Search engine ranking is a constant battle. We’ve talked before about ways to improve your visibility. Today, we’ll share a step by step way to get you ranked higher in Google so people can find you and your books. Some of the things are obvious, but I’ll say them anyway for the benefit of the newbies checking in.
Set up Google Authorship
You can find the tutorial on how to set up Google Authorship here. This is a process that links all your posts with Google. With it, you get a neat little rich snippet when you show up in search results. In addition, this is the first step for Google to pay more attention to you as a serious content creator.
Attach Google Authorship to your Content
This is a tough one, you wouldn’t have to do it, but if you want to get credit for everything you’ve done in the past, you should add this to each of your past posts.
Create Awesome Content That’s Worth Sharing
This is one of those “duh” comments. However, good quality shared articles will get you further than good quality articles that people read and leave alone.
Become Bestie’s With Google+
That’s right, you need to be posting on Google+ … all the time. Get your blog posts over there, get on the platform daily, +1 everything you find interesting and make sure your profile is up-to-date and complete.
Guest Post on Quality Blogs
This is a tough one to swallow. We all love to guest post. However, if you run around guest posting on a bunch of blogs with no following or bad grammar or poor editorial quality, the search engines will assume you are the same.
Build Your Circles
Believe it or not, the Google search algorithms give you more weight if you’ve got more people in your circles. Also, make sure you get some stars in your circles. Good content producers in your circles will help bring you up as well.
The entire process is a big game. Every little bit of knowledge can help lead us to the ultimate goal of getting our name out there and our books in readers hands. If you want to help someone out, the best thing you can do for them is +1 their post or article. Facebook is great, but giving a +1 will go a lot further to helping the author get found. From now on, instead of skipping over that little red and white +1 icon, CLICK IT!
Do you consistently +1 posts?The icon is at the bottom of every Indies Unlimited post. If you take the time to read the post, help the author out and take the time to +1 it!
Not only will you bring more search recognition to the author, you’ll also grow your circles in Google+ and build your own online credibility at the same time.
OK, I’ve made a small dent in G+ but how do you get ‘stars’ in your circles?
The best way is to include them in your circles, then comment and share their content. Little by little, they’ll jump on board with you too!
Good one, Jim!
Jim, I went to the post on Google Authorship but comments there are closed. When the rel=author code is created and you “put it on your page wherever your name occurs, are you adding it as text in place of your name, or are you adding it as a link where your name occurs in the text? And if you at the rel=author code in place of text, what does the reader see? it seems as though they would see the code written out. Sorry for the dumb question.
Blogger does this automatically (as it’s owned by Google), but I also put my name at the bottom of every post with a link to my Google profile.
The Google Author thing is pretty cool looking. Makes me feel all official and stuff. 😀
Good job Lynne, consider yourself one of the few. Surprising how many people don’t take advantage of this.
Yeah must look into the Google Author idea. Thanks for this, most useful.
Thanks, good luck with it.
Thanks Jim, I found this and the earlier post about Google authorship very helpful.and informative, Sound advice worth following. Much appreciated.
My pleasure, Martyn.
Jim, I don’t know how, but got it done. My picture shows up on search page, only one, just as you said. The code shows up as code on the blog post so I simply tuck it where it is unobtrusive. Bravo, Jim.
Good job, Timothy. I just checked you out in the Google search and sure enough it was there. As for the code, I didn’t see it in our blog so maybe you figured it out. If not, just switch your blog editor to HTML view and paste the string in there.
I save the same string on a word document and add it to my posts each time. There are other ways to do it to, you can add it to your name in your tags as well. Regardless, you got it. And it looks good!
Thanks Jim. I put the code on my About page (I saved the code to a file where I can retrieve it, copy/paste) at the very bottom where it is unobtrusive. I’m going to put it at the bottom of every blog post, and may go back and put it on some recent posts and update them.
Thanks Mader, good to see your around IU!