How to Make the Most Out of Your Google Authorship Profile

So, you’ve heard about the Google Authorship service and decided to create an author profile for yourself or your website, depending on whether you are writing for a domain and various blogs, or running your own website where you publish all your written work. You already know its importance and the benefits that you can reap from it in the long run. On the other hand, you cannot expect it to single-handedly improve your website traffic, rankings and conversions. You still need to continue doing SEO, link building, and whatnot.

However, given that we’re already on the topic of Google Authorship, you might as well make the most out of your author profile and enjoy its maximum benefits. If you’re working with an ethical SEO company, they will be able to help you do the following (and maybe even more):

Utilize Google+

Admittedly, Google+ is not as widely-used as social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, or even Pinterest. However, as the primary requirement for having gaining access to Google Authorship services, it goes without saying that you also need to make use of your Google+ accounts as regularly as you do with your other social media accounts.

Remember to do these things:

• Dedicate even just a few minutes or an hour each day to update your Google+ profiles, talk with the people in your circles and reply to posts and private messages.
• Do your best to become acquainted with other authorities in your niche. Don’t look at them as competition, but rather acknowledge their potential as a powerful and influential supporter.
• Create circles of people with whom you would want to interact more. Create a VIP circle, for instance, and make sure you interact regularly with them so that they will be familiar with your presence.
• Post short and interesting messages that will prompt people to repost them in Twitter and Facebook.

Participate in social media. Maximize Google+ and link your account with other social media sites. Image Source.

•  You can also configure your Google+ account so that your posts will automatically be posted in Twitter. You can do it through Feedburner. This will cut your time spent on social media visits in half.
• Use Google Ripples to find out who your most influential contacts are. Use the findings you get to your advantage.

Link all your websites to your Google+ and author profile

You should also link your profile page in the websites and blog rolls you are writing articles for, as well as the web pages of those articles. You are using Google Authorship to protect and lay claim on are your original articles; so when you are guest writing, be sure to include the rel=”author” tag in the HTML of those pages.

Have the best writers in your team. If not, strive to be an excellent writer yourself

Since you’re claiming ownership and rights to your articles, you better make sure they are worth the effort and will not embarrass you. Your articles need to be excellently written, well-researched, accurate, and informative. In short, they have to be valuable because ultimately, the readers and searchers will be the ones who will place value into your name.

Give readers a reason to +1 your article and click on the link provided in your Google Authorship rich snippet to look for your other articles.

Build your name/brand

The essence of branding: creating a lasting and distinct impression. Image source.

Producing excellent content and taking time to optimize the social media aspect of Google Authorship are essential in branding. It is important to establish your name as a credible and trustworthy writer who knows a lot about the niche you are working in. After you have established that image, it will be easy to earn other people’s trust. After all, this is one of the main goals of Google Authorship.

Aside from branding and gaining the trust of your readers, Google Authorship can also protect your content from scrapers and duplicators. Once you’ve made it clear to the search engine that a particular article is yours, the search engine may no longer index the other pages where your articles have been duplicated. Plus, there’s Panda on the prowl. Now isn’t that a cause for joy?

About Emma-Julie Fox

Emma, aka the "Foxy Lady", writes and promotes Pitstop Media's articles about search engine optimization and social media. She is a fun loving person and likes to help others with good advice. She is also a caring mother of a beautiful daughter.