Develop Your Google Authorship Rank

Embracing Google Authorship is becoming increasingly important as its impact on the ranking of web pages is growing. From Google’s perspective authorship mark up of a particular web page assists Google in judging the authority and quality of the content.

If the author of the content has a verified Google+ account and is recognised by Google as having “authority” and “trust” within a sector then it stands to reason that content created by a person, within the sector, is likely to be high quality and therefore worthy of ranking high.

To get the biggest boost for your content from Google Authorship you need develop your authorship credentials and make sure that Google sees you as an expert in your field. Here are 5 easy to implement tactics to increase your Google Authorship and get better search rankings for your content.

1. Fill in The Bio Section of Your Google+ Profile

A simple but frequently overlooked tactic is simply to make sure that the About section of your Google+ account states clearly the areas in which you are an expert. You can add these details within the “introduction” and “occupation” sections. So if you are a website designer then say that in the introduction section and then again in the occupation section.Also, in the “Contributor” section make sure that you add a link to the site that you author.

2. Build Out Your Circles

It is very easy to add people to your own circles. You can simply add anyone you want to your own Google+ circles. What is not so easy is to get other people to add you to their Google+ circles. Getting people to add you to their circles is important. It is important because the more content that you post to Google+ that is relevant to your sector AND which is then re shared by others the greater the growth in your authority and trust.

Only people that have added you to their circles will see the content that you share. Hence the need to build your circles. Read our follow up guide to growing your Google+ circles for guidance on how to easily do this.

3. Guest Blog On Other Topically Related Blogs

When you guest blog on a third party’s blog you will generally have the opportunity to add your author bio at the bottom of the blog post. If that post is good enough other people will link back to it and will share it across their favoured social platforms. The greater this engagement on the post you provided the greater the boost to your Authorship credentials. Try and set up a process where you regularly post to third party blogs.

Make sure the blogs that you contact with a view to guest posting are all topically related. Guest posting on topically related websites provides a significant boost to your authorship credentials and has a direct benefit on your website’s rankings. Posting to non related blogs is a sign of spam and has the opposite effect.

Also, try to begotiate a best posting opportunity on the best blogs that you possibly can. the greater the authority of the blog you are guest posting to the greater the boost to your credentials as an author.

4. Share All Content That You Publish Socially

Google monitors the social engagement that content that you create achieves. By submitting your content to each of the major social sharing platforms you are kick starting the process. Don’t be afraid to ask your followers and social friends to actively share your content if they like it. The more sharing your content gets the greater the boost to your authorship credentials.

5. Encourage Comments On Your Content

To many publishers allowing comments on their blog is a sure fire way to end up with a lot of spam comments that they then have to wade through. This results in many publishers disabling comments. Don’t do this. (Our comments are disabled currently only because this blog is being redeveloped)

Use a good anti comment spam plugin to reduce the number of spam comments that you will receive. This is very important because the number of non spam comments that your content receives the greater the boost to your authorship credentials. It names perfect sense. If you are creating content that people want to comment on then the amount of comments that you receive is a good indicator of the quality of that content.

So armed with the above tips what are you waiting for? Go and start developing your Google Authorship rank. The impact of a good authorship rank is only going to get bigger as Google looks to move more and more away from a link focused ranking algorithm.