What is Google authorship? Well, if you have recently conducted a Google search and seen results that appear with the author’s name and picture, then you’re seeing the effects of this new Google feature. This recent offering from the online search giant basically enables authors and niche experts to showcase their web content-making skills and be credited for all the things that they have posted online.
This new Google feature can definitely come in handy when it comes to beefing up the results of your linkbuilding efforts. One of the biggest benefits of using authorship is that you’ll get higher click through rates and increased web traffic, which can improve the marketability of your website. It also helps your web pages get higher search engine results page or SERP rankings. And if you’re an expert in a particular niche, you’ll get greater perceived authority. It can help improve your reputation as a writer or expert in your chosen field and increase your chances of being accepted to make guest postings on bigger and more well-known sites.
Meanwhile, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to set up Google authorship and you certainly don’t need killer programming or web development skills to make it work. To take advantage of this handy Google feature, here’s what you should do. Obviously, you will need to sign up for Google+ and create a personal Google+ profile if you haven’t done it already.
Don’t forget to include a headshot picture in your profile. This is what the new authorship feature will display when the content that you have created shows up in search result listings. Also, make sure that you create a byline containing your name that matches the one that you have used on your Google+ profile. Then, you’ll get your own Google+ profile URL that you can use in linkbuilding.
However, you should be careful when using Google authorship, especially if you’re making a lot of guest postings on other blogs and websites. Some experts believe that it can affect your future Author Rank if you’re not too conscientious about choosing where to post your content.
For instance, you should avoid doing guest postings on blogs with questionable reputation. If the site gets penalised for black hat SEO practices, you can be sure that your Author Rank will be affected in one way or another. Or if you do guest posts on blogs with less influence than you, it can potentially drag down the rankings that you’ve worked hard to achieve. As such, you should pay close attention when enabling Google authorship on your guest posts.
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