My name is Dan McDonnell and I am the Community Manager for the American Evaluation Association.
In my last post, we touched on how evaluators can use Google + Authorship to add photos to their blog posts that will appear in Google search results. Besides making search results prettier, these photos can help you with grow your personal brand, as well as increase the likelihood that someone clicks through to read your post from Google. In this post, I will outline a few more tips and tricks for making Authorship work for you.
Hot Tip: Choose Your Photo Carefully
The photo that displays in search results comes directly from your Google + Profile Picture. As such, you’ll want to ensure that you choose a photo that shows your entire face – no avant-guard snapshots! In addition, Google will not display mascots or logos, so a real, human photo of yourself is the best way to go.
Hot Tip: Easy Authorship with Email Verification
The method I described in my last post demonstrated how to set up authorship on individual posts with a rel=author tag. If you have an email that is on the same web domain as your blog (for instance, if I had dmcdonnell@aea365.org) , it’s as simple as adding that email address to your contact information in your Google + Profile. Once you’ve done that, any post you make will simply need to link back to your Google + profile, no rel=author tag needed.
Hot Tip: Even Easier Authorship with WordPress
If your blog is hosted on WordPress, the process is even more automatic. Sign into WordPress.com with your Google + login information, and any WordPress post you make will automatically ‘author-ized.’ Hopefully, Google makes this a more integrated and automated procedure for other blogging platforms down the line.
Hot Tip: Guide to Troubleshooting Authorship
Having trouble getting Google + Authorship to work? Searchengineland.com has created a really nifty guide to troubleshooting issues – see below.
Do you use Google + frequently? If not, why not?
Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.
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