Google Authorship is an application recently implemented by Google, which gives authors the ability to distinguish and validate web content they have written within Google search results. By utilizing this application, authors are now able to display content they have written while assigning a face and a name to content they have created.  Along with several other benefits, Google Authorship helps writers and authors achieve higher visibility in search results.

How Authorship is Achieved

Google provides a simple how-to process for achieving Authorship in search results.  If they haven’t already, authors must create a Google+ Profile. Upon doing so, authors will then have to upload a high quality headshot and fill some basic profile information.

From there, authors or writers will need to verify authorship of their content by associating it with their Google+ profiles. This can be done 2 different ways.

Option 1. Add your name and email to your content.

Option 2.  Link content you have written to your Google+ profile and link back to your content.

Linking content is a two-step process which involves adding a link from your website or page to your Google Profile. Following this, go back to your Google+ profile and add a link back to your site. You can find more information on linking content here.

Benefits of Google Authorship

There are several benefits in incorporating Google Authorship. The most immediate and obvious benefit is branding. The more often an author’s image is displayed next to their content over time, the more likely that their click-through-rates will improve. Other benefits include:

• Separating your content from duplicate content
• Claim ownership of content written
• Ability to establish yourself as an authority writer of content within a given field
• Ability to have people connect with you via Google+
• Garner more clicks from search results, which could potentially increase site traffic and sales
• Allowing readers the ability to connect with authors via Google+