At the start of 2013 we had a lot of experts giving their predictions for what would Google had in store for the SEO industry for the new year and Google’s Author Rank got a fair few mentions. Some said it would be important this year than the next while others noted that it would be more prevalent next year but nobody thought it was a failed idea. With this in mind, I want to take a look at why you should start using Google Authorship and how to improve your Author Rank.
Improves social status
Although links pointing to a site are still a big factor in determining its search engine ranking positions, Google is increasingly looking at social signals to determine the quality of content on a site. This isn’t surprising since good content that is useful to readers naturally creates a discussion and gets shared on social sites. Using Google Authorship will help to improve your social media profile which in turn will improve your SEO and search engine ranking efforts.
Improves the Internet
The Internet is plagued with low quality content written by people who clearly have no idea what they’re talking about. This makes it difficult for the real experts to get their word across over the Internet. Google has been taking steps to minimise this with the introduction of its Panda and Penguin update and Author Rank seems to be another step towards improving the quality of the Internet even further. Users who use the Author rank will not want to be associated with writing quality content and therefore when they use the Author Rank they will be more likely to put in more effort into their article and write on topics that they feel comfortable writing about.
Pushes Google services
Google have been trying to push into social media for a few years now with the introduction of Google + with very little success. Although Google+ has an acceptable number of signups, most of these people are online marketing experts who signed up to it when it was first introduced expecting it to be big in the future since it was from Google and the social engagement is nowhere near as high as some of the other social media websites. Google’s Author Rank will end up increasing Google+ engagement and as a result, it will end up pushing Google’s services which is why Google is likely to push for people to jump on Author Rank. A general theme in the SEO industry today is that it is better to work with Google rather than to try to trick Google and using Author Rank in conjunction with other Google services is just another way to work with Google and to give Google everything it needs to be able to rank your website well.
How to improve Author Rank
Author Rank looks at a number of factors to rank writers and if you can improve on all of these factors then you should be able to improve your Author Rank:
Average Page Rank of articles +1 shares per post Comments per post Authority of publishing sites Posting frequency Number of people in Google+ circles Google + engagement level
Looking at the list above it seems that most of the points focus on using Google services and the rest look at social media. This should tell you two things: start asking for Google plus 1 likes whilst also using Google+ and take measures to increase your social profiles by creating high quality content that naturally creates comments and social media shares. If you can follow these two steps then your Author Ran should grow naturally. About the Author: Rashed is interested in all things Google from increasing search engine ranking positions to Google+ to Android phones. Rashed is currently guest posting on behalf of eSeller Media who give free advice to businesses.
