authority seo lab

Authority, Traffic, Conversions - Smarter SEO

  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Video Marketing
  • Social Media
  • Reviews
  • Tech Genius

Click-Jacking SERPS Part 2: Using Authorship to get more CLICKS

November 17, 2012 by Lisa Allen

Hi everyone, this is Lisa Allen, and in today’s training I have part two for  you of increasing SERP Click through,  which will be all about authorship.

Now as you’ve probably noticed, some of the search engine results have pictures  of the authors included next to them, and this really increases the  visibility of the results page listing.

But it also does something more. It creates instant credibility and trust. It says, this person is an expert and  their content is worth reading.

Using Authorship for Personal Branding

You can see this effect all over the place with many famous people who have  successfully branded themselves so that  their NAME and FACE carries it’s own  power and meaning. People know what  they stand for.

What do you think of for example when someone says Tony Robbins or Brian  Tracy?

These guys don’t hide behind a mask. they aren’t afraid to put their name on  their content. And that makes their  content a magnet for clicks.

So by emulating some of the ways they do things, you too can become a bit  famous in your niche. And that will  generate clicks for you.

So now that you understand the dual nature of what we are working with on  authorship, let’s get into the  technical details of how to get your  trustworthy face into the SERPS.

3 Steps to Better SERP Visibility as an Author

What we have here is a diagram of how it works on the tech level.

Authorship Snippet Diagram

You can see we essentially have three things we need to accomplish.

Step #1 – First, you can see we have your domain. And on that domain, there is a blog  post or page that you hope to get your  photo shown next to in the SERPs.

Also on that same domain is an author profile page of some sort.

It can be an About Me Page, An author post archive, or some other type of  page that you designate as your profile  page, but it MUST reside on the same  domain as the blog posts.

Each blog post should have a link on the page to that profile page which  uses the rel=Author markup in the  anchor tag.

Step #2 – Second, the Profile page must have it’s own link to another profile, for  instance, your google+ profile is very  useful for this.

Now because this link is offsite, instead of using rel=Author, you’ll use  Rel = me in the link.

Step #3 – And in the last step, you verify that the profile you linked to is really  yours.

How do you do this? By creating a reciprocal link back to your domain also with the rel=me tag.

This makes it very hard for someone else to claim thair their material or  site is yours impersonate you, or  affect your reputation by what they  publish under your name.

SERP Authorship Walk-through

So now let’s just walk through it on this blog so you can see a working  example.

First, you’ll notice I placed an About Me widget on my sidebar, so it will  appear on every post on my site. This  is just a simple text widget, where I  entered basic HTML to display my photo,  a link, and some text.

And if you examine the link, you can see that in the html, it uses the  rel=author link to go to this simple  About Me page.

Now, on the About Me page, we needed a link out to an external profile. And  for this example, I’ve used my Google+  account.

Where is the link? Actually I cheated a little and put it right in the social  icons that appear all over the site. So let’s look at the html for the  google+ button.

And in the HTML, you can see the Google+ profile URL, and the rel=me  attribute.

Now Google+ is probably the trickiest thing out of all three steps. You need to go to your Google+ profile,  login, and then “Edit Profile”

Scroll down to “Other Profiles” and add your domain here.

Just click on Add a Custom Link, and fill in the display text and the domain  URL.

Then click Save. And then click on Done Editing at the top of your Profile.

If you go back to the About tab of your profile, and look at the link,  you’ll see it now has the rel=me  attribute back to your domain.  That’s It. You’ve verified the  relationship.

Now I should mention that you can also add yourself as a contributor to your  blog or site, but that won’t get the  required rel=me tag in the link to  complete the circle.

Testing your Authorship Rich Snippets

Once you have completed these steps, head over to the Google Rich Snippets  testing tool

If everything is working right, I should see my picture next to the SERP  listing preview for my posts. So let’s check it by plugging in  yesterday’s post URL and clicking on  Preview.

