Writing an Author Bio: E-A-T, SEO Tips and Perfect Examples
some of the SEO pros have put forward convincing studies, such as this one from Lily Ray, that not showing E-A-T as Expertise, Authority, and Trust in a..
Topics for E-A-T, SEO Tips and Perfect Examples
Are you searching for author bio writing tips? Learn why it is significant for SEO, readers, E-A-T, and UX, and also see some examples and a sample template here.
Because the disruptive algorithm update call the “Medic Update,” SEO professionals have regarded consecutive broad core algorithm updates from Google.
The search engine has shown that “there is no ‘fix'” needed for recovering from these kinds of updates.
Nevertheless, some of the SEO pros have put forward convincing studies, such as this one from Lily Ray, that not showing E-A-T as Expertise, Authority, and Trust in a website’s content can be a destroying factor in its search engine visibility.
Indeed, Google mentions E-A-T as 137 times in the current repetition of its 167-page search quality raters guides. In addition, it advises that raters check to observe if the page says about the author is and lists his biography.
We should not take the quality raters guides as indicators of ranking signals, as they fail to directly affect rankings.
Google has approved that they do not rank sites according to author reputation.
Thus, why even care on author bios for SEO? In this column, you will learn why author biographies matter and how to write an SEO-friendly author biography.
In addition, you find writing tips and an author bio template to begin.
Author Authority and Google
It should be noted that Google has always considered author authority.
Consider the idea of “author rank”.
It was discussed by Bill Slawski while Google filed its Agent rank patent in 2005.
The idea claimed that the “reputation scores of all of the people that put altogether the content of a page played a role in the rating of the page.”
In 2011, Google stated its authorship markup, “a method to connect authors to their content on the web.”
Then, forming author pages with an accompanying Google Plus profile link through Schema.org’s rel=”author” and rel=”me” was a standard measure.
Authorship markup never claimed to suggest any direct ranking advantage.
Rather, it was put forward as a tool for helping search engines have more trust in the author’s identity and “show authors in search results.”
Google stopped indicating authorship in search results a long time ago and shut down Google Plus.
Indeed, their previous announcement on how they rank news sources showed the current interest in authorship on the search engine.
It reapproved the significance of author authority to Google.
In such an announcement, author bylines and author biographies featured as essential methods of creating trust:
Furthermore, on a recent SEO webinar, Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan emphasized the significance of having a specific byline, not “By staff” for clarity.
Google has recently updated its article on structured data and suggested adding the author’s URL in article schema.
Further, Google states to know which content is belonged to the same author. It should be noted that they are testing new knowledge panels for journalists, emphasizing their most recent articles.
The official term from Google might be that author biographies are not a ranking factor, while there is advantage in having transparent bylines and information showing expertise in an author’s biography page.
It can merely help Google’s algorithms in understanding the author’s E-A-T.
It might help the rankings of such articles in search results. It is merely interpretation on my part, while it is what all of the evidence looks to tell us.
Therefore, how can you write a compelling author biography of your own?
Eight Tips for Writing an SEO-Friendly Author Biography
1.Writing in the Third Person
Writing in the third person enhances the perceived authority and reads better than a biography someone has written about who they are.
It might feel a little self-congratulatory, while it adds more credibility.
2. Keeping the Biography Short
A perfect author biography must be somehow short. Look around at other sites and see that 50-100 words is the norm found on most author biographies online.
In addition, there might be a constant amount of space determined by the CMS.
3. Including Information on Job Title
Including information on your job can add credibility to your writing.
For instance, if you were writing about SEO, being an SEO specialist would be regarded more credible than if you were a PPC specialist or the opposite would be true.
Function is critical, too.
Though SEO pros should wear multiple hats, understanding if somebody is a generalist or specialist can add more topical expertise while reading an author biography.
4. Involving Your Experience
Here, you can involve information on:
• Years of work experience in related areas.
• Published works.
• Citations.
• Degrees.
• Conferences/seminars.
• Media coverage.
o Previous jobs.
5. Highlighting Expertise and Trustworthiness
Attempt to summarize your expertise on the title that you are writing on.
For instance, if the title you are writing on is health, allowing your audience to know about your credentials in the title is more credible than a similar article written by a blogger.
It is highly essential in the health and finance spaces, especially to show knowledge and expertise in their field. These are known as Your Money, Your Life (YMYL), as misinformation has the potential to cause serious harm.
Mentioning expertise on the author biography is significant not only for SEO, for users to help them recognize you as a credible source on a special subject.
6. Including Social Media Profiles
In addition, including links to social media on author pages is another perfect way for users to access more content from you, since you can link your personal or business site, or even your social media profiles.
Furthermore, it can help people to find your social media handles to tag you or your company into their posts.
7. Considering an Appropriate Photo
Adding your photo as part of your biography can be a perfect visual method to demonstrate the reader that there is a real human behind the words.
8. Introducing Your Personality
Though it is not necessarily needed for SEO, sharing personal interest can make an author biography page more interesting.
Nevertheless, readers might just be marginally into your personal life, thus your biography is maybe not the best place to share numerous personal information.
Some Tips for Optimizing Your Author Biography
Apply Separate URLs for Author Biography Pages
In terms of SEO, having an author biography page on a different URL is easier to optimize for author names compared to including all authors on a single about us page.
For instance, let us evaluate the Harvard Business Review (HBR) and The Guardian.
HBR applies a standalone about us page to list their authors.
