If you have been paying attention while you have been performing searches on Google recently, you will have noticed that some of the results have author pictures displayed below them. So, if you are curious how you can get your Google Authorship picture to display next to your search results for your site, this tutorial is for you.
Google Authorship is essentially Google’s way of leveraging Google Plus to give weight to authors with either popular or high quality content. For example, if you are following someone on Google plus and do a search for which they may have written an article, their article will likely appear higher in the search results for you than it naturally would on its own.
In addition, if you have built up your author profile over time, some say that it could have an impact on the amount of links you might need to rank your content.
A couple of months ago, I didn’t have my blog connected to my Google Plus author profile. But since have figured it out, and now I get to display my lovely mug shot next to my search results. (Perhaps you’ve noticed?). Check it out:
Step 1: Create a Google Plus Account
You need to have a Google Plus account in order to have your author profile to show up in search results.
Step 2: Link Your Content to Your Google+ Profile
You have 2 options to essentially tell Google that you are the author of your blog or other content. As explained by Google, you can link using a verified email address or by linking your content using the ?rel=author parameter. I chose the second option and linked my content using the ?rel=author parameter.
If you are using WordPress, its actually a fairly simple process to set this up. I believe there are WordPress plugins that can assist in this, but its very easy to do and I did not use a plugin.
First, you need to add or edit your “author page” in WordPress.
Step 3: Link to Your Content from Google+ Contributor Section.
The final step is that you need to list your blog or other places you are the author on your Google+ profile About page. Go to your about page and then simply type in your blog or other site URL in the “Contributor to” section. That’s it! Your site is now linked to your Google+ profile page.
Overall, the process is fairly simple and only needs to take a few minutes. However, by having your author picture appear with your search results can increase your click through rate and ensure that your loyal readers see more of your content when they search.
Have thoughts or comments? I would love to hear them below!
If your business could benefit in any way from getting more search engine traffic, I have some good news.
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i have been looking for this tutorial all around the web..finally i found it here. thanks dude.
Thanks, glad you found it useful!
Thank you so much. I was searching for this for a log time
I went through a much longer and more convoluted process to get mine going. It looks like the process is more streamlined now. Definitely for the better!
Awesome! Always saw a few author pictures on most of my Google searches and never thought much of them – always assumed they were only for newspaper writers only or something lol
Going to go set this up now – thanks Spencer!
Thomas
How long does this takes to appear in search results? Should we be active in google plus account. Is there anyway to auto share posts we make to our blog to google plus.? Thanks for the tutorial Spencer.. YOU ROCK
There is no set timeframe or even guarantee that it will show up in the results (although I don’t know of anyone where this has not worked). You can share your posts from Google plus just like you can with Twitter or Facebook.
Very useful tip for search engine result. I edited my profiles. Thank you Spencer.
thanks for the tutorial.
with Google already hinting at author profile as an attribute of the search algo, this initiative may have more than just one benefit. will definitely implement this as well.
thanks again
Glad you found it useful Sunil!
Hey Spencer!
Awesome blog you have here. My concern is how do you effectively do that if you have several identities on the net across several niches? I’d love to set that up on my site but at the same time if one of my sites tanks because Google woke up on the left foot, could it affect all my sites now if I’m linked to all of them through Google +? Hmmm…Plus, arent you giving away all your niches for your competitors? Maybe I’m missing something here.
I don’t use this on all my niche sites, just my blog here and for LongTailPro.com. You can certainly use it for your niche sites, but that’s your choice.
Thanks for that Spencer, I will have to give it a try.
Adam
It’s surprising that more people aren’t using this one their sites already. I’m working on getting breadcrumbs to show on search with RDFa or microdata with Schema.
Great instructional post Spencer.
hi spencer,
this really came at the right time! i was trying to figure authorsure the other day and didn’t know what they wanted me to do. thanks for the tutorial, quick and easy!
Thanks for the information, Spencer.
One thing I wanted to know:
How to show my photo in the author picture of my comments on http://www.nichepursuits.com like the people above?
Sorry for the noob question.
Use Gravatar.com to display your photos on WordPress.
I am selling nyc clothes
Hi, I’m considering using this on my niche sites but it creates a personal touch and I’m not too open about myself on my niche sites. It’s more like an anonymous relationship with my readers, so I’m wondering if it’ll be appropriate.
