SEO For Roofers: A Laymens Guide To Google Authorship

Seo and social media have become a part of nearly every industry. In recent trends we have seen a shift as to who is handling the internet marketing for a company. Its becoming more and more popular for a roofing contractor to handle a majority of their seo, social media and internet marketing in house as opposed to hiring an seo firm. At Chase Construction North, West Inc. we made that same shift about two years ago and have learned a lot on the journey (we are still learning every day!)

One of the current and significant trends in seo is Google Authorship. With so much content being produced on the internet Google needed a way of further distinguishing accurate authoritative content from web spam. Authorship allows all the  content created by an author or brand across the web to be attributed to it’s originator. This gives Google and readers an overview of the type of content each author is generating and how peers in their niche are responding to them. When your article is verified Google also provides a picture of you or your company next to your article. Statistically search results with pictures get a 150% higher click through rate.  This is Google’s new way of determining who’s who. According to Googles Matt Cutts authorship does play a role in ranking factor. With this in mind it is a practice all roofers delving into the world of seo and guest blogging should not overlook. 

In this video Googles Matt Cutts and Omar Hansson talk about implementation and benefits of authorship:

Having blogged for the last two years and written many guest blogs for other roofing contractors I have learned a few helpful tricks that can simplify the process of creating authorship for your site. I am not claiming to be an authority on the matter but have successfully implemented authorship and have run into a lot of partners on the internet that have not been able to properly do so. Here is a simple guide on how to implement Google authorship for your roofing blog. 

Author Registration And Verification 

In order to establish authorship you must first have a Google + profile. Register your Google + profile here and include as much information as possible. Once you have your basic account information set up go to the profile tab and and click about. At the bottom right hand corner there is a box where you can add links to websites you have contributed to. You will want to select the edit option at the bottom, add your url and give the link a title. You have now associated your Google + account with your website. Below is a screen shot showing our website Chase NW on our Google + link profile. 

 The Two Types Of Authorship Verification

1) Email addresses are one of Googles ways of verifying authorship. In order to get credit through this verification method your email address will need to be included in your contact information on your Google + profile and the content you have created. Go to Googles email verification page here and enter the email address that is associated with your website. Google will send  a confirmation link to your email. Click on the verification link to set up your authorship account. Once the process is complete you will see a small check next to your email address in your Google + contact information as shown below. 

2) The second form of verification is to use the rel=author html code contained in a link pointing back to your Google + profile. Please note that once you have verified your own website you will not have to manually apply authorship markup to each new post. Here is a snap shot of instructions from Google detailing how to formulate the html code. There are lots of html snippets floating out there on the web and many of them are very different. I personally use the code below. Simply insert your Google + profile # contained in the url where mine is and this should work for you as well.

What I use: https://plus.google.com/103709339982252871668?rel=author

I typically include both the rel=author code and and email in a by line for every guest article I write. Here is an example of a by line containing both. 

This article was written by:

Joel Beattie of Chase Construction North West, Inc.
For more information about roofing please visit our site at: www.chasenw.com

Authorship Mark-Up On Guest Blogs

In the process of guest blogging I learned that there is a two step process to verify your authorship on  posts that are hosted on other websites and blog platforms. Create your by line as described above or as desired. Next you will need to add the url of the guest article into the “contributor to” or links section on your Google + profile. If you do not perform this step you will not receive authorship credit and a rich snippets profile shot. By linking your guest content to your Google + account you are establishing yourself as an authority and a popular contributor in your industry.

Test Your Authorship Links

 You will want to make sure you are getting the credit you deserve with all the hard work you went through to create quality guest posts. Google has created what is called the structured data testing tool which is located within Google Webmaster Tools. This is a way to test links and verify whether or not authorship is working on your site and guest posts. Below is a screen shot that verifies authorship is working on a guest post I recently provided for All Roofing Solutions. Simply insert the link from your post into the testing field and check the data below. 

There are other great resources and ways of implementing your authorship mark-up such as WordPress plug-ins but the above listed methods have worked for me! Best wishes to all of the fellow in-house seo’s and contractors who are taking on the additional task of internet marketing. What are other great resources of implementing Google Authorship? I would love to hear from you. 

Joel Beattie: Family man, roofing activist, follower of Christ; AAA seo experimenter and social media fanatic. Follow me on Google +, Twitter, Facebook, WordPress and YouTube.