Google Plus Authorship for WordPress - 5 Simple Steps to Set It Up

A. Steps For Setting Up Google Plus Authorship

Step 1: Set Up Google Profile Account

The first action to take on setting your content authorship on Google is to set up a profile account for Google Plus. Usually, if you already have a Gmail account, all you need to do is log in with that account and visit the Google Plus site to complete your profile.

Step 2: Set Up Image Avatar

Gravatar comes in highly recommended in this step. Gravatar stands for a “Globally Recognized Avatar”. This means that all your content posts will be associated with your avatar image no matter which site you are publishing on. In order to set it up, you need an email address linked to your authorship on your Content Management System, in this case, WordPress.

Step 3: Install WordPress Plugin For Author Verification

The next step is to install a plugin called AuthorSure. AuthorSure is a WordPress plugin that allows content publishers and website owners to verify their authorship with Google. There are many other plugins on the web for this purpose, but this plugin is light and easy to use. Moreover, it is compatible with the latest release of WordPress (v3.5.1). Installing AuthorSure is very simple and can be completed in a few minutes.

Once installed and activated, go to “Settings” on your WordPress Dashboard and click “AuthorSure”. Under the “AuthorSure Post Settings”, select the “Author Box” option and check the “Hide On Pages” checkbox. Under the “AuthorSure Home Page Settings”, enter your Google Plus page ID and save the changes.

Step 4: Link Google Plus Profile To Content

To link your Google Plus Profile to your content, go to the Google Authorship page. Enter your email address and click “Signup for Authorship” button. Afterwards, check your inbox to verify your email.

It is important to edit your Google profile to reflect your website in the “Contributor To”.

Step 5: Test Your Google Plus Authorship Set Up

Google Webmaster Tool is used for this purpose. It is called the Structured Data Testing Tool. Enter the address of content published by you and click the “Preview” button.

B. Benefits of Using Google Plus Authorship

The following are the benefits of using Google Plus Authorship:
- It helps you build trust and credibility with your readers/audience;
- It helps improve your Click Through Rate. For example, most search engine users prefer to click on a post with an author image that a post without any image. This is closely linked to the first point;
- It helps boost authority for your domain and ultimately improve your search rankings through AuthorRank

This is what Google Chairman, Eric Schmidt, had to say about AuthorRank: “Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance”;

Also see this video on how valuable Google Plus Authorship is:

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