Content Drives Social and Search: Creating Authorship of Original Content
When you think about what drives social media, it’s content and relationships. Content can be in the form of videos, comments, tweets, Google +1’s, Facebook Likes, social bookmark sharing sites, graphics, infographics, and much more. If you are providing something of value to the right audience, it will gain social media traction and give you the opportunity to build relationships.
Defining the value of the content varies from audience to audience and person to person when it comes to social media. For example, some people find value from getting a good laugh at a funny joke in the form of a graphic image or some find value from a video that walks you through how to cook a favorite recipe.
But one thing is for sure– the value of creating authorship through Google is apparent in search results.
Why Create Authorship
With social media coming around full circle and content spreading like wildfire, it’s important to capture the originality of content through authorship. Creating authorship by getting verified through Google will help users find your high quality content on the web and empower users to engage with content authors through Google+. From the author’s perspective, you also get to see analytics for your content in search.
How Authorship Appears in Google Web Search
When Doing a search for Search Engine Optimization Changes
You may have noticed when doing a search in Google, they have made the default search option to include personalized search results rom your Google Plus social network. As you can see below, this includes photographs and a count of how many personal results are appearing for my specific search.
The author’s photo and name shows up in search results as seen below. This provides you access to more content by that same author.
How Authorship Appears in Google News
In news results, the authors name and a link to click on More is available.
Some Examples of Google Authors
Google is piloting the display of author information in search results to help users discover great content.
- Check out these sample queries: [
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Check Your Analytics
After your authorship is verified, you will be able to measure how often your content is showing up on the Google search results page by visiting Webmaster Tools as seen below. This will show you how many impressions and clicks your content received on the Google search results page.
Check out what Matt Cutts would see for his content:
Photo Credit from: Google
If you want your authorship information to appear in search results for the content you create, then get verified. (Disclaimer: Google doesn’t guarantee to show author information in Google Web Search or Google News results.)
Here are 2 easy steps to add author information in Google search results:
1. Create a Google Profile with a high-quality and clearly recognizable head shot as your profile photo.
2. Claim authorship of your article or blog post by linking it with your profile.