Im doing it right away. Good info
This is a MUCH simpler method than I’ve used before. I’m going to give it a go and see how it work. Thanks Spencer!
No problem!
Thanks for the tips on how to display Google plus author profile picture on Google search results. It helped me!
Hi, its very nice blog. I also still learn for building a like-yours blog.
First thanks Spencer you certainly simplified this! My question if you do have several niche sites and you chose to add you photo to search. Would you or should you create a Google Plus for each one like having different Facebook pages for each one. To me this would be the only way to really do this and then does Google allow this? I have different niche sites and different authors of those sites. Would this be good or just not add a picture?
Thanks
Dennis
Possibly. I haven’t gone so far to add Google profiles/facebook pages for my niche sites. But if you were to grow a larger site, this might be worth considering. Or simply use your “peronal” profiles for all your sites (if you want people to publicly know about them).
thank you very much i have followed your tutorial
i think i should wait for next Google crawl to see the result
You are welcome Rauf! It can take a few days or more…
Thanks for the info. I have been wondering how to do this. Just set mine up. You seem to always find those little things we are all looking to post about.
Thanks
That’s perfect, I fetched it
GOOD Post.thanks for share
I’m looking forward to it working this time! I tried another method and never worked. For anyone who missed it, the string of numbers in the profile link is your Google+ URL. Thanks for posting!
Thanks Spencer… I have been wondering how others do this, and have been searching through google, but I just can’t understand how they do this. Glad I found your site, it’s easy to understand
. I have tried to my new site, and I think I have to wait couple days to see how it will work.
Thanks for posting.
Hey Spencer – Thanks very much for the nice clear instructions – now just wait for google to crawl and find me!
lol Im a bit late on this but cheers for the post you have kept it nice and simple its very easy to do but i believe it can take a while for the picture to appear in the serps.
I plan to do that to my blogger.Does it work for blogger?
Please let me know
Hi spencer,
I followed the 2 steps but still can’t display my google+ profile pic on google search for my website.
What i did:
1. Go to wordpress profile edit Biographical Information.
2. Go to google+ add my url to “Contributor to”
Did i miss out anythings? Is there a wait time for google search to take effect or it take effect immediately? please advices. Thanks.
There is a wait time. It could be up to a week before you see anything displayed in the search results.
Hi Spencer–any idea why my pic will show on all my pages except for one (referenced in my website)? It used to show…and now it doesn’t. It’s less of a technical question since I write articles through a 3rd party site and all the setup is done in a simple form, but more of a “how the heck can this happen” question. Every single other piece of content has my face attached.
I’m not sure on that one.
After reading a bunch of other tutorials on how to do this, yours finally was something I could understand and follow. Thanks so much for the help. I hope it works!
Thanks Bev…I’m sure it will work!
Nice tip, I didn’t think it would be possible like this! I just tried something else few days ago and it works well so that’s cool
It’s good to know this tip too, maybe I will try this for one of my future blog!
I definitely plan to try this out.As far as I know Google may increase my ranking for that.You teach me how to do that, thanks…
how many days required to approve this image on search result ?
Thanks so much for this. Is there any way to verify that everything worked? I’m a little worried about the link and the code. I copied the link from the about section in my profile page.
I guess when you do a search on Google and your picture comes up, you did it right?
yes, after a couple of days your image will show up in google results. That’s the best way to verify.
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her ear. She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is completely off topic but I had to tell someone!
How long does it take for the Google Authorship Profile Picture to show up in results?
For a site that isn’t indexed in google?
Well, the site needs to be indexed first. Then it should only be 3 or 4 days; maybe a week before pictures show up.
I believe that is one of the so much important
information for me. And i am satisfied studying your article.
However want to observation on some common issues, The website taste is wonderful, the
articles is in reality great : D. Just right process, cheers
Do you have any idea why search results would show up my image for some pages and not others? My rel=author link is in the footer of every page. Until about 4 days ago, my image was showing up for the keywords ‘web design huddersfield’ now I have moved from position 1, to 3, and my image is not showing up any more. However, if you google certain other words to find me, I come up with my image.
I’m not sure on that one.