How To Show Your Picture In Google Search Results By Setting Up Google Authorship

May 31, 2012 | Posted by Dr.Spencer Jones

 

Today after doing some research, finally I implemented the steps outlined by Google to display my author information, especially my picture in Google search results.

It’s only after implementing the steps that I searched my website in Google, but to my surprise my picture was already showing in Google, the only problem is that the picture was displayed nearby my You Tube videos. I didn’t knew how to make my picture show up, but now after learning and implementing the Google authorship information shared by Google for this blog, now I know what happened that resulted in my picture appearing beside my you tube videos.

It happened that when I played with my google plus profile when I first created an account last year, I also added my youtube channel profile link in the other profiles section in Google +. Then when Google made changes to the youtube channel design, I also happened to add some social links to the youtube channel about section. And luckily I also added my Google + url there, which resulted in sort of a verification of my content authorship, as mentioned in Google’s author page information in the below image.

Now that you got an idea about how my Google plus profile images started showing in Google for my youtube videos. Let me show you what all things I did to make google authorship work for this blog. There are two options mentioned in the Google’s authorship information page. I went ahead with the second option, the first option required that you create a brand new email address with your domain as the extension. The second option seemed more easy for me as I already had the Google plus link in my website and my website link in my Google plus profile. Here again, the steps are the same

1. I must have my google plus link in my website and

2. My website link in my Google plus profile.

That’s kind of a reciprocal link, the main seo strategy used by webmasters when internet was fairly new. The only difference is that Google demands that I put a special parameter next to my Google plus link in my website.

Step 1: Here’s the information direct from Google’s authorship information page here.

Can you see the special parameter – “?rel-author” that needs to be added at the tail of our google plus url ? Yes that’s what I did for my google plus link that appears at the top right hand of this blog.

I edited the theme header file and added the parameter to my two google plus hyperlinks (text and image).

Step 2: Secondly google suggests that I link back to my website from my Google plus profile. And Google suggests that I add my website link to my “Contributor To” section of my Google plus profile. Here’s the screen shot on how to do it direct from Google.

Now here is how my contributor to section looks with the link back to my website.

Here’s how you add the link to the contributor to section.

1) Log in to your Google plus profile.

2) Click the About Tab to open it.

3) Then click “Edit Profile” button that appears at the top, under the search field and beside your Google plus photo area.

4) Now click the contributor to area to edit it.

5) Click “Add custom link” to add your website name and website url. Here is how it looks in mine.

6) Lastly click the save button, to save the changes.

Step 3: Finally Google suggests that I check my website using their rich snippets testing tool. Here’s the snap of the step outlined by Google.

Now here is how you test your site using Google rich snippets testing tool, simply enter your url as you see in the image below and click the preview button.

And yes my picture did show up and here is the final hurray moment…

Eventhough it’s just a preview, it gives me an idea about how cool the listings will be once the pictures start showing up. About how long it takes for my picture to show in results pages, I have no idea, better be patient and wait till it really happens.Once it’s up, it’s really a good way to build your reputation.

If this post helped you, please share it with your friends by clicking the buttons, also let me know by posting your comments in the comment box below. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I will be looking forward to your comments. Thank in advance for commenting.

Tags : display picture in google search results, google authorship, google authorship markup, google rich snippet preview, google rich snippets testing tool, profile picture, rel author, setting up google authorship