Results of Rich Snippet Testing

So now you can see I not only have my picture showing up, but my name is  also there in the listing, linking to my Google+ profile,  and I even have a link to more of my posts.

So that’s it for this post on using Authorship to get more clicks in the search engine results pages.

P.S.

Don’t forget to download my SERP Power Authorship Checklist and leave your comments below. I love hearing from you!

Lisa

Filed Under: Search Engine Optimization

Comments

  1. Darlene says

    November 17, 2012 at 4:23 pm

    Really enjoying your style with email education and links to valuable information. I don’t mind purchasing valuable information but, gosh, it is nice to get it once in a while for free. Great way to keep your customers and list. I’m learning a lot from you. Thanks for the info on SERPs.

  2. DrGeorge says

    November 17, 2012 at 7:12 pm

    Wow, that truly was an awesome and informative article. Thanks, Lisa, for sharing such great information.

    • Lisa Allen says

      November 18, 2012 at 7:06 am

      Darlene & DrGeorge, thank you for your wonderful comments. I really enjoyed putting this training together. Every time I do one of these in depth videos, I always learn at LEAST as much as I knew before I started so it makes us all better marketers 🙂

  3. Scott Rogers says

    November 17, 2012 at 7:50 pm

    Short and sweet, and more important: doable, thank you for the pdf’s also, since I learn from different forms depending on the day and mood!
    Is there a method (or WP plugin) that will always place the re=author on each post? That would save having to remember each time.
    Also, off topic, but… I am scheduling posts for the future and they relate to one of my customers, I would love to me notified (IFTTT) when the post is LIVE and then be able to email my customer with the post link for them to comment – is there a secret area in the post that is visible ONLY to me that I could place THEIR email so I don’t have to relook it up again? Any thoughts? The email would be different for each blog post.
    Thanks,
    I now have a desktop folder for LISA’s teachings and stuff!
    Scott

    • Lisa Allen says

      November 18, 2012 at 7:03 am

      Hey Scott, thank you for your feedback. I like to include the PDF’s because it’s usually faster to refresh your memory on something you’ve already learned with a written document, instead of watching the whole video again.

      And actually, about plugins, yes, there is a plugin being released today that will handle not only authors, but ratings and reviews (think of those stars you see in the serps) recipes, businesses, events and a whole slew of other microformats that marketers and businesses will find useful for getting a boost in visibility over the competition in the search rankings. The plugin is called WP Magic Snippets, and launches at 11am EST. You can find it here…

      About having a place to store an email address where only you can see it, you might check out one of the custom fields plugins, but if it was only visible to you, that would probably mean you could not access that in IFTTT. You’d have to go into the admin again and edit the post to see it.

  4. Don D Dolenec says

    November 17, 2012 at 8:12 pm

    Lisa
    This is what people should stop right now and do.
    It is powerful.
    I have it on all my sites. rel=author
    it is fast to do but well worth it.
    2 things. I have read where you will move up 5-8 places by having rel author. And google loves it and how you build authority.
    2nd thing is important. All statistics show that a image will be clicked on over one that doesnt have. so if you are in 2nd position with your picture . you will get more clicks than the #1 position.
    Plus people assume you are an expert or have high authority if your picture is there and google will give you authority

    Don

  5. Don D Dolenec says

    November 17, 2012 at 8:20 pm

    Actually the better and faster way is link rel=author
    Youst has a good article
    you just use your google plus code and rel=author code
    and put it in the head tag
    so no more side bar or anything else
    and when you put it in the head tag it takes care of the whole site and every article
    here is the code
    https://plus.google.com/114153830711321085924/posts

    • Lisa Allen says

      November 18, 2012 at 6:52 am

      Thanks for the additional method information Donald!

  6. Terri Jones says

    November 17, 2012 at 9:41 pm

    Wow! This is a really great nugget for free! Can’t wait to implement. Glad I clicked on your email.

