Rich Snippets are becoming more and more widely used by Google. Sites built with platforms like WordPress are have become much more search engine friendly and have made it better for users to find content. So, how can you get your site to be up to par with the latest developments?
There has been a huge stir in getting the rel=author tag set up for bloggers. Not many people have found a sure-fire way to get it working. We had the same issue on this site at first.
You can also visit the Official Google Authorship Page
Essentially what you need is to either be a WordPress Blog Owner or a Contributor to a blog with a profile. It’s much easier for blog owners to claim authorship over entire blogs.
1. Blog Owners
Simply place the Google+ image or text that you will link to your profile in the template file so that it appears on all of the pages/posts. Use code that looks like <a rel=author href=”GOOGLEPLUSURL”>visible text or image</a>. (My site looks like this <a rel=”author” href=”https://plus.google.com/115569891301239738873″>)
2. Blog Contributors
It’s easiest way is to use a plugin. It just so happens we have found one that works great. You can get it here. Once you have it configured you can verify that Google connects your Google+ and the URL of the post that you authored.
3. Add “Contribute To”
Now that you have your website pointing to your Google+ profile you have get your Google+ profile pointing back to the website. This is how you give permission to the website to link to your profile (and how Google knows it is legitimate). Sign into Google+ and click on “Profile”. Navigate to the “about” page and click “Edit Profile” at the top of the page. Scroll down to the “Contributor to” section and add in your website name and URL. Save it and click “Done Editing”.
4. Verify
Head over to Rich Snippet Testing Tool to see if your profile is verified and working. Your picture won’t start showing up on Google’s search results, but check back over the next few weeks to see if it does.
Once you have all of this set up it’s important to note that you have to have a significant amount of people who add you to their circles before Google will recognize you as an author. It also doesn’t hurt to publish a lot of high quality content. If you are doing both of these (You will probably need to be in around 500+ circles) items and still have trouble, Google has a contact form in which you can see if something is going wrong.
