Google+ is quickly becoming an online content creator and writer’s best friend. With the launch of Authorship in late 2011, Google+ created a product that benefits both writers and Google’s search results.
Authorship allows writers to claim their content using their Google+ profiles by establishing a link between your profile and each content page you created. It’s a way for the original writer to establish credit for their work, while keeping content scraper’s results from showing up as a top search result, improving Google’s search reliability.
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The first thing you notice about an article written by someone with Google+ Authorship is that their profile picture shows up next to their item in your search results. Why is that important? Simple—people are drawn to pictures, especially in a sea of text. So if your article shows up in a search result, the person doing the search will be drawn to your content before others, even if it’s not the top result.
Basically, Google+ Authorship helps you stand out in a search. Whether or not this effect will last as more writers employ Google+ Authorship remains to be seen. But in the meantime, something as simple as having your photo appear in the search results next to your content can increase traffic to your pages.
But it’s more than merely having your photo appear in search results—implementing Google Authorship also increases your standing as an authority and your trustworthiness as a content producer in the eyes of Google (and others searching online). The link to your Google+ profile makes it easy to develop a social following based on your content performance, giving you the opportunity to build your reputation as an authority on certain topics. Also, the link provides verification that there is a real person writing and not some content robot pumping out keywords to drive SEO results. For both users and Google, Google+ Authorship establishes you as a reputable author.
You will also start to build up your AuthorRank, which is determined by your social influence, and can improve your search standing once you’ve established yourself with hundreds or thousands of followers.
A lesser known benefit to claiming Google+ Authorship is the increased potential for a search user to view more than just one page of your content from just one search result. If a user clicks onto your content page and stays there for over two minutes (or so) before hitting the back button, Google considers your content as valuable to the user, and that they may find other articles created by you useful as well. When the user returns to the original search results page, extra links written by you will show up under your original listing.
Even if they navigate away from the page before the requisite time has elapsed, the person doing the search has an opportunity to find more articles by you by simply clicking the link “More by [name of author].” The link leads to a page that pulls up results from the cross-section of content created by you and the user’s search terms.
And finally, claiming your content via Google+ Authorship can help keep plagiarizers from benefiting from your hard work and ensures the credit goes where it belongs—to you!
Claiming Google+ Authorship will improve your reputation, credibility, and ultimately, business.Get started today and start building your following to reap the benefits of Google+ Authorship.
on
Good tip! I followed your advice and updated my Contributor to section on G plus. Thanks.
on
Just like how Google is giving importance to authority sites, now its going to give importance according to author profiles. So now the two main attributes for better ranking of an article will be based on the site it is posted and the author profile.
on
Thanks Marcela. Would like to know how it effects for a guest blogger when there are no “more” links but the author is having blogs in other blog sites where his G+ profiles are linked. Can google identify this and show it in the SERP?
on
Hi Marcela.
Thanks for sharing this. For me, authorship is important and it doesn’t only give a pretty face beside the link. It does help a lot in terms of SEO and most importantly, giving the writer credit.
I think this is excellent and thanks for sharing.
Reginald
on
I’m very interested in content marketing, and didn’t know about Google Authorship until I read your post. IT’s very informative and presents a very compelling argument in favour of the relevance and importance of this feature. Thanks!
on
I was quite intrigued when I first began to see these images of writers who were in the Google+ Authorship program.
I claimed Google+ Authorship a little over a year ago and I’m glad I did. I believe it has not only helped my rankings in the SERPs but it has also helped me in networking with others in one of the niches that I am active in. I have been contacted much more frequently than before.
Again, this bespeaks of the “authority” factor you mentioned in the article. When people see you are a real person who has many pages of content on the Web, it differentiates you from others who do not have that level of authenticity.