Posts Tagged Google Authorship
Seattle Social Media: 5 Reasons Google Authorship is a Must-Have for Any Blogging Website
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on January 12, 2013
Google Authorship is one of Google’s newer tools for authors, and one of the newest ‘SEO kittens’ available for site owners. With recent and forthcoming updates to Google’s search engine algorithm, Google Authorship is expected to be very important to blogging websites, and an integral part of Seattle social media optimization sometime in the very near future. So what are the benefits of Google Authorship, and how can you utilize it for your site?
Attract More Attention to Your Post in Search
The first and most obvious result of using Google Authorship is that you will eventually see a photo, a small bio, and a link to your Google + directly in search. While this might not seem like much more than a vanity point, consider two things. The first is that the post is bigger than any posts that do not have authorship, this immediately attracts more attention. Second, and most importantly, anyone looking for a quality article can see who wrote that article and that you are confident enough of its quality to put your name and your face on it. Google Authorship has sometimes seen as much as a 30% increase in click through rate based on impressions, meaning that you could be getting a lot more traffic just by adding your name and your face to your results in search.
Increase Author and Site Credibility
Not only are you putting your name on your post, you’re allowing Google to see what you are claiming. Based on your user reaction, the helpfulness and SEO quality of the blog, and of course, the amount of social media sharing you get, Google will ‘remember’ that you post good content, and start placing you higher in search. Readers can also see how many followers you have on Google +, a great indicator as to whether or not you deserve to be read.
Easily Access Statistics and Click-Through Rates
If you’re attempting to track your content to see click through rate, traffic, or even average position in Google search, there is literally no better tool than the Google Authorship statistics. Currently the tool is only accessible via labs (meaning that it may break, vanish, or disappear at any time), but it is well worth your time and effort to check out. Want to see for yourself? Log into your Google Webmaster Tools, click ‘Labs’ and then choose ‘Author Stats’.
Does Google Have a ‘Favorite’ Child?
It has been rumored in the past that Google has a tendency to ‘play favorites’ with its own content, so you might want to consider using Google + and utilizing Google Authorship with it for that reason. Google currently owns about 65-75% of internet search, meaning that of the estimated nearly 300 million internet users in 2012 at least 195 million used a Google search engine.
Benefit Your Local Seattle Social Media Optimization
Last year, Matt Cutts, head of Google’s webspam, talked about how a well ranked Google Authorship website might continue to place well in search, even if the site changes hands to someone who doesn’t worry quite as much about quality. But this doesn’t mean you should start being lax with grammar and content, instead, it means that once you have a reputation, you will keep it for some time. Google authorship allows you to build your SEO over time by simply posting great content and engaging with your readers, customers, or clients. Social activity involving your posts, sharing, number of clicks, and of course, your number of followers will all contribute to your ‘credibility’. With the many new changes to Google search engine algorithms, including the introduction of Penguin, Panda, and Google Authorship; you can’t afford to exclude this great tool from your Seattle Social Media optimization. If you have not set your Google Authorship up yet, you can find out how here.
Seattle Social Media: Four Easy Ways to Get the Most out of Your Google Authorship
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on January 11, 2013
Google Authorship is a relatively simple tool that uses rel-links to create a link back to your Google + profile, adding your photo and bio to the description of the post. The result is that you get a link back to your profile which will mostly help to increase your social sharing, and that readers can see who wrote the post, and how many people are following you. Seattle social media experts, including us, have begun using Google Authorship to integrate social and SEO. If you’ve already set up your Google Authorship, here are a few easy ways to optimize it for the best results.
Use a Clear Head Shot
A photo certainly does not sound like it might be important to a search engine, but in this case, it’s not Google you’re trying to please, it is your readers. While implementing Google Authorship has been shown to increase click through rate on a site by as much as 30% or more, you won’t see good results if you have a bad picture. For example, let’s say you created your Google + one night when it first came out, uploaded the first image you found on your computer and then left it at that. You don’t use Google + so it was never that important. Now that you’ve implemented Google Authorship, you can see a rise or fall in your traffic based on your image. Is it clear, professional, reflective of your business? Chances are that unless you are a professional comedian, you probably shouldn’t be making a face. Instead, try using a passport photo, smile, look professional, and make sure there is enough light.
