Author Rank has the potential to be a real SEO game-changer, especially when it comes to blogging and content marketing. And it appears to be a good change. It rewards real people over spam sites, and adds a somewhat personal touch to the otherwise impersonal process of ranking search results.
Author Rank attempts to judge your relevance and importance as a content author, and then use that ranking to help determine where your content should appear in search results. It is, in some ways, a popularity contest; but since it is judged by Google’s computers, it can only be based on how popular you appear online.
That means you can improve your Author Rank by producing high-quality, popular content; getting more people to connect with you on social media; and getting more human “votes,” such as social media shares and comments, on both your content pages and your Google+ profile.Steps to Improving Author Rank
Building Author Rank is not necessarily complicated, but it can take some work—both online and offline.
- Claim your content. Google will not know that you are the author of any given page unless you tell it so. The way that Google manages this, and differentiates between all of the “John Smiths” of the world, is to link content to the author’s specific Google+ profile. Google lists two ways you can claim authorship: one method which applies only if the domain of your email address matches the site where your content appears, and a a second, universally applicable method which involves author hyperlinks back to your Google+ address.
- Increase your Google+ presence. You want people to add you to their circles. You can get more followers by being active on Google+. Add people to your circles, interact with them and comment on or "+1" their posts. Since you are linking to your profile with each post, you can invite readers to connect with you there. Networking offline can also help, since people generally connect online with people they already know.
- Write high-quality content. You should already be doing this, but Author Rank makes it even more important. You are building a reputation as an author. If you consistently create great content, your Author Rank will reflect that and automatically give new content pieces an SEO boost.
- Encourage sharing. In particular, make sure you have a "+1" button to make your content easy to share on Google+. Note that having people share your content on Google+ can impact search rankings very specifically: if a Google user performs a search and one of the results has received a "+1" from one of their friends, it will rank higher and show that personal recommendation in the search results.
- Be focused. Author Rank is topic-specific; an expert in one field will not necessarily be a good source of information in a completely unrelated field. Focus on your strengths, and build a high ranking within your area of expertise.
- Write a guest blog. But choose wisely. Appearing on a well-respected website should boost your ranking; writing for a low-quality site would hurt your reputation.
Even if Author Rank had no impact on search engine results, the steps listed above would still yield results in terms of increased reach, better online interaction and new business contacts. Since it is expected to also have a big impact on search rankings, it makes sense to start working to build your Author Rank today.
*Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
