Building authority and audience with WordPress and Google Authorship

transcript

Michael McCallister, WordCamp Milwaukee 2013

Building Authority and Audience with WordPress and Google Authorship

Michael McCallister

Who am I?

• Co-Author, WordPress in Depth, with Bud Smith (QUE, 2010-11)

• Notes from the Metaverse (metaverse.wordpress com)• Senior Document Architect, PKWARE• President, Wisconsin Society for Technical Communication

(www.stc-wi.org)

Coming in May 2014

Ask questions any time!

Google’s Early Days

We can give you the best possible answer to your query – every time! Feeling Lucky?

Confidence

Crowdsource for High Quality Content – It’s all about

inbound links!

Problems with Inbound Links

• Link Exchanges• Sites created only to link to other sites• Comment Spam! (Thank you Akismet!!)• Endless arms race

Google After PandaWhat is Google up to now?

Authority

”We’re moving to a richer, more annotated Web. Away from keywords, from strings to

things.

Matt Cutts, Google Search Quality, 6/5/2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QlY8ba0jYI&feature=youtu.be

”Choosing anonymity is choosing irrelevance

Eric Schmidt, Google CEO in The New Digital Age

Anonymity Begone!

Google Search Results for “freelance directory” June 2013

So how do I get that?

Well, it’s complicated

Create a Google+ Profile

1. Add a photo

Head Shot: Straight Ahead

Create a Google+ Profile

2. Add “Contributor to”

LinksAny site you write

Copy the URL of your profile page:

https://plus.google.com/<reallylongsetofdigits>

Set Up Your WordPress Site

This may be too much name-checking.

Make sure your articles have a byline, though!

About Page

There’s that photo again

Get a Google Authorship Plugin

• Several out there: I use “Google+ Author Information in Search Results” from WP-Buddy

• If you use this, go to Settings>Google+ Author Free to get the rest of the steps.

Paste Google+ Profile URL in WP User Profile

Google Structured Data Toolshttp://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

Did it Work?

Resources

• Google Authorship page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/authorship• Author Information in Search Results: http://

support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1408986&expand=option2

• Structured Data Testing Tool: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

• Google Authorship & Author Rank G+ Community: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/104474428845467390263

Want Some Setup Help?

• I’ll be in the Happiness Bar upstairs for the next hour• Write me at Michael@michaelmccallister.com• Visit me at www.michaelmccallister.com

Questions?Have a great WordCamp!

Building authority and audience with WordPress and Google Authorship

Technology