Quietly, Google has introduced a means for individuals to verify their names on the blogs they contribute to. This is important because it gives Google a means to verify the authorship of the original article and promote it above sites that may have aggregated or copied the original.

In order to verify your authorship here is what you need to do.

• If you don’t have a Google + account. Register for one.
• Sign in to your Google + account and make sure you have a headshot in your profile picture. This is what people will see in the search results, so ensure its something you want other people to see of you and isn’t a picture of puppies, dogs, or embarrassing pictures
• Go to https://plus.google.com/authorship
• Add your email address and click verify
• You will receive and email from Google where you verify your account

Allow for a few days for the authorship to process through Google and their search results.

Once again, we can see that Google is continuing to use Google + as a means to improve its core search business. Google has seen click through rates 40% higher when there is a picture attached to the article.

This lends weight to the argument that Google + while it remains a rather empty social network, is becoming more important for companies and individuals who create content to have and use a Google + account, if only to ensure that content can be found in search and rank high.