Sunday, June 10, 2012

Authorship On Google and Google+

How to Establish Authorship on Google

Published on by: James H. Hobson

Establishing authorship on Google is an important part of SEO in 2012. Besides the SEO benefits, authorship can protect your online content from being wrongly claimed by others and become a valuable tool in building your online reputation and brand image.

The Steps For Authorship

  • Create a Google account, and set-up a Google+ page
  • Establish a personal or business blog or website
  • Create an "About" page on the blog or website
  • Use special links to associate these pages
  • Use a special byline or meta tag on your online content

How to Create a Google Account

A Google Account is free and requires only a few minutes to create. Use the following link to Create a Google Account. You will later want to explore your Google account and add some of Google's nifty services such as YouTube, Blogger, Analytics, and Webmaster Tools. Be sure to write down your Google account login information!

Creating Google+ Pages

With a Google Account you can enjoy numerous free Google tools and services. Use the following link to Create A Free Google+ Page or you can simply login to your Google Account and find easy to follow directions. When you have created your Google+ page you need to edit your profile and add complete information. Specific and important information that you must add are your name and a headshot photo that is at least 250x250 pixels in size. Providing profile information that is complete and accurate is strongly recommended.

On you Google+ page, find and click on the Profile icon in the left hand sidebar. Next, click on the Edit Profile link and then complete your profile. When this is done, use your mouse to scroll over and from your address bar, copy the url that looks something liks this: https://plus.google.com/107575251123935558983#107575251123935558983/posts. You will use this URL to create a tag to place in your blog's or website's Head code.

Your Website or Blog

On your website or blog you need to have an "About" type page from which you can be identified for Authorship. The following text will show you how to create the tag to place on websites or blogs where you are an author or contributor. Having authorship on multiple sites can substantially increase your online presence and authority reputation.

Use the URL that you copied to create your own authorship tag. You may need to be truncate the URL to remove bits of code. Your copied URL may look like this:
https://plus.google.com/107575251123935558983#107575251123935558983/posts but needs to be shortened to this:
https://plus.google.com/107575251123935558983/ and inserted into the HTML code to create a tag that looks like this:
Google Authorship Tag

Be sure to change the items shown in RED to your own information. Now add this bit of code to the HEAD section of any blog or website where you desire to have authorship of content.

Special Links for Authorship

To be identified as the author of specific content, such as a blog post, article or pdf document, simply add an HTML byline, below the title, to each article or blog post. Be sure to change URL to your Google+ link and insert your name where indicated. Your code should look similar to this:

Google Authorship Tag

This will display on your site as: Written by

You can make modifications to this code to include date published and other bits of information. When you believe that you have completed everything, you should use the Google Rich Snippets Testing Tool to confirm that everything is properly configured.

When Google indexes your article or information, it will now give you credit for the information and in many cases, display your profile photo adjacent to your blog article or website page listing. If you would like us to do this for you, simply send us a message.

Other Authorship Info Sources

If you enjoy a visual learning environment, you may want to view this OzDogWeb video on YouTube: How To Create Authorship on Google.

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