Update–As of November 2017, it has been two years since AuthorSure was updated, so although I still love WordPress, I can no longer recommend this plugin. 🙂
Have I mentioned before how much I love WordPress?
I love WordPress. Just in case.
I realized a few years ago that there is no privacy on the Internet, and rather than avoiding the Internet entirely as a way to keep my privacy, the more important part was to control my privacy. So I set up a Facebook account, I got a blog, I started tweeting. I was still nervous about putting myself out there. I liked it when someone found my blog, yet I wasn’t really ready to engage.
When John Ellis first started talking about authorship and proving your existence on Google+ and how everything is connected, I really only half-listened because it was more about engaging and letting people know who you are. (Sorry, John!)
But then I started seeing more and more how John is right. No fear. You may screw up, you may say or do something (lots of things) that people don’t like, and your SEO might be set up completely wrong, but it doesn’t matter. Communication can resolve a lot of problems. Google may be the benevolent dictator some of us love and some of us hate, but his point that Google wants real people on the Internet and not crazy s*ammy machines and h*ckers is a good one. Google is actually helping us to take that control over our privacy even further. We choose what goes out there and how.
So when I first started researching authorship, I discovered a couple of sites that discussed placing code in your header, email verification, or a plug-in. I was skeptical. When I asked John about it, he suggested the WordPress plug-in AuthorSure. He mentioned that it’s easy to use, has lots of options, and that placing information in your header or just on one page doesn’t cover the entirety of your site.
So I checked it out.
How did the WordPress Plug-In AuthorSure work?
Look! It really does work!
It’s not necessarily super easy to set up. Or it wasn’t for me, anyway, since I was a little confused about how the system functions and what exactly it is that I’m doing. I’m sure it’s much easier for someone more familiar with the concept. But I played with it a little (and Googled lots of things–the AuthorSure website, WordPress forums, read a little about it on the Yoast site, and even found a Google+ Authorship and Author Rank community) and things started happening.
The first is that a link to my Google+ profile showed up on my About page. If someone wants to contact or follow me, the link is right there. I’m not sure I like the way it looks, especially since it shows up below my contact form, but I can play with that later. The second was trickier, and involved steps on the AuthorSure site. Since I didn’t have one of the popular themes listed, and wasn’t sure what kind of system my theme used, I just set up AuthorSure to cover my entire site (since I’m the only author), and then ran it through the test system provided (powered by Google, of course).
And voila! It worked! I put just a post in and there it was. All happy green letters validating my authorship and showing exactly what would be revealed if someone did a search for that particular topic. Next I’m going to check on individual pages and other posts.
I love WordPress.