If you want to increase your website traffic, then you must verify Google authorship markup. This will make your Google plus profile image visible in search engine result pages.This will take your website to next level of social networking, where people can recommend any webpage or article directly to search engines.
This is also an initial step to improve your Google author rank. And the most interesting part is that, just by verifying Google authorship and by adding rel=author or rel=publisher tag, you can increase your website traffic by upto 150%. So overall it is not just going to impact you web presence, social presence but will also help you improve you page-views and finally earning.
As we all know that very soon social media signals are going to play major role in SEO. Almost every search engine is going to consider social signals as the most important one, even above then backlinks.
Considering that today you can see that almost all websites are adding social media sharing buttons to their pages, and most importantly focus is given on Google plus buttons. Not only that, even Adsense adverts have +1 buttons integrated to them. These all shows the real power of social media.
How Verify Google Authorship Markup
The whole task is very easy to perform and if you have any blog on WordPress, then there are many plugins to help you. Don’t worry, I will list them out and will also give you one guide based on one such plugin. Till them, please check out the requirements.
- You must have G+ account. Here’s the direct Google plus signup link.
- You must have a domain to verify.
- You must add the ” HEAD SHOT ” profile image to your plus profile.
Remember that even if you don’t perform any activity on you account, you can still be able to approve authorship. You can also check out the official basic information on this setup. So finally below I have listed out all important steps you need to follow.
Verification of Email Address On Google Plus
You have to verify the email address. I mean you have to add the same and exact email you used in your website profile page. This is very simple. For example say you are using wordpress, then simply see the steps below.
- Move to your wordpress dashboard.
- Now move to ” Your Profile ” page.
- Now simply check out the email you used under ” Contact Info “. Check the image below.
- Now add the same email in your Google plus profile’s ” HOME ” & ” WORK ” contact area.
- Once done simply save the page.
Make sure that you email address domain is same as that of your blog. In my case its ” blogvkp.com “. This is just a simple step to verify that you are the legit owner or author of that website, blog or that article.
Important Note : One of the most point is your name. You have to make sure that your author name on your website is same as that in your Google plus page. I mean your byLine should be same. According to Google, inorder to establish a connection the author byline on the website on which you are posting should be same as that of Google plus profile name. Check the picture below.
Once you have completed these steps you can move to second step.
Adding The Link In Contributor Section
Simply move to your Google plus profile page and click on edit. Now just scroll down to the bottom of the page. Now here you can see ” Contributor to ” section. Over here you can the links of all those websites of which you are owner or author. If you performed a guest post on any website, then simply add the link of that webpage.
Adding rel=author Tag Link In Author’s Biography
Now you have to add your Google+ profile link in you author’s biography. If its wordpress, then you can simply do so by adding the link in the ” Biographical Info “. Or if its other platform, then just hyperlink any text like, Follow me on Google plus. See the image above for better understanding.
Why My Google Authorship Not Work
Below is the image which shows that we have successfully verified our authorship and the tool also shows my profile image in the result. But please see what I have to say.
Remember that even if you perform the complete setup very carefully and even Google Rich Snippets Testing Tool shows you profile image, there is no guarantee that your picture will be shown in search result pages. The whole process can take from weeks to even months and in most cares it start working within one to two days. But if you can see you profile image in rich snippet testing tool, then its clear you are verified.
Google Plus Authorship WordPress Plugin
The simplest and most popular plugin is WordPress SEO By Yoast. This plugin helps you to manage your web presence along with social media integration. Please check out my guide for its complete setup instructions.
You may also give try to other top rated plugin like Google Plus Authorship. This is very light and easy to use addon. It also supports blogs with multiple authors and will let them all verify their account.
I wish my guide was clear enough to help you in your way successfully. If you have any question, then please post it in comment area.
About Vivek Kumar Poddar
This post, great information. This post really nice to help the people to increase this knowledge in social media marketing. I will bookmark your site to receive your update post in the future.
Thanks for this helpful tutorial. I have implemented Authorship according to your tutorial. Richsnippet Tool is showing my verified Google Authorship. How much time will it take to appear in Google Search ?
From few days to even weeks.
Thank you – this is the first time it was explained clearly enough for me to follow the steps! My only question: I do have WordPress, but you did not say exactly how to add the rel=author tag to my BIO info? Could you please explain that more? I have everything else completed, thanks to your great guide!
Question : ” how to add the rel=author tag to my BIO info ”
I think that’s preety easy. You have to go to your profile page in wordpress dashboard : From the left hand side wordpress menu navigation Users > Your Profile.
Then when it comes to adding link : you will have to add this in html format. And lets say your profile link is like : https://plus.google.com/115810945249500972598, then after adding rel=author tag it should be like this https://plus.google.com/115810945249500972598?rel=author
Here’s the HTML code.