SEO, Rel Author and Several Clients

[littlesthobo]

How do you deal with Rel author on blogs for your clients?

Suppose I'm a contributor (or rather, the only copywriter) to a clients blog - which happens to be about DIY.  The blog articles are written from the business perspective and published from 'the business'.  not from Me.

Should I be adding myself as a contributor and using my own personal Google profile on these blogs?  If so, then it's my face that appears next to the blog post and I'm not sure that's what I want for a blog about fixing shelves etc!

Am I misunderstanding how I should be using rel author?  Is it for SEOs to work into client strategy, or is it just for our own personal blogs?

[littlesthobo]

Thanks for your reply, very helpful.  I'm trying to do the same with rel publisher to get my clients logos appearing from their google plus page.  I mainly use wordpress sites and using authorsure plugin, but I'm still getting to grips with it and running lots of tests.

I think the ghostwriting is the best option.  The director of the company will be happy to use his image, but he doesnt (or didnt) have a google plus profile.  I've just set him one up.

Does authorship really only benefit by showing you the face of the author is or there actually any additional 'google points' for it being a highly engaged and highly circled account?

Thanks for your response anyway, much appreciated!

[EEE3]

Hi littleshobo,

Rel=author seems like it would be more beneficial to you in your personal guest-blogging than, as you had said, to attach your face to your clients' blog posts. You do want them to be attached to someone at the business. A different story might be if you are writing content that indirectly benefits the client: Say you guest blog on an external website about something you're interested in and you link to your client's blog as an example of your work. In that case, you'd want your face to be attached to that blog.

I would try to keep the client's blog attached to the client.

I am going through the same thing right now. What we are implementing is the rel=publisher tag on our clients' websites, using the clients' Google+ Profile ID. Though it's not being recognized right now by Google, we hope in the future Google will begin using it and show the dealership's logo in the rich snippets.

The other option for you is to find a person at the company who wouldn't mind their face being the face of the company, and you could "ghostwrite" for that person. You could then use the rel=author tag for that person and explain to them how they would need to add the corresponding link to his or her Google+ profile. The only issue with this is trying to find someone who would be at the company for awhile (avoid turnover) and also someone who would enjoy having their face plastered across Google. Some higher levels in the company might be okay with this.

Also, check out this link about using rel=publisher and rel=author from Mike Blumenthal's blog. http://blumenthals.com/blog/2013/02/03/google-local-rel-publisher-or-relauthor-you-should-do-both/

Hope this helps!