Google plus is without a doubt one of the fastest growing social media platforms of the present, which also benefits from the protection of the most popular search engine. It is the type of social network which was designed with business in mind, and many online entrepreneurs, writers, bloggers and professionals have understood that it is a determining factor when it comes to growing their online presence. As a matter of fact, many SEO specialists have predicted that the Google Authorship markup will become essential for ranking written content on SERPs. As important as A-list content is for every site, writers have to go the extra mile in order to succeed online, and the first step is to this is understanding how the authorship markup works.
Table of Contents
1. How does the Authorship Markup Work?
We already know that Google is on a mission to sort out and rank pages on the World Wide Web without having to use search engine optimization tactics, but how exactly can they do this? Since day one, this platform has been trying to tweak their algorithms in order to show better results, and to offer the best user experience, or have they? More and more people are starting to think that the motivations behind Google are actually financial ones, and this can be easily explained if you take a closer look at the authorship markup.
Sure, Google Authorship could become truly useful for writers who want to rank their content higher, especially prolific writers. It is a proven fact that internet users are more likely to click on a search result that also displays a mug shot of the author, but how will this affect SEO campaigns and link-building companies? Although Matt Cutts has stated that Google is interested in unique and interesting content, they are still using links to determine whether or not a site is worthwhile.
He may have said that the only thing that Google wants is for bloggers to create great content, but they are still counting links instead of brilliant contributions. Furthermore, social media has become a crucial part of search engine optimization, and this means that in the near future social signals will become determining factors in the ranking of websites on SERPS.
2. How Google+ and Authorship Markup will affect guest-bloggers
Guest posting is one of the most popular and effective ways of creating vital back-links for your site. As I mentioned earlier, back-links are a crucial part of SEO which will determine the domain authority, page rank and overall visibility of your page. But is it safe for guest-bloggers to claim authorship? It has been said time and time again that people who claim authorship for their content will be considered more trustworthy than those who don’t, but it might not be such a good idea to do this if you are part of a link building campaign.
3. What Will Happen if You Claim the Authorship Markup?
Although Google has said that people who refuse to dance the Authorship dance will not be able to rank as well as others, there is no proof that articles, which haven’t been claimed are not ranking well on SERPs, at least not yet. The whole idea of the authorship mark-up is to add the article that you have written, or site that you have written for in your contributors section, but if you add too many sites, or if you add sites that are not on the same niche, you will end up doing more harm than good.
This is because Google Plus, and Google do not like writers who post a lot of content on various topics. It immediately figures out that you are working for a company and that you are paid to write content. Automatically, it will punish you, the company that you are working for, and the sites that you have posted on. Penguin 2.0 does not like paid links and articles, and it will do whatever it can to eliminate them from search results.
4. What Can Writers do in Order to Protect their Work?
You might think that this is a move that was not done for self-serving purposes, but the truth is that Google only cares about manipulating the results in order to benefit as much as they can from them (financially speaking). Without social media and business branding it will probably be very difficult to continue your campaign. The future looks dark for guest-bloggers, and it seems that written content is becoming harder and harder to promote. In the end, this might lead to the death of guest-blogging as we know it. Nevertheless, these are mere speculations, and although Google has made certain declarations that might make us uncomfortable, the effect of the authorship markup cannot be felt yet. The only thing you can do is to stick to one, maximum 2 niches in order to grow your online presence, and to work only with related companies in the future. We can only hope that authors will not be shut down completely.
Author Bio: Anna Robeson is a social media expert and SEO professional with years of experience, and a serious tech enthusiast. She supports the beliefs of digitalnetagency.com when it comes to content curation and search engine optimization practices.
