Social Signals in Search – Author Highlighting

As part of my series on the integration social signals in search, it’s time to discuss author highlighting in Google. Last week, we started with the timeline of how social media became integrated with search engines. It’s an ever-changing set of events.

In the summer of 2011, Google announced the highlighting of the authorship of content . This bit of information seemed to fall through the cracks, because of all the other Google announcements this year. However, it can be crucial for editors to pick up on these details.

Authorship markup means that Google will show the picture of the author next to the post in search results. Ultimately, this will have a direct (or indirect) connection in results and performance of a post. Articles assigned to actual people (and not company logos) will attract more clicks from users, because they will be seen as more legitimate. More clicks lead to higher credibility. Google loves credibility. It’s another example of the masses speaking out.

Need help getting your image to show next to your articles?

1. 1. Create a Google Profile – Keep in mind, this is all based on a Google Profile. That’s the root of all the information. I will discuss in another post how to optimize your Google Profile, but for now make sure you have one. (Hint: If you use Gmail, you already have a Google Profile.) Be sure to add a profile image to your account.
2. 2. Link Content to Profile – Now that your Google Profile is created, the next step is to associate your content to that profile. This can be done using the authorship markup (rel=author). Within every page that you want authorship associated with content, include your profile plus rel=author.

   <a href="[profile_url]?rel=author">Google+</a>.

   If you are the only one that writes on your site, this can be done through a common footer or navigation page.

3. 3. Link Profile to Content– To add an extra layer of synching between the articles and Google Profile, it helps to connect the profile to the content. This can be done through the “Contributor to” section in your Google Profile.
4. 4.Verify with Rich Snippets Testing Tool – Google has recently provided a way to make sure you articles are marked-up correctly. This can be done through Google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets.

Google’s authorship markup is not standard across all users and views yet. However, it’s only a matter of time before this is integrated into your standard search engine results. By following a few simple steps above, you should be ahead of the curve.