{"id":104809,"date":"2012-09-17T03:05:12","date_gmt":"2012-09-16T19:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seo-hacker.com\/?p=4809"},"modified":"2023-08-08T17:01:19","modified_gmt":"2023-08-08T09:01:19","slug":"google-authorship-markup-affects-seo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seo-hacker.com\/google-authorship-markup-affects-seo\/","title":{"rendered":"How Google’s Authorship Markup affects SEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Google<\/a><\/p>\n

Rel=\u201dauthor\u201d is Google’s authorship markup<\/em> where authors link their page content on their Google profile. Google’s authorship markup is one of the most popular on site optimization factors. It shows up in the search engine results page as an eye-catching picture, it connects all your published works, it leverages trust in you as an author and much more. So how does it affect SEO?<\/p>\n

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Leveraging Trust in the SERPs as an Author<\/strong><\/p>\n

Putting a Rel Author tag in all of your published posts would mean that you’re putting your reputation on the line. People will see who published this entry right from the search engine results page.<\/p>\n

1) They will be able to see your picture as an author<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Google<\/a><\/p>\n

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Update:<\/strong> Google had removed all author photos and Google+ view counts from search results both from desktop and mobile. Although this update had rocked many SEO specialists, it doesn\u2019t mean you have to stop implementing authorship markup. It still helps with author credibility, and maybe one day with author rank.<\/p>\n

2) How many people are following you on Google+<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Google<\/a><\/p>\n

3) What other articles you’ve written<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Google<\/a><\/p>\n

It is a direct connector to who you are as an author. The more information of yourself as an author you give out to the public, the more trust you will be able to gain. Of course, this means that you shouldn’t publish sucky, negatively controversial content that might hurt your reputation as an author.<\/p>\n

Increased Click-Through Rate (CTR)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Consequently, having your authorship information publicly out in Google’s Search engine results page can lead to a higher click-through rate. People like to know who wrote an article and if the article is any good. There are two clear-cut factors affecting this:<\/p>\n

1) The number of people in circles –<\/strong> Because people see this immediately and if they’re wise, they would check how many people are actually following you because of what you publicly publish.<\/p>\n

2) Your picture and smile –<\/strong> Who doesn’t like being smiled at? Friendly and strong-colored pictures attract attention.<\/p>\n

Having a higher CTR can directly affect your SEO. Higher CTR means a more relevant title, description, URL – and now, your authorship tag affects it by displaying your Google+ profile picture and circles too! Here’s a case study that claims his CTR increased by 38% after implementing the Rel Author tag<\/a> in his entries.<\/p>\n

Checking out Other Published Entries<\/strong><\/p>\n

Clicking on the ‘More by(author name)’ link on the SERP snippet will take the user to a page where all of the author’s other published entries are displayed. This means that the user can check out your vertical mastery of your topic, your writing voice in your other published articles, other websites where you write in, etc.<\/p>\n

\"Google<\/a><\/p>\n

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Know what this means? This means that if the person likes your stuff, you can get this person to add you in his or her circles or follow you elsewhere – in Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. I usually put one or two of my social profiles in my Author bio so that people can add me up.<\/p>\n

This also means that if you have any content that sucks, they would find out.<\/p>\n

Connector to your Google+ Profile<\/p>\n

Having the Google Authorship markup means that people who click on your author byline in the SERPs will be taken straight to your Google+ profile page.<\/p>\n

\"Google<\/a><\/p>\n

Which means that they can see what you post in your Google+ stream and they can directly add you to their circles.<\/p>\n

\"Google<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s a cycle – if people add you up in their circles, your Authorship information will look better because you have more people that included you in their circles (Check out how your Google Plus Page affects SEO<\/a>), you get to have more people check your Google+ page out\u00a0 plus you get to have a higher CTR to boot!<\/p>\n

How to Implement Google’s Authorship Markup:<\/strong><\/p>\n