Deck for Linkdex authorship seminar in Leeds 05/12/2012

1. Authorship Workshop
Paul Spreadbury, MEC

2. Who am I?
Paul Spreadbury, SEO Account Director, MEC
• Head of SEO, Just Search
@paulspread
• SEO Account Director, MEC

3. What is Authorship?
• Method to verify a connection between content
and a Google + account
• Way for Google to verify links are trustworthy
• More relevant data for rankings than social
• A way of adding a human element to link building
• A way of reducing duplicate content issues

4. Technical Implementation
• Create a Google Plus account
• Ensure you have a profile picture with a recognizable
headshot
• Add a by-line on your content pages
- e.g. by Paul Spreadbury

5. Technical Implementation - Email Verification
Authors content page on
Google + profile page
mecglobal.com
email:
“by Paul Spreadbury” linked to
paul.spreadbury@mecglobal.com
paul.spreadbury@mecglobal.com
• Check you have an email address on the same domain as the content
• Ensure the content has a by-line identifying you as the author e.g. ‘By Paul
Spreadbury’
• Visit https://plus.google.com/authorship and submit your email address to
Google. This will add your email to the contributor section of your Google +
profile
• Use the structured data tool located at
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets to test it all works

6. Technical Implementation - Content Verification
Contributor to
Google + Profile
Blog home page
Page
rel=“author”
Author’s content
page
Step 1 – Create a link to your Google + profile from your content page
-<a href="https://plus.google.com/108182861589098673464? rel=“author">Paul
Spreadbury</a>
Sept 2 – Add a reciprocal link back from your Google + profile page
- Edit the contributor to section
- Add a custom link
- Enter the website URL

7. How long does it take to appear in the SERPs
• High social following
Power User • Lots of people in circles
• Face may appear in SERPS very fast (1 week)
• Posts regularly
Normal User • Has a reasonable social presence
• Face may appear in a few weeks
• Rarely posts
Low Level • Very little social following
• Post may take months to appear
We can make assumptions, but Google will decide!

8. What does authorship do?
“Provides an ability to rank content based
on the content owner and their online reputation”
“Makes it harder for SEOs to manipulate the system”
“Significantly improves click through rate”

9. Authorship – Possible ranking factors
As authorship also links into Google + there can be many ranking factors
implemented
Possible authorship ranking factors
• Number of +1s the author content receives
• The number of Google+ circles the author has
• The authority of the sites the authors content has
been published to
• The author’s social metrics
• Engagement level of authors Google + Page
• Average Page Rank of authors content

10. Or are Google simply trying to get more Google + users

11. Authorship and Link Building

12. SEO Updates - Death of low quality links
There have been clear signs of Google devaluing links
Google Panda
- Review of web content (Feb Google Penguin
2012-onwards) - Over optimisation update
- Pushing towards high quality link (April, May, Oct 2012)
building
Google Disavow tool
Links warning issued
- Tool for removing low quality
- Google sends over 1,000,000
links, doing Google’s job for
links warnings (19th July 2012)
them (16th October 2012)

13. How could this impact?
BLOG/CONTENT PRODUCER
Low Quality sites have plagued the internet
Poor articles, spun content, low quality content will be hit again
POWER AUTHORS
Respected authors will have a strong profile
These authors will be highly sought after
Agencies will need to build power author0s
BRANDS
No longer can they just rely on copywriters
Writers will need a social presence
LINK BUILDERS
Quality content from authors will be difficult to find
Relationships will be even more important

14. Engage off line to build authority online
Engage off line to build authority online

15. Link Building - Tools for the Job
SEOs need to use tools to find quality content from established authors
Maintaining these relationships will become an even more important part of their strategy

16. Use Google Plus to find authors
• Google’s going to be looking at it, so should you
Writing Experiences
Social Popularity Past writing Personal Information
Twitter, Facebook, circles experiences, who they are Author bio, where they work
authors for

17. Finding and engaging with key authors
Finding key authors Engaging with authors
• Use tools to find authors • Engage through social media
• Evaluate author by reviewing • Build relationships slowly
- People in circles
• Advise them to get authorship
- Twitter Followers implemented if they haven’t already
- Contributor field
- Past content • Attend industry meet ups
• Look at other domains in your • Offer to speak at conferences
niche to find key authors
• Comment on industry blogs and
• Look for high quality blogs build visibility

18. Authorship for larger brands

19. Brands should invest in Content and People
• Employ people passionate about • Don’t tie an author to any old
your sector content
• Employ people with strong online • Invest in content that is
profiles interesting
• Post updates to Google + • Allow staff the time to become an
regularly authority
• Optimise the About Me section of • Specialise in your topic area
Google +

20. Becoming a Powerful brand
Some large brands will find it difficult to highlight their people.
Large brands can be opposed to giving people credit.
However, they should use their own people to build their online profiles.

21. Should it be implemented as an SEO strategy
• SEOs should start implementing author rank in their strategies now
• Building author rank now will gain an advantage when Google change
• Google will continue to punish low quality content and link building
• Verifying author provides a way of punishing anonymity
• Don’t just publish posts on sites you control!

22. Any
Questions?