Add Authorship Rich Snippets in 5 Simple Steps Before it's Too Late!
Authorship rich snippets, which is almost a year old, is the little bit of code (rel=author) that gives you the opportunity to officially claim your content with Google. Doing this comes with 3 great benefits.
1. Increases your click throughs. When your content is marked up properly Google includes your G+ profile image next to the listing within the search results. There have been countless studies indicating this increases your listing's click through rate. People are naturally inclined to look at images in a body of text.
2. Protects Your Content. This code also tells Google that you are the original owner. If your article gets picked up and reprinted Google is more likely to see your marked up article as the original and de-value the rest.
3. Increases your content's authority and trust. This is the most important reason to markup your content. When you officially claim your content using this code and tying it to your G+ profile you're also building up your own personal brand. The more trusted, quality content you produce for authoritative sites - the stronger your brand becomes in the eyes of Google as well as within your Industry.
How do we know this? Well a little over a year ago Google's 2005 Agent Rank patent was pulled apart and re-examined. The most memorable of these being SEO by the Sea's report, where Bill Slawski examined this specific aspect of the patent:
"The identity of individual agents responsible for content can be used to influence search ratings.
Assuming that an agent has a high reputational score, representing an established reputation for authoring valuable content, then additional content authored and signed by that agent will be promoted relative to unsigned content or content from less reputable agents in search results."
