Author: Matthew Shelton
Google rewards you for posting quality content on the web on your own blog and also on guest blog posts, and to reap maximum rewards for your efforts then read on and implement how to sign up for Google authorship below.
The way Google rewards you is by qualifying you as a “Google Author.”? A Google “Author” has their picture next to the blog post, right there in the Google search results.? Needless to say, if a search result has an anonymous result and another has a result from a Google Author with their picture next to the search result, showing ownership of the article, then that search result is the one that is more likely to be clicked and certainly is the one to show more authority.? More authority, because of ‘authorship’ – get it?? Ok.
Here’s an example:
Google authorship example – Matthew Shelton author is search results
First of all, you need to have a Google+ Profile.
If you don’t have a Google account in any form, then go get a Gmail account, that is the easiest way.? Google has changed how it’s done a bit lately, you have to create a general Google account, and then go from there (and get a Gmail account while you are at it).? Feel free to fill out the forms only to the minimum required amoun – for example, I keep getting asked for my cellphone number for so many of these things, and I see no reason that I should give it:
https://accounts.google.com/SignUp
Next,
You’ll need to have a recognizable picture of yourself, pretty much just your head (known, strangely enough, as a “headshot”).? If you need to, you can just crop your head out of some other photo – you don’t have to go to a photographer and do like models and actors do, and go ‘get a headshot done’.
http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/getstarted/guide.html
Now you need to have a blog that you post to, whether it is your own blog or another blog that you guest-post to.? Here’s the trick – when you write something, have By Your Name or Author Your Name as the first line of the article or blog post.
This admittedly looks a little strange in WordPress blogs when you are creating the post or page, because the Title is way up in another box and your “By Your Name” thing looks way below it, but when it is published it looks just fine, so don’t worry.
Whatever name you use for your Google+ account, that is the same name you need to use for your “By” or “Author” lines – easy enough.
If you don’t have any blog posts anywhere, then the easiest and fastest thing to do is to get cracking with your own installation of a WordPress blog.
For further congruence, Google wants you to have an email address using the same domain as your published content.? In this case, none of your free email accounts (including Gmail) will work.
The easiest route here is to create an email account on the same domain where you have your WordPress blog (or whatever blog platform you are using).?? In the cpanel of your hosting account, find the create email accounts area, select your blog domain, and create an email account there – you will need to use it as part of the process in the link below:
After following all the steps above, you will already be prepared to fill in the blanks to claim your Google Authorship at this link:
https://plus.google.com/authorship
Hope this helps you – let me know if I’ve left anything out, and we’ll see your face around the web since you now know how to sign up for Google authorship!