How to Add Your Author Picture in Google Search Results

While searching on Google, you might have seen that with some of the search results Google shows the article author’s photo. Many people think that Google automatically selects people for displaying their photos alongside their articles in search results. But that is not true! Anyone can configure their website in order to display author picture.

To accomplish this, you would need to have a website on which you publish your articles. In addition, you will need a Google+ account.

So, if you have all the above three things –you are all set for configuration. And here are the steps:

This is the page on which you write about yourself. The page should be in the same website where you publish your articles. Such a page is important to have even beyond the context of this tutorial –because more often than not your readers want to know about the author.

Add the following link anywhere in your website (sidebar, header, footer –wherever you feel like)

<a rel="author" href="https://plus.google.com/GOOGLEID" target="_blank">Me on Google+</a>

Replace the GOOGLEID with the ID of your Google+ profile. To get this ID just go to your Google+ account > Go to Profile.

Now the ID will appear in the link. For example, the link to my Google+ profile is:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/112489253235973279691/posts

As this link is showing, the ID of my profile is: 112489253235973279691

This ID number will go in place of GOOGLEID mentioned in the above link

If you don’t like “Me on Google+” text, you are free to change it to whatever suits you.

Now add the following link anywhere in your About section.

<a rel="me" href="https://plus.google.com/GOOGLEID" target="_blank">See my Google Profile</a>

As above, replace GOOGLEID with your Google+ profile ID

Go to your Google+ account and then to your profile. Click the Edit button to edit your profile information.

You will find a few sections on right hand side, click on the Contributor to section and add the link of website where you publish.

If you already have not uploaded your photo on your Google+ profile, do it now. This photograph will appear next to the search results.

Now you should preview your website as to how it will appear in search results. Enter your website’s URL and click Preview button.

If you have taken all of the above step correctly, you will see the following message in green color:

Verified: Authorship markup is correct for this page

It may take some time (typically 2 days) before the newly configured author picture begins to appear in search results. So, just wait and keep checking the search results.