This is kind of old news because I’ve been talking about Authorship and showing up in Google with my picture beside my posts for several months, thanks to DIY Webmastery’s plugin “AuthorSure.” Before that came out, setting up your authorship at Google was unclear and though I got it to work after a lot of trying, AuthorSure makes it really easy to setup, especially if you change your theme and your author info goes away. (Happened to me when I upgraded Socrates awhile back. BTW, like the new look?)
Anyway, why am I telling you this?
Because establishing your authorship is important at Google. The have mentioned that they’re going to begin ranking authors, which will undoubtedly have something to do with where you show up on the SERPs.
This morning, Google sent this mesage:
Well, thanks I knew that, but… Google also mentioned that not everyone will achieve author status. So, if you’re new online, or if you haven’t produced much content for the Web, you probably won’t qualify… yet. But, if you have your own website, it’s a smart thing to set up now.
Why does Google Authorship matter?
Because eventually, you will have produced enough content to matter. And, when your picture shows up in the SERPs, guess which links are more likely to be clicked? You are correct, sir… those with images beside them.
Plus, Google is going to start ranking authors. It most assuredly will be rough to compete in my niche, since there are so many amazing SEO writers out there, but they have their style; I have mine. But it has more to do with Google Plus than you’d care to imagine. If you’re not over there participating, here’s another reason why you should be. Google doesn’t want G+ to fail and so, they’re tying influence and engagement there to search. (I really need to spend more time there myself. Argh.)
Anyway, if you don’t have Google Authorship tags together on your site, do it, even if you’ve only written a couple of posts. And keep writing! Everything today is about killer content. If you can’t write, get someone to write for you, and make sure that what you post is good, interesting information. If you’re not producing content these days, and updating it frequently, you may not appear in search rankings at all. It’s that important.
Google is trying to make a more professional Web. As I’ve mentioned before, misspelling, bad grammar, and unreadable information just won’t get into the SERPs anymore. The spinning content days are OVER, thank heaven. All that did was pollute the Web with crap.
Anyway, get yourself signed up and keep writing!
Here are a few more articles for you to check out. Plus, in the last one, there’s a cool Social Dashboard that you can install in Analytics. Thanks guys!
Related articles
How to Prepare for AuthorRank and Get the Jump on Google(seomoz.org)
An In-depth Analysis of Authorship, Google+ and Snippets(seomoz.org)
10 Dead Simple Tips to Take Advantage of Google+ for SEO(seomoz.org)
