Now, I don’t mean just setting up a Google profile and getting your profile image to appear when you Google your name.
But what I do mean is your face appearing next to an article you have written in the Google results page for ordinary keywords that are relevant to the article.
This is a game changer.
People who have connected with you through Google will automatically see your face in the results pages if they are searching for a topic you have written about. Google knows the searcher has a relationship with the author and will not only put the author’s page higher in the rankings but also put a massive visual nudge towards this result.
The result of getting your face in the Google SERPs are:
1. Massive increase in click-throughs from the search pages.
2. An increase in the exposure of your personal brand.
So How Can You Get Your Face in Google SERPs?
OK, here you go! Let’s go over the steps in more detail.
1. Set Up a Google Profile
You must do this if you haven’t already. If you have a Gmail account or have used any other Google services you probably already have one.
Once you have your Google profile set up it’s important that you upload a clear headshot for your profile image. You must also create an informative About page which should include a link to the home page of websites where you author articles. You should also set up a +1 page and make sure the tab appears on your Google profile.
2. Link to Your Google Profile from Your Blog
You need to link to that Google profile page from every page you have authored. The easiest way to do this is to add a link to the header, footer or sidebar of your blog. The link to your Google profile should be like this:
<a rel=”author” href=”https://plus.google.com/
There are two very important specifications to this code: First, the link has the rel=”author” tag in it. Secondly, the anchor text of the link back to the Google profile has a +(plus) at the beginning or end of it.
If you have a WordPress site, you can either put this in a text widget if you have a widgetized sidebar or you can paste the HTML directly into the sidebar.php of your theme. You may want to include the Google+ link with your Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook links.
3. Make an Author Page on Your Site
Make an author page on your site (an “About” page for a single author blog) linking to the author page with a rel=author and linking to your Google profile on the About page with a rel=me.
To add the rel=author tag on the About page in WordPress menus do this: Go to Appearance > Menus and click on Screen Options and then check “Link Relationship (XFN)” and that will enable you to add a link relationship to your About page, which should be “author.”
4. Link from Google+ to Your Site
You have to link your Google+ profile back to your site. Go to your Profile > About — and hit Edit Profile. Now you can click on the Other Profiles right hand sidebar and edit the sites you own or contribute to. You must do this step.
And don’t forget to create an author/about page on your site with a rel=”me” tagged link to the Google+ profile page.
OK, I’ve done that but it still doesn’t work
It won’t work immediately. However, in the meantime you can test it to make sure it works.
Head over to Google’s Rich Snippets Testing Tool and enter the site that you have linked to and from your Google profile correctly. Here you will be told if your authorship markup is correct.
Article by Rob Cubbon.
