I’ve spent many hours reading and implementing Google Authorship on my websites.
Key Takeaways
1. Google wants to you to get credit for what you create.
Our writings are our livelihood, our thoughts are our capital and with the proliferation of online plagiarism this can be quite hard to manage. Authorship doesn’t put an end to it, but makes it easier for you to claim your own work online.
2. It helps establish you from others.
As I was going through these articles I thought what is the main thing that can distinguish you from others, and it is your identity, your physical identity. Since the implementation of Google+ Authorship you are able to claim your public identity and your online work or portfolio. I find that Google+ attracts people who like to share relevant content, especially when you join a community.
3. It can stop you from being a digital sharecropper.
I have many friends whose business efforts are solely dependent on Facebook or one social media platform. If Facebook goes away tomorrow, they would be out of business. It’s basically saying you give all your rights to one provider and if they change their policies or terms of use, your business is at a standstill. Last year I decided to move my blog from posterous and I am so glad I did especially when twitter acquired them and eventually shut them down.
What does this mean for church communicators? It means we have to be intentional about our online efforts and make our content is high-quality, relevant and meaningful. It’s more than just geting your “photo” in search results, even though it’s important.
I created a video tutorial to show you how to set up Google Authorship for WordPress.
[tentblogger-youtube m0MHFnbj8as]
Have you implemented Google Authorship on your site and on your guest blog posts?
Matt Brady says
Great tip, thanks for the reminder! I had almost forgotten to set that up for my blog, but thanks to you I remembered and got it working.
Chip Dizard says
That’s great Matt, and I know Google Authorship has helped me rank high on many sites. Even this blog! Keep at it.
James Cooper says
Thanks for this Chip – by far the best and easiest wayI’ve seen this explained! I’ve not author-ed up all my CM posts 🙂
Chip Dizard says
Great James. I know, all you need to do is just add the code to your bio and you will be on your way! Glad it helped.
Eric Dye says
Yeah. I finally did it. This is another reason I look forward to ChurchMag 2.0, as I think Standard 3 has this baked in. 😀