Some people claim that getting getting Google Verified Authorship for your site can actually increase click throughs and even rakings. While I'm not sure about that, if there is even a chance that this is true, can you afford not to especially when it only takes about 5 minutes of your time?

Here is how you can get Google to verify authorship of your site:

Step 1: Add the following code to the header of your site:

<link rel="author" href="https://plus.google.com/118443020258338946806/posts" />

Naturally you'll want to change the link to point to your own page.

For WordPress Sites: Some themes advanced themes allow you to do this in a settings option screen right from within WordPress while others require you to edit the header.php file. If your web hosting doesn't allow you to do this, you can see if it might be possible to add the following code to your functions.php file instead:

add_action('wp_head', 'add_google_rel_author');
function add_google_rel_author() {
echo '<link rel="author" href="<a href="https://plus.google.com/118443020258338946806/posts">https://plus.google.com/118443020258338946806/posts</a>" />';
}

If you had to edit any of the theme files, be sure to re-apply this modification anytime you update your theme.

Step 2: Add a link to your Google+ Profile

  1. Edit your profile
  2. Edit the list under the Contributors section
  3. Add the name of your site and a link to it.
  4. Make sure that your +1's are public on your Google+ profile or it won't work.
  5. Save and exit editing your profile

That's it. Just wait for Google to re-crawl your site and your Google+ profile photo should appear next to your site's Google search results. How long will this take? Only Google knows for sure. It can be anywhere from a few days to a month or more. It does help if your site is already indexed by Google.

If you aren't sure if it's setup right, use the Rich Snippets Testing Tool.

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