Thread: Getting Your Profile Photo In Search Results

Have you noticed how some sites get the author profile photo alongside of the Google search results?

The way to do this is to establish a Google+ profile and upload a photo of yourself.

Then add a code snippet to your content pages that links the author to your Google+ account.

Then add your domain to your Google+ profile as a site that you contribute to.

Then you stand a chance to enhance your search result listings with your profile pic. which could attract more clicks and lead to people exploring more of your sites.

And later, it may become a factor in SEO e.g. social proof that you don't make crap sites

https://plus.google.com/

There are three somewhat conflicting sets of Google instructions for doing this. I have tested them all. Andy's method is the easiest and works the best.

It takes 1 to 2 weeks before your image starts to show up, and it does not always show on all of the articles that you write.

Here are the more detailed instructions that I followed.

How To Add Google Plus Images to Google Search Results

I had this in my ToDo list and think that I found the method that I used via a message in my Google+ inbox that I don't tend to read so often. People keep talking about the importance of social media, so I am slowly integrating it into what I do. Probably the most important aspect is to only use social media where you are producing quality content that is good to share.

By leaving out specific instructions, I knew that somebody would be compelled to chime in with more detail Also, I used a preview tool that G provides to see what my SE result could look like.

This may be Google's way of compelling site owners to join Google Plus. I have not yet seen any compelling evidence of this, but I suspect that you should join several Google circles to improve the chances for having your image show up. I notice that quite a number of Plus images that show up in search results have a notation similar to, "in 1,254 Google+ circles."

Matt Cutts recently stated that they are currently not looking at any social networking signals, but I suspect that they are or will soon be looking at their own social network.

At this point, it's really pretty easy to get this done. All you have to do is link to your site from your Google+ Profile. There's a place to add those links. Then, link your site back to your Google+ profile. If you have a bio on other sites that you can edit, you might also consider adding a link to your Google+ profile there, as well. I have a bio page on a blog that I write for regularly--I added the link to my Google+ profile, and it didn't take long to start showing up.