    • Lisa Allen says

      November 18, 2012 at 6:51 am

      Thanks for swinging by and commenting Terri 🙂 i hope you’ll let us know what your results are after you implement this.

  7. Dragutin Movrin says

    November 18, 2012 at 3:54 am

    Thx, Lisa. I have implemented authorship on my blog but I used different technique. I think your way is better, I’ll give it a try.

    • Lisa Allen says

      November 18, 2012 at 6:49 am

      Hey Dragutin, there are actually three different specs for getting your authorship linked up, so if you used a different method then you may have used one of the other two.

      This method comes from the RDFa spec, but there is also Microdata and Microformats. If you are already seeing your picture showing up in the SERPs, then you probably don’t need to change how you implemented it. If you don’t start seeing results a while after your site has been re-indexed though, then you can try one of the others. Some tests have suggested that using the microdata method may get more reliable results.

  8. Cindi Peery says

    November 18, 2012 at 8:04 am

    Hi Lisa!

    Great info (I expect no less from you)! I somehow managed to miss part one. Where might I find a link to that?

    Thank you so much!

  9. Cindi Peery says

    November 18, 2012 at 8:11 am

    Never mind Lisa, I figured it out on where to locate the training. I’ve bookmarked your site. You have a lot of excellent, clear and concise training here! Keep up the good work!

  10. Tommy Davidson says

    November 19, 2012 at 5:10 am

    I agree with Scott!
    When Lisa talks, I listen.
    I have an EVERNOTE notebook filled with everything Lisa says!
    Ok–please forgive semi-noob question, but doesn’t the Google Authorship WP plugin doe some of these steps?
    Shoud I just use these steps and NOT use that plugin?
    Thanks.
    Tommy “Lisa Allen Fan Club Member ” Davidson

  11. Lisa Allen says

    November 19, 2012 at 9:29 am

    Hey Tommy, great to see you here today!

    About your question, yes, there are plugins that you can find to do some or all of these steps. Whether you use them or not depends on what you are after. If you just want to handle authorship and nothing else, and want to minimize plugins, then it’s pretty simple to implement by hand. My goal here was really to simplify the overview of how it works so it was more understandable

    If you prefer a plugin, then you can find specialty plugins that will handle one or more of the available rich snippet types. So really it’s up to what your goals are and how you prefer to work.

    Thanks again for your question.

    Lisa

  12. Rich says

    November 19, 2012 at 6:15 pm

    Hi Lisa,

    I am still a newbie and will have to go over your instructions again, but they were very precise and will be a great addition to my blog.

    Thank you so much for sharing your expertise.

    Don

  13. Oran says

    November 20, 2012 at 12:48 am

    Hi Lisa,

    Excellent article.

    Can you achieve the same effect through another social website, or is this a Google+ specific play?

    Thanks,
    Oran

Get Updates

Sign up to receive updates on new posts, product reviews, and new product release announcements.

Your Privacy is SAFE

Latest Reviews

  • How to Use WP Video Sites Mass Posting Feature to Stuff Your Blog With Targeted Content in Minutes
  • WP Tweet Machine Review + Bonus
  • Shopitect Affiliate Store Builder Review + Bonus
  • EasyVSL 2.0 Review + Bonus
  • Swift Member Membership Site Plugin Review
  • About
  • Latest Posts
Lisa Allen

Lisa Allen

CEO & Lead Developer at MindLink Labs
Lisa Allen is the lead developer of a line of marketing software tools, marketing coach, wife, and mom to six lovely kitties.

She loves exploring technology, marketing psychology, discovering how things work, and teaching.
Lisa Allen

Latest posts by Lisa Allen (see all)

  • Ten Best YouTube Alternatives for 2019 - November 28, 2018
  • How to Use WP Video Sites Mass Posting Feature to Stuff Your Blog With Targeted Content in Minutes - May 14, 2017
  • 4 Simple Steps To More Traffic With InStream Ads - April 15, 2016

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • FTC
  • Terms of Use

Copyright © 2023 · Authority SEO Lab on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in