3 Steps to Google Authorship on WordPress

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Max in Marketing with 4 Comments

I bet you’ve done a Google search and noticed that some websites have little images of the author next to them with their name, now this is known as Google Authorship and it’s relatively new from Google but it’s also something you should consider using on your WordPress blogs. Why? well Google now take Authorship into account when ranking and so if you become well known and post good content then you’ll get ‘Author Rank’ and should rank better in Google. It’s quite a big shakeup to the ranking industry and let’s Google identify authors of posts not only on their own blogs but if they guest post on others too.

Now I’ve just set it up on this blog and can tell you it takes a minute if you already have a Google Plus account and if you don’t it’ll take a few minutes more to set one up before you can link it to you blog. So below is the 3 easy steps to getting your WordPress blog and Google Authorship set up.

3 Easy Steps to Setting up Google Authorship

The basics – Google + & WordPress 3.5

Firstly you need to make sure that you’re using the latest version of WordPress which is currently version 3.5. If you are not then we recommend that you upgrade your site to this which is a relatively easy automated task nowadays (it’s always a good idea to back your blog up before doing any major updates).

You then need to make sure you have a Google Plus account, if you don’t you can set one up in a few minutes, adding a profile picture (the one that’ll show next to your blog posts in Google searches) and a bit of information about you.

Your email

It’s essential to have the email associated with WordPress one that includes your email. e.g Bob@yourblogdomain.co.uk.

You then need to go and submit the email you have for the blog to here: https://plus.google.com/authorship

Step 1 – Adding your Google Plus url to WordPress

Now go into your WordPress admin > Users > Your Profile and you’ll find a Google+ box, in this you’ll need to enter your Google+ url which should look something like: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104650458744234566890/posts

Step 2 – Adding your blog to your contributor list in Google Plus

You now need to go into your Google Plus profile and add your blog to your Contributor list, you can find this by going to your Google+ account > Edit Profile > Contributor To. Then click Add custom link and simply add the URL of your blog.

And you’re finished!

You may want to check that it appears right in a Google search and Google make it easy for you to check with there Testing Tool , simply enter your blog url and it’ll give you a preview of how it should look. Below is an example of a blog post from this site.

It really is that quick and if you already have a Google+ profile and the latest WordPress it shouldn’t take you any longer than a couple of minutes. The benefits are that you can get influencial and rank better as well as having a higher click through rate.

Tagged google authorship, wordpress

4 Comments

Aaron CliffordJanuary 17, 2013 at 3:58 pmReply

Strangely I’ve using WordPress 3.5 but don’t have that field?
MaxJanuary 17, 2013 at 4:12 pmReplyAuthor

Hmm that’s strange, it should be there, make sure if you have multiple users that it’s the administrator profile you go to. If that doesn’t work i’m unsure
Joe HartJanuary 22, 2013 at 3:33 amReply

Blogger was the first to introduce this feature..Glad that WordPress has finally picked it up..Social signals will play a crucial role in rankings this year..
MohanrajMarch 16, 2013 at 9:16 amReply

Thanks for this helpful tutorial. I have implemented Authorship according to your tutorial. Richsnippet Tool is showing my verified Google Authorship. How much time will it take to appear in Google Search ?