this is the case I would encourage you to rectify this as soon as you can!
What is Google Authorship?
Have you ever noticed that when you undertake a search in Google, you will quite often see someone’s face smiling back at you on the left-hand side of the URL? This is Google authorship!
In a nutshell, the Google authorship is giving credibility to you as a blogger for writing that piece of content.
To set up Google authorship, you need to use an avatar (a picture). This picture represents YOU, so it should be a picture of you and not your dog!
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The picture that you choose will help you to stand out, and also help people to build a connection with you. So make this real!
Once Google Authorship has been successfully set up, your picture will appear next to your listing on Google every time you publish a new post. That’s pretty cool right?!
Your Google Authorship will look similar to this:
You may be asking yourself why Google authorship is so important? Let’s explore this further.
1: Google likes to see people!
Google WANTS people to be using Google, and therefore they want to make the experience user-friendly. At the end of the day, if you are not happy with your Google experience you are going to go elsewhere. This means a loss of business for Google and that is simply not something they are going to allow.
Generally speaking, people will not put their name and their face to something that they don’t want to be associated with. You really can’t hide from your content if you are using Google authorship, so it helps to go towards your credibility.
2: Google hates SPAM as much as we do!
Google want’s to filter spam, and authorship helps them do that. Google does not want its users to be subjected to a lot of spam articles, so it will filter them out.
What does Google consider to be SPAM? Well simply put it is
• Content that is clearly automated
• Content that makes very little sense.
• Content that is online purely for the reason of manipulating rankings.
• Content that does not serve a purpose for the reader.
Having authorship will reduce the likelihood of spam, and Google will therefore provide preference to your material.
3: Authorship will help you to be recognized
At the end of the day, the more times your picture is seen next to search listings, the more recognizable you are going to become. This will not only help build your credibility as a blogger, but it will also help build your entire online presence.
If readers are interested in your niche, the chances are that they are going to be typing search results into Google that you have written a post about. The more that a reader sees your face, the more they will recognize and trust it.
So remember to smile in your photo…he.
Many bloggers are now taking advantage of Google authorship, so if you are not using it, you will fall behind. People are also more likely to click on links that are using Google authorship than those that are not. This alone is worth adding it!
4: Google Authorship benefits your social signals
In order to get your Google authorship up and running, you need to connect it to your Google Plus profile. If you have any other Google accounts such as YouTube, this will also be connected.
In short, this means that every time people are liking or click +1 on posts, Google is receiving a vote that you are credible. We all like to receive votes!!
5: Authorship will help your SEO
As bloggers, we are all wanting to do things to assist our SEO, and Google Authorship is one of the easiest things to do to help it.
If you are playing by Google’s rules, then they are going to respond kindly to you. I’m certainly not saying that Google is going to place you on page 1 purely because you have installed authorship, but Google will provide you with some ranking benefits.
If you are SERIOUS about moving forward with your blogging, you MUST have Google authorship. There are no “ifs” or “buts” here!
If you are yet to install Google authorship, stay tuned for our future post which will walk you through the process of how to do this!
Google authorship is just one of the necessary steps you need to undertake for your blog’s success. If you would like to learn more about how to set up and operate a successful blog then read my book FREE – somewhere on this blog.
Have you been using Google authorship for your blog? Did you notice any benefits once this was completed? Please share your thoughts with us below.