As online marketing continues to evolve, we have seen the worlds of social media and SEO inch closer and closer together. There has been some speculation that social signals have an influence on search rankings, however now there seems to be something on the horizon that will solidify that connection. Search Engine Journal reported recently that a new metric known as AuthorRank will become very important when it comes to search engine ranking and page quality.
If you are familiar with SEO, you know that metrics such as PageRank, domain authority and page authority are ways to determine the quality of a Web page. Historically, search engines measured content quality based on the authority of a Web page; however AuthorRank takes into consideration the authority of the individual who created the content. This score or grade will be used when creating a search engine result.
You might be wondering how exactly to establish AuthorRank. This is where social signals come into play. To receive credit for the awesome content you create, first you will need to tie the pages you have written to your Google+ Profile using rich snippets you receive when being granted Google Authorship. Once your content is up and ready, it will be scored on factors such as:
- Amount of social signals (tweets, likes, shares, +1’s) and the influence of the people creating these signals.
- Comments on social sites and the influence of the people leaving the comments.
- Relevancy and quality of inbound links that point to the content
Essentially the more that an author writes about a topic and the more engagement that the content gets, the higher the AuthorRank score will be.
While Google+ hasn’t always been the hub of excitement, it looks like time to start filling it up with your blog content so that you can see some SEO benefits. Search Engine Journal predicts that AuthorRank will be something to keep an eye on in 2013. I have to say I agree. Do you plan on focusing on building your AuthorRank next year?
