The importance of authorship is undeniable and a huge part of SEO content verification.

This is something that Google noticed and capitalised on by allowing content providers to verify their links through Google+ which in turn verifies their identity and allows users who search for specific queries the ability to put a face to the content they are viewing.

The advantages of this are numerous:

• It leads to a gained reputation and more trust when people come across your links.

• When you come across a link without any human identity attached it is extremely difficult to place your trust in that piece of information. When a face is behind the content then not only is the content more likely to be of higher quality and originality but also avoid spam.

• Another advantage is that a ranking system is applied to an author and integrated into their overall content quality.  Your website is effectively verified and endorsed by Google which provides marketing benefits resulting in an increase in your page view turnover.

• The more you write and the higher your rating goes then the more your links will be promoted in Google search.

The main aspect of Google+ authorship is that we are using identity to choose the content we view; who wrote that article rather than where we get it from.  Here is an example of a search which provides a verified human source. After typing “seo specialist in ireland” in google.ie one of the results will be:

Certain surveys on the internet confirm that when Google displays an image beside your link in the search results, searchers are more likely to click on your website, even though it’s not no. 1. So how can you set this up for yourself and your website?

1. https://plus.google.com/authorship – now you can even add your company email address! Here are the instructions provided by the link above:

You can link content that you publish on a specific domain (such as www.wired.com) to yourGoogle+ profile.

1. Sign up for Google+ and create a Google+ profile.
2. Make sure that you have a profile photo with a recognisable headshot.
3. Make sure that a byline containing your name appears on each page of your content (for example, “By Steven Levy”).
4. Make sure that your byline name matches the name on your Google+ profile.
5. Verify that you have an email address (such as stevenlevy@wired.com) on the same domain as your content. (Don’t have an email address on the same domain? Use this method to link your content to your Google+ profile)
6. Return to this page and enter your email address.

2. http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1408986 – here you can read all about it, I recommend going with the Option 2 which is as follows:

Option 2: Set up authorship by linking your content to your Google+ profile

1. Create a link to your Google+ profile from your webpage, like this:

 <a href=”[profile_url]?rel=author”>Google</a>

Replace [profile_url] with the your Google+ profile URL, like this:

 <a href=”https://plus.google.com/109412257237874861202?rel=author”>Google</a>

Your link must contain the ?rel=author parameter. If it’s missing, Google won’t be able to associate your content with your Google+ profile.

2. Add a reciprocal link back from your profile to the site(s) you just updated.

• Edit the Contributor To section.
• In the dialog that appears, click Add custom link, and then enter the website URL.
• If you want, click the drop-down list to specify who can see the link.
• To see what author data Google can extract from your page, use the structured data testing tool.

[Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net]