Setting up Google + Authorship is critical for SEO. If you provide quality unique content to the internet, you should have this setup. It’ll help your content to rank better and will add your profile image to your search results like this.
There are a few things you need for this to work:
- Have a Google + profile
- Add a link to your Google + Profile back to your site where you publish your content
- Connect your sites content back to your Google + profile page
I’m not even going to explain how to set this up in WordPress – it’s been done already. So simply do this:
- Install the Google+ Author Information in Search Results (Free Version) plugin to your WordPress installation
- Once installed, go to the Settings page and follow the instructions there – they walk you through too nicely for me to repeat.
Thanks to wp-buddy for providing a GREAT plugin!
UPDATE: 2015-10-08
As some of you may know, in August of 2014 Google stated that they no longer use Authorship tags and thus they could and should be removed. Here is a nice write-up about the life of Google Authorship tags.
HOWEVER, Gary Illyes of Google did state that it might not be worth removing the tags. Not much more information was given, but worth considering leaving them if he is hinting at something larger.
Furthermore, Gary Illyes stated that if more webmasters used Authorship then they may re-implement it. Sounds kind of like a chicken before the egg scenario, but just sharing what was said.