Most of the author searches apply the author’s first name. If we take Alison Beard and apply her as a random example, we can observe that Google has related her to [HBR]. Such a result can recommend that Google has connected Alison Beard with HBR in its knowledge graph while she is not certain the one who must take the first position on Google.
In case we make a more navigational search, we really get a third-party site with the featured snippet.
An external site in this example is not the best place to read more HBR articles from Alison Beard.
In case we compare such search result to The Guardian for another author at random.
We get her author profile page as a URL on the Guardian site in the first position.
It is a perfect place to read her latest articles.
Let Author Biography Pages Be Indexed
The common misconception on author biography pages is that they must not be indexed.
Why?
Why have Googlebot let go of the page completely from Google Search results?
Similarly, the page might be blocked through the robots.txt file, the same with the Harvard Business Review:
People look for journalists or authors. Readers follow them and subscribe to their personal newsletters. This kind of traffic recommends loyal and avigational search traffic.
It is argued that some profile pages are of low quality and applied for link spam, and you might wish to no-index them.
Nevertheless, if Author Biography Page SEO is the focus and authors are experts of writing, ensuring that they are indexed and optimized is regarded as a no-brainer.
SEO Tips for Author Profile Pages
The keyword for author profile pages is the author’s name.
On-page SEO best measure, through the keyword, and hierarchy of the page are all essential factors.
For instance, if we take the example of Katharine Murphy from the Guardian mentioned above:
In addition, the Guardian performs a great job of author profile page internal linking. On the detail pages, the template links to their author profile pages through the byline on each article and in their author HTML sitemap: Furthermore, they provide internal link equity to this page through putting a link to its page through “All writers” on their footer template: Apply Structured Data
The application of article-specific structured data is needed to appear in Google’s top stories, when the content satisfies the fundamental Google News policies.
Since December 2019, while Google launched its Publisher Center, a manual process has not been needed while submitting websites to Google News.
While authorship markup is retired, forming authors in article structured data might not only be useful for publisher websites, but might be useful for all websites which develop news content.
Nevertheless, being eligible for Google News, and really being included are two various things.
Through structured data might support E-A-T through helping develop new connections Google would not have otherwise created in its Knowledge Graph.
Common Kinds of Author Bio Pages
The Complete Biography such as Name, Headshot, Biography, and Supporting Features
For SEO, the metadata are optimized appropriately: Here is what her profile performs appropriately:
• Perfect use of breadcrumbs to show site hierarchy and prepare the internal link equity and relevance.
• Fields of her “expertise” as listed which all link to treatment information pages.
• A professional personal statement written in the third person listing credentials, fields of expertise, and qualifications.
• A contact form to inspire the lead generation “Book an appointment now.”
• Videos, articles written, reviews, as well as the details of her areas of expertise with publications where she has written and links to her social media profiles.
• Structured data are on point.
• Top Doctors might have the best author biography page example there.
Other Author Biography Page Examples for SEO
• Top Doctors is especially magnificent in the medical space, while the following are some good author biography examples for SEO.
Publisher
David Leonhart’s profile in the New York Times is especially magnificent. Here, the biography links to their “The Morning” newsletter to inspire sign-ups, his background, industry awards, internal links to his noteworthy pieces such as the “increase of digital media” and information on his education.
Marketing
Out of the perfect profile page basics like written in the third person, information on experience and demonstration of expertise, the application of the CTA on Andy Crestodina’s profile page is what makes it good for a marketing author biography example.
Legal
Jill Greenfield’s personal injury biography pursues the author biography SEO best measure as mentioned above. The application of awards won in image format is strong.
Health and Well-Being
There are a lot of good SEO examples of author biography pages on authoritative health and well-being sites.
Such kinds of websites are directly categorized as the YMYL. In addition, those are unlucky enough to be in the niche from an SEO standpoint were believed to be hit the most difficult from the past core updates.
Google’s John Mueller has emphasized the significance of E-A-T for such a niche and raters were directed to place more weight on it while providing feedback to engineers.
It can be because Google and other tech giants falling to the media spotlight for helping the increase in misinformation and “fake news”, weak quality of online medical information, as well as vaccine misinformation.
Thus, Verywellfit.com does a perfect job in this niche with its pages and a perfect example to pursue.
As shown below, both the byline and the author biography page of the fact-checker pops out while your finger or cursor hang over them.
They develop a perfect user experience and inspire reader engagement without regarding them to a new URL or window.
The other smart action to inspire reader trust is the quick link to their editorial process. It is a stage some news sites fail to share in spite of diligent standards.
Sample Author Bio Template
Writing a perfect author biography must be regarded as significant as writing the article itself.
Nevertheless, if you are stuck on time or require a template you can share with your client/team member you can apply the following template. Mix into one paragraph: Ultimate Thoughts
There is more for writing a good author biography compared to SEO and showing E-A-T.
At the end of the day, it is just about the reader and how you can serve their requirements, gain their interest, and retain their attention.
Take this Dutch publisher’s subscriber functionality as an example on their author biography pages.
As a subscriber, it is probable to pursue her writing through receiving a push alert while she publishes next and have her articles involved in your daily newsletter. In terms of SEO, have standalone URLs for author profiles, letting them be indexed, and ensure that their on-page optimization for the author’s name are basic best measures.
However, if you are in a more scrutinized niche like YMYL, ensure to go into the details which show E-A-T as the Top Doctors example above has indicated.