Have you been searching in Google and come across search results that have pictures of faces in them?
Like this (search phrase: Does social media marketing grow business):
And this: (search phrase: LinkedIn marketing an hour a day)
That’s just Google making sure that your content is YOUR content. The official reason is “to help users discover great content,” says Google.
With more and more people creating content, curating content, and yes, even, copying other people’s content, you’ve got to make sure you’ve added your authorship rank code to your content so Google knows it’s yours. The authorship rank code is like your fingerprint. When you tie your Google+ profile to your website and/or blog, you’re basically adding today’s equivalent of your unique fingerprint.
Here’s how you can get your picture in Google’s search results:
Google has made it extremely simple for you to show your picture in your search results.
First, you have to have a Google+ profile. Yes, it’s Google’s sandbox so we have to play by their rules.
Go here to set up your Google+ profile if you have not done so already.
You can go to this link: http://bit.ly/18HefA0 and simply add your email address but be sure the email address is your domain.
Example: name@myname.com
Go to this link to do this now: http://bit.ly/18HefA0
This next step involves adding code into your website’s homepage:
Here’s how: follow the steps in this screenshot below, taken from Google’s section on how to link to your Google+ profile using rel-“author”.
Google wants to make this simple for you so there is a warning that tells you “The easiest and most reliable way to enable authorship information in Google search results is to provide a verified email address on the same domain as your content. If you don’t have an email address on the same domain, however, you can associate your content with your Google+ profile by followin the steps on this page.” And below that are the instruction for the rel=”author” two-step process:
Google wants to establish authorities on subjects and is using the number of circles you’re in plus how interactive you are in posting in Google+ when deciding who to make visible in the top search results for keywords. So now is an opportune time for you, the subject matter expert of YOUR subject, to strategically position yourself early on while the majority of people lag behind.
The most important steps to take after you’ve established your authorship is to optimize your Google+ profile; start consistently engaging and sharing relevant posts; and get in as many relevant circles as you can. How do you do all this? I wrote a blog post about Google+ when I was part of the BETA group the summer before Google rolled it out publicly. The advice I shared back then still stands. Read my Google+ blog post.
If you create content, you simply have to add your fingerprint to it (in the form of your authorship rank) or risk being invisible, un-findable, and un-authoritative about your subject matter.
