You can find this information a million other places on the internet, but I thought I’d sum it up for you in an easy to understand blog post. Google wants to let the world know about what you’ve written. You just need to tell them.

First – Create a Google+ account. I know you’ve been avoiding this, probably because you think Google is an evil monoploly and there are many who would agree. Unfortunately they control 80% of the searches on the internet so fall in line and make one. Put a nice head shot on it as well.

Second – Identify where you post the stuff you author. Places like your Blog, Twitter, Facebook, Guest Blogs etc. are what you want. Add these to your Google+ account. To let them know where you author.

Third – Confirm your authorship. You don’t need to with Twitter, Facebook and the like, but with blogs and websites you do.

Third.1 – On your website you need to put this html somewhere on your site (most likely the footer): <a href="http://plus.google.com/profileid" rel="author">Your Name</a>

Third.2 – For blogs this might be easy or difficult depending upon the system you use. For example Blogger allows you to link your Google+ account directly to the Blogger account, done. Other systems like WordPress have it buried in the settings, but it’s there. Just do a search for: wordpress rel="author"

Third.3 – For guest blogs you need to ask the owner of the blog your post is on to add <a href="http://plus.google.com/profileid" rel="me">Your Name</a> at the end of your post. Notice it has "me" instead of "author."

I hope this helps. There are more complex issues like rel="publisher" and ratings, but this should make sure that Google will give you credit for what you write and possibly put your picture on it. Happy publishing.