A few posts ago, we discussed 4 things that affect the way you get ranked better on Google.  Here are two more you probably didn’t even know about.

Get Ranked Better On Google – Using Google Authorship

You have seen examples of this whenever you do a search.  Google authorship is the term for having your photo show up next to your post in search results. You will get ranked better on Google if you use it.  See the examples below.

There are two separate reasons that this helps you. First, Google likes people to identify content that belongs to them that they created, and second, people are more likely to click on a search engine result with a photo. It seems more personal and people can feel more like they know you.

So, how do you get this done?

1. You need a clear headshot type photo.
2. You need a Google + account.  If you don’t have one yet, they are free.  Go to plus.google.com  to set one up
3. Next, you will need an email address at the same domain as your site/blog.  This is easy to set up by going into your hosting account and creating it there.  I already had joe@joemcvoy.com
4. You need your “author byline” to match your name on your google plus account.  I found this to be confusing as how to make it happen, so I recommend you install the free WordPress plugin called “Google+ Author Information in Search Results (Free Version)“
5. Once you install the plugin, your getting close to done.
6. You need to link your email from your site to your Google + page and also do it the other way too.  The Google site explaining this is here:  https://plus.google.com/authorship
7. Now, to check to see it works go to the “rich snippet” Google web site tool and put in the complete URL of one of your posts and you should see it.
8. Understand it can take a couple weeks for Google to get it going, and when you are good to go, they send you an email with the subject line: “Welcome To Google Authoriship”.

Get Ranked Better On Google – Using Google Circles

The next thing that helps a lot is your Google circles count. Not so much how many people are in your circles but how many people have you in theirs.

Google sees this as essentially third party endorsements of you so ranks you higher.

You can use the tool in your Google + account to show you people in your gmail to invite. You can also go on fiver and find people to get you Google circle followers. BUT, big warning, do not go and buy lots of followers all at once because Google will see that and probably penalize you.

Your circle growth needs to seem naturally occurring, not overnight so if you are going to buy some, I’d suggest adding 10 – 20 at a time and then wait a bit before adding more.

Do all these things and you will get ranked better on Google!