Interact on Google +
Whether or not you like Google + or just have it out of necessity, you can increase your Google authorship optimization by interacting and engaging with users on Google +. Invite your friends to the social site, chat and interact with them, and always remember to share your content to your Google +. Leaving a personal message instead of a simple share also helps to increase conversion rates.
Check for Links
Did you know that a study last year of each website that had implemented Google Authorship showed that only 9% had actually linked back to their Google + profile? If you link to your content by confirming your domain email, ensure that you also add the site in the ‘Contributor’ section of your Google + profile. You should also use a Google + link using the rel-me and rel-author tags on your site. An author page should contain ‘rel-me’ and each post should contain he ‘rel-author’ in the biographical section of the post.
Set Yourself Up As a Professional in Your Field
Does your bio say absolutely nothing about what you do? If you spent the first few sentences in your Google + profile talking about your dogs, you might want to go back in and rewrite it. Try drawing attention to your area of expertise from the start rather than talking about it later. Google Authorship does not show the full bio in search, so you will be relying on those first few sentences to convince potential readers that you are indeed an expert in your field. Start off with what you know, and talk about your life later. For example, if you were an expert in Seattle social media, you would mention that in the first or second line of the post.
Seattle Social Media: What is Google Authorship (And How to Set It Up)
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on January 7, 2013
What is Google Authorship? And how does it affect your Seattle social media? Google authorship is a markup that you can insert into a blog or website to claim ownership, get extra stats, and use for a few interesting features. There have been many changes in recent Google search algorithms, and one of the biggest will soon be the implementation of authorship into search results. But first, let’s learn a little bit about Google Authorship itself.
Google Authorship uses a rel tag, which is part of HTML5. This tag can be utilized in author boxes, most web pages, blogs, and pretty much anywhere you can place content. Before you get started, make sure you have a Google + profile (it doesn’t matter if it’s active) and then proceed. If you don’t have the profile, you can sign up for free by creating or using your Gmail account.
Setting up Google Authorship
There are two ways to set up Google Authorship with a few special considerations if you have multiple people posting on your site. You should also use a clear headshot on your Google + profile (Google does not like their authors to be ‘companies’ so no logos if possible).
Method One: Use or set up an email account with the domain server that you have (For example info@RoryMartin.com) , then check to make sure each page of work that you intend to claim contains a clear byline (for example ‘Written by Rory Martin’) Check to make sure your byline name and your Google + profile are the same (I.E. you can’t use Rory Martyn and Rory Martin). Finally, visit the ‘Authorship’ page of Google and submit your email address, confirm it, and from then on, anything you publish on that page will automatically show up with your Google + photo in search.
Method Two: If you do not have an email with the domain you want to claim, you can use the Google authorship markup to claim the content as well. For this method you will need the link to your Google + profile to an individual page using the Google markup.
<a href=https://plus.google.com/109325933900468965289? rel=author>Rory Martin</a>
Edit the markup to include your Google + profile, and if you like, edit the tag, for example,
<a href=https://plus.google.com/109325933900468965289? rel=author>Rory Martin</a>
Minus the space, it would appear as
<a href=https://plus.google.com/109325933900468965289?rel=author>Rory Martin</a> <a href=” https://plus.google.com/109325933900468965289?rel=author”>Rory Martin</a>
Next, visit your Google + profile, click ‘Edit’ and scroll down to the ‘Contributor’ section. Add a link with a title to the site you’ve added your markup to, and you are all done. Websites who post work from multiple authors and who use an author bio box can actually include the markup in any author bio plugin that supports HTML5. This can save time because you won’t have to post the markup each time that person posts a blog.
Joomla: For Joomla sites you can choose to use an HTML5 reader, install a rich snippet reader, install author link, or edit your CSS ‘Written by’ to include the authorship markup. You could also directly modify the author link to any pages of individual authors to include the ‘rel=author’ markup. Not sure your rich snippets are right? Check them here with Google before posting them on your site.
What does Google Authorship Do for Your Seattle Social Media?
