If you search Google very often you may notice some search results appear with an image of a person. Basically it is the thumbnail image of the writer of that content. What do you think of it? How does it appear in the Google search result? Other search engines still don't have this feature. Then how/ why it appears in Google search result?
Look at the above image. Search item is- marks pc. And the result is Marks PC Solution. You should notice my picture with the site. You can also enable your picture when your site appears in the search result.
Actually this is a great feature launched by Google. Google named this feature as Google Authorship Program. If you wanna enable this feature for your site then you have to go through few steps which are not very critical at all. I decided to write about it more than a year ago. But failed to publish about it due to the heavy work pressure.
But believe me, for my site, Marks PC Solution, I didn't enable this feature knowingly! Then how does my image appear in the search results? The answer is my Google Plus Profile. Yes, this feature works for that sites which writers have Google Plus Profile.
If you already see your image in the search result with your site's link, then you don't need to do anything more. That means the URL of your Website/ Blog is already linked to your profile. Thus this features is already enabled for you.
About Google Authorship Program
Google authorship program was launched on June 28, 2011. In that time, only a few hundred authors joined this program. Because many people were not familiar with this feature. But day by day, authors are being interested to enable this feature for their sites and contents.
Many of you may think Google considers authorship as a search ranking factor. But to be honest, still it not being used by Google as a search signal. Google uses more than 200 signals to determine search ranking. And in the future authorship program may be used as a search ranking factors.
How to Enable this Feature?
Well this is very easy. All you need is just a Google + Profile with a link of your site in that profile. Also make sure the following issues:
- Make sure you have a high quality Google+ profile picture with a recognizable headshot. I mean your face should be identifiable on that picture.
- Make sure a byline containing your name appears on each page of your site. Have a look at the end of this post- Posted by Abdur Rahaman.
- Make sure byline name and your Google+ profile name are exactly same.
- Make sure that your Google+ email address and your site's email address are same. If your site's email address is different then read more.
If you're sure about the above issues then just do the following:
- Go to your Google+ Profile.
- Then move to the About tab of the profile.
- Now scroll down to the Links section. Look at the above image.
- There are three options available: Other Profiles, Contributor to and Links.
- Hit on the Edit option. See the image below.
- Add your site's name and URL here. See the image below.
- Also add your site's name and URL in the Links too.
- Now save it and wait for your picture to be appeared in the search result. It may take few hours to few days depending on how much time is required by Google to crawl your image.
Finally, though Google doesn't consider authorship program as a search ranking signal, still it might be an important factor in SEO. You can consider this exactly as search description. Often people choose a site from search result by reading the search description of that page. And if the image of an author is familiar to the visitors and if that author is popular among them, then it will be very helpful for the visitors to pick the site from the search results!
So what do you think? Isn't it also important to increase your site's visitors? Enable it now to get advantage!!!
Thanks :D
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