How to Make Your Face Show Up Beside Your Google Search Results

Wherein we expose the voodoo of making your picture show up next to your Google Search results, which can increase your click through rate 150%

Have you noticed lately that Google has begun showing some people’s pictures next to search results? This is known as a “rich snippet” and it’s basically cheating at search engines. Everyone who has a blog and cares about their Google search rank should make this happen, so without further ado, here’s how to make your photo show up next to your search result in Google, and how to test to make sure that you’ve configured everything right. But first, why is having your image show up with your results important?

Benefits of Having Your Photo Show up Beside Google Search Results

Internet marketers know all about the effect a smiling face can have on first impressions and sales conversions. Seeing a human image increases warmth and trust, and generates a better first impression than the same content without a picture. Faces are fascinating, and the effect holds true regardless of the forum. Since people spend mere seconds skimming search results before they click on one, a picture could make the difference between being clicked on or passed over. This is even moreso the case because search engine results are all so competitive and similar, and very few results contain images compared to those that don’t. This is definitely a train worth getting on early!
Having your picture display beside your Google search result will:

• Catch attention
• Increase authority and trust
• Establish a sense of connection between you and your reader
• Humanize your site, which is important in the age of social media

The Real Reason to Use Google+

Google+ was the best thing ever until you finished dragging half the people you’ve ever known into circles, and then you pretty much forgot about it. I’d bet that’s been the life cycle for most users thus far, but I’d also bet that’s about to change. The fact is that Google+ has more impact on Google search results than any other social media platform, and Google is reminding us of this by putting images next to search results when people’s Google+ profiles are linked to their blog. This is Google’s way of urging content creators to use their proprietary social networking platform: you share your content via Google+, we’ll reward you with SEO benefits no other network can provide. Sounds like a good deal to me, and that’s the pretty much the only reason I’ve started using it. If search rank is important to you, I suggest you do as well.

How to Make Your Picture Show up Next to Your Search Results

There are two ways to make this work, one requires having an email @ the same domain that you want your images to show up beside. The other requires a bit of coding or using a plugin in the case of WordPress. You can do all the steps and it’ll probably work better/ faster, but I’m a perfectionist.

How To: If You Have an Email @YourDomain

1. Go to your Google+ profile. If you don’t have one, create one.
2. Make sure that at least one of the emails you list in your profile is from the domain that you want your picture to show up next to the results of. In the case of my website, that’s @fnfweb.com. (If you don’t have an email from your own domain already, you can get one from your host or Google Apps.)
3. Make sure your email is verified. You’ll know that’s the case when a check mark shows up beside the email, as shown in the upper right screencap.
4. Officially link your Google+ profile to the content you create by clicking here and entering the same email you just added to your profile.
5. Go to your Google+ profile and make sure your website is showing up in the “Contributor to” section (step 4 should have done this automatically). If it’s not showing up, add it manually.

How To: If You Do NOT Have an Email @YourDomain, and/or Have a Compulsion to be Thorough

If you’re using WordPress, there are plugins that you can use to do the following steps for you, such as the wonderful Yoast SEO plugin. If you’re not using WordPress or would rather hard code it, continue on.
1. Go to your website and add a link to your Google+ profile using the rel=author tag. The code is below, so no need to get intimidated. Just replace [profile_url] with your own Google+ profile link and add your name after the + sign. There’s some debate as to if you need the +sign and your name, but rumor has it Google likes it to be formatted that way.

<a href="[profile_url]?rel=author">+Your Name</a>

The finished code will look something like this:

<a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/114348963186279690859/?rel=author">+Kaitlin Reeves</a>

This code can be put anywhere on the site, such as your bio page where you list your social networks or in the footer. It can also be pushed through the header, which is how the plugins tend to do it.

2. Add a reciprocal link from your Google+ profile to the website you just added the link to (if you haven’t already). Edit your profile and add to the “Contributor to” section. Click “Add custom link” and then enter the website URL.

Tips, Tricks and Words to the Wise

• Your profile Google +1′s must be publicly visible for getting your picture beside your results to work.
• Google says that you must have a clear and visible headshot as your Google+ default photo, and it seems pretty well enforced at this point because I haven’t seen logos, LOLcats or genitals displayed beside any search results yet.
• I suggest posting links to your posts from your Google+ profile as status updates. Basically, the more interplay you can provide from your website to Google+ and back will make this work better and faster. Think of it as hot ouroborotic Google+/ your website action.

How Long Does it Take Before it Works?

Rumor has it that it takes 5-7 days to start working, but it really depends on how often Google crawls your site and perhaps other factors. You can use Google’s structured data testing tool and enter your URL to see if Google is picking up your authorship information, and doing so relatively immediately after setting everything up might help put it on Google’s radar faster. If you don’t see your image by your results after running your site link, then the configuration hasn’t been done right. If you do see the image, then it’s just a matter of time before it starts showing up in search results. It’s worth mentioning here that Google does not guarantee to show your image, and that they may stop doing this at any time. This is “experimental” for them, but I think it’s a good move and will get a lot of the content creators pushing Google+ more.