Social media helps drive traffic to and from your content, and as Google’s baby, Google + and therefore Google authorship are tools that you cannot afford to ignore. In the first eight months of authorship alone, more than 17% of Google search results for articles and websites consisted of pages with Google Authorship markups. Considering that during that time, Google Authorship was only being used by about 3% of web publishers, which shows a definite lean towards favoritism. If you want your content to come up in search, Google authorship is a great addition.
What else does Google authorship do? Each time your post shows up in search, it will have a link to your Google + profile, the headshot that you provided Google, and the number of Google + followers you have. You’ll also be able to view statistics for your work no matter where it is on the web. Logging into Google Webmaster Tools, going to ‘Labs’ and clicking on ‘Author Stats’ will take you to a dashboard where you can view everything from average views, to click through rate per article, per day! Essentially, Google Authorship helps your Seattle Social Media by allowing you to claim your content, increase traffic by giving it visibility and an author, and of course, great free stats that you can use to see how your content is doing.
The Rise of Social Media Marketing and How it Affects Your Local Seattle SEO
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on December 28, 2012
Seattle is one of the world’s largest e-commerce hotspots, with commercial giants including Amazon, Etsy, Zappos, Groupon, and more, calling the city their home. These companies, like smaller businesses in Seattle, utilize SEO to target local and international traffic, but unlike those big businesses, you as a smaller company have one disadvantage. You’re invisible. In fact, Google doesn’t even see you. Unless you have a reputation, a stake in Google stocks, or happen to be a Google employee, your website or blog is entirely at the mercy of Google’s ever changing algorithms and bots, meaning that you, or the Seattle SEO company promoting your site, must follow the rules.
But what are those SEO rules? Google’s constant release of new updates and changes have left many people confused about correct SEO keyword density, what backlinks are permitted, and now, what social media has to do with your SEO.
Google Algorithm Changes
“There’s been a Penguin update” five little words that are guaranteed to send every webmaster and blog owner scrambling to check their ranking and traffic. The last Penguin update in December of 2012 affected more than 1.6% of queries, and new updates next year could affect more than 6%.
Penguin went live on April 24th of 2012 and with sister Google Algorithm update Panda, proceeded to turn the world of SEO upside down, affecting a combined total of more than 18% of searches. The aim of both of these updates was to lower the ranking of poor quality sites and raise high quality ones to the top of the search. What Panda and Penguin also did was hit any quality sites that were using ‘black hat’ SEO techniques, link farms, or other ‘fake’ SEO. The first wave of changes promoted quality over quantity for both links and content, but changes are not over yet.
The Integration of Social Media and Authorship
In October of 2012, Matt Cutts posted a video on the Google Webmaster Help YouTube channel about guest blogging, explaining that to most sites, the guest blog was obsolete. Posting a great deal of poor quality articles linking back to other sites is only likely to raise a red flag to Google search bots, which would lower the traffic. He then went on to explain that if the author were respected, qualitative, and had a following, the guest blog might be very much worth the websites time. This was the first indication of how the new Google Authorship will affect search engine rankings.
Google created a Google ‘Author’ page earlier this year, allowing site owners to link their Google + to their website or to guest blogs. The result is that persons who utilized authorship could view their search rankings and impressions, and anyone looking for the article could view the authors name and photo with Google + profile just below the article in search.
Now, that Google + profile, combined with Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, and other social media accounts will be affecting search results. Authors with influence, a history of writing quality content, and a strong niche will soon be ranked above authors without that following, and who write about anything and everything. Social media interactions from company social will also affect search. This new algorithm is beginning to roll out now, and is expected to be fully in place as soon as June of next year.
How New Google Algorithms Affect Your Local Seattle SEO
Whether you’re trying to promote your services or company to the world, or just doing a bit of local SEO, the new Google algorithms affect your results in many ways. With the pure volume of affected search results, you can’t afford to ignore new algorithms, and you can’t afford to ignore your social. Rather than a simple promotion platform, the interaction on your social sites will soon be just as important to your SEO strategy as your content and your back links. International and local Seattle SEO are both affected, so it is important to focus on spreading your optimization through social, quality backlinks, and quality site content.
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