A big thanks to our Pubcon 2014 sponsor, LinkResearchTools, your off-page SEO toolkit. Link Detox: Recover – Protect – Build.
At Pubcon 2014 in Las Vegas, I had the opportunity to chat with Casey Markee of SearchEngineNews.com about Google Authorship. More specifically — the end of Google Authorship and what’s going to happen next.
The topic of authorship and establishing authority has been a hot topic for quite some time in the SEO world. Understandably that led to some concerns when Google recently announced the end of Authorship.
I started off by asking Casey if Google Authorship is officially dead. Hear his response, and his predictions for what’s to come, in the video below.
Here are some key takeaways from the video:
- Google Authorship is dead, that’s a fact says Casey. However, the concept of ‘Author Rank’ is still very much alive.
- When Google released their most recent set of quality guidelines there was a focus on ‘EAT’, which stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. That was Google’s way of saying they are looking for ways to serve better content.
- Google is looking for ‘keys’ to serve content from high quality authors and qualified experts. Even though Authorship didn’t take off, Google is still looking for these signals when it comes to ranking content.
- How can the average site owner implement EAT? It’s just basic stuff, Casey says, like doing this interview with SEJ, or attending conferences and participating where your audience is online.
- You are your own brand, so find the influencers in your niche and connect with them, then get them to publish on your site. That helps enhance your brand and theirs.
- One of the best ways to identify influencers is to look at their social media pages to see how they participate online, what they’re sharing, and who they are connected to.
- Google+ is definitely not dead, Casey points out, it’s just another platform people can use to build connections which helps to surface higher quality authors and content.
- Google claimed Authorship photos did not lead to a noticeable improvement in click-through rates, but anecdotal evidence says otherwise. But now that everyone has Authorship photos removed, at least we’re on a level playing field.
Please visit SEJ’s YouTube page for more video interviews.
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News
