One of the great challenges of the Internet is knowing what content to trust and what content to discard.  Newspapers built their brands on the reputation and credibility of the news and information presented in the pages of their product.  Each story had a byline (the name of the author) and sometimes a photo.   You could start to build a level of trust with a reporter and that trust gave his or her stories credibility.   Today, search engines are trying to weed out low quality, anonymous search results by delivering credible information.

Google Authorship works off the same premise — trust the author, trust the content.  This system allows you to link your Google+ social media account with the work you have created.  Your content appears on search results with your Google+ profile picture and name along with how many people are in your Google circles.

Google has placed even more emphasis on providing relevant search results.  Establishing yourself as a credible source of information has become key to achieving high search rankings.  Setting up Google Authorship is a great way to establish your credibility and position you as an authority and influencer in your field.  All good for attracting customers as well as improving your search ranking.

Another huge advantage of Google Authorship is that it allows your content to be indexed very quickly so it shows up on search results all that much faster.  This is particularly helpful if your content is timely.