SEO Tip: Why Creating a Google Author Profile Can Increase Site Traffic by Up to 50 Percent

July 8, 2013 - PRLog -- Some webmasters and bloggers have found that just by creating their Google Author profile, site traffic has increased by anywhere from 15 to 50 percent. Proof?

In the MediaShift article, Google Authorship: Why It's Important and How to Implement It, the author states that a number of blogs have seen traffic increase from 15 percent to 50 percent when authorship was claimed. The author goes on to state that when he completed and added his author profile to his site, he saw a 20 percent increase in traffic.

This is yet more proof that filling out this profile and making it a permanent part of your site is important to ranking well in SERPs (search engine result pages). Following is why; but before we get to the particulars of why this metric is so important to ranking well, let's explain briefly what it is for those who might not know.

What is Google Authorship?

In simple layman's terms, it's claiming credit for your content for all the web to see. You know how sometimes you do a search for something and when the search results are returned you'll see a photo of a person beside certain results?

Well, this photo is part of their Google+ profile; it lets you know that this is the person who authored that particular piece of content. If you click on the photo, it'll take you to not only a page which contains their profile, but one with links to their other online content as well.

Why Google Authorship Is Important in Content Marketing?

One of the main reasons this is important is that it helps to cut down on content theft. How?

When a piece of content is published, the original author gets credit for it. So, if someone comes along and scrapes (steals it) and publishes it on their site, because the original author has claimed it via their Google+ Author profile, then Google can discount it as duplicate content. Hence, the original author's will receive the credit for it, not the content thief.

SEO Writing, Google Authorship and Penguin 2.0

One of the goals of Penguin 2.0, the big algorithm update Google did in May 2013 was to "reward websites that offer genuine value," according to Matt Cutts (Google's SEO guru).

Because spammers don't take the time to create useful, original content, when you claim your content via Google Authorship, the search giant "rewards" you instead of some spam site that may have stolen your content.

The Importance of Google Authorship for Web Writers

If you are a web writer - no matter how much or how little content you create - it's important to start laying claim to it. This search engine optimization metric is not going anywhere; in fact, it's likely to become more important in future search algorithm updates. So the sooner you create and start using your Google Author profile, the better it will be for your site in terms of site traffic - and sales that stem from this traffic.
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About the Author: Yuwanda Black heads New Media Words (NewMediaWords.biz), an SEO writing company she founded in 2008. She is also is the publisher of InkwellEditorial.com, a blog devoted to helping others start successful, home-based writing careers. Ms. Black has authored over 50 ebooks, most of which cover some aspect of freelance writing. They can be found on major outlets like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Learn more about how to write SEO copy (http://inkwelleditorial.com/how-to-write-seo-content-that...) -- that generates site traffic.