Understanding Rel=Author vs. Rel=Publisher Tag

According to a recent blog post by Bing's Duane Forrester, the importance of marking up your content with structured data cannot be emphasized enough. This is most likely old news to you as we've been telling you about it for years. However, it's always nice to hear it directly from the search engine execs.

Forrester went on to explain that marking up your content with structured data may not necessarily increase search rankings. However, it does dramatically improve click through rates as well as increase the number of opportunities for your site to be included in the search results. Schema.org holds the vast array of markups you have available to you and if you haven't added then we highly recommend you make it a goal before the year is out!

One markup that works for every industry regardless of your business model is Authorship Markups. This is the process of claiming content you've written and tying it to your Google+ profile. We feel that you can directly grow your industry authority by building up the content you're providing online. This added authority will pay off long term as Google looks to reward industry leaders. So, if you haven't added any other markups to your site, then this is the first one to move forward with.

When adding authorship to your content, the first thing you need to decide is which approach is best for your site, the rel="author" or rel="publisher" and more often than not the answer is both.

The author markup tag, rel=”author”, is best used when there is a specific person who is behind the creation of your content. This builds the author's overall authority in your specific industry and will lend the content additional authority as the author's profile grows online.

The publisher markup tag, rel=”publisher”, is used when you want to establish the business/brand as the author of the content and not a specific individual. We've also seen