Pam Aungst of Pam Ann Marketing Speaks About The Importance of Author Bios
There are a plethora of ways to get information on the web. Knowing whether this information is true or false, however, can be challenging. When users run searches online, they are met with thousands, sometimes more, results for articles that are related to their inquiry.
At Pam Ann Marketing, president of the company Pam Aungst puts strong value in letting users know who is credible and who is not, and believes that this is an important part of an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy.
Google Guru John Mueller Speaks About Author Bios
John Mueller, a Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, touched upon the subject of including credible author biographies on individuals’ websites in a recent Google Webmaster Hangout. He spoke of Google’s EAT principle, an acronym for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. The concept of EAT comes from Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines, which according to Mueller are “basically the guidelines that we give the folks who help us to improve our algorithms overall.”
“It’s not the case that anything that a search quality rater would do would immediately affect your website,” says Mueller.
This resulted in some people falling under the impression that author bios are not an asset for SEO, as an article in SEJ News by Roger Montii concludes.
However, Mueller adds, “It’s worth keeping in mind that our quality raters…help us to improve our algorithms so that we can automatically review or algorithmically review the whole web when it comes to understanding the relevance of these pages.”
He goes on to say that website owners should, “Figure out how you can best show that the people who are creating content for your website [are] really great people, they’re people who know what they’re talking about, they have credentials, or whatever is relevant within your field.”
Mueller conveyed that users should focus on the concept of having bios as a user experience issue, rather than a technical one. He stated that this gives a website better quality. “So that’s less something where I would focus on this as a technical thing.”
Impact of Author Bios
Pam Aungst of Pam Ann Marketing prefers to make it known who is responsible for creating each article on a website.
“I tell everyone, all our clients, to include bio pages for each of the authors on their site,” states Aungst. Aungst has been adamant on this concept for at least five years, as stated in a previous article about the importance of author bios from 2014.
“By Mueller saying that you should focus on it as a user experience issue, and since Google always says that user experience is one of the most important things in SEO, then it is an SEO issue,” Aungst concludes on the subject of bios in Search Engine Optimization.
In the following Google Webmaster Hangout, Mueller speaks of evaluating website quality in light of the recent core algorithm update in June. He recommends having people not associated with your website review your website for trustworthiness, citing a lack of knowledge of author credentials in the following example of feedback this exercise might produce.
“Well I don’t know if I could really trust your website because it looks outdated or because I don’t know who these people are who are writing about things,” said Mueller.
All of this information could be learned in an author’s online biography, which would include their name, their position in business and their accomplishments. These are all key aspects which prove their knowledge and experience in various fields or subjects.
“Maybe it isn’t required, but I like to play it safe. With the information we’ve been given, it sounds like it might be something that Google algorithms are indirectly being influenced by,” Aungst speculates.
Author Bio Examples
Here is an example of an author bio from the president of Pam Ann Marketing, Pam Aungst herself. It states her history in the world of computer programming and e-commerce, as well as her professional accomplishments:
Here is another example of a credible author bio by Barry Schwartz, a well-known blogger in the SEO industry:
Note how both of these author bio excerpts link through to a full author bio, providing readers with yet another opportunity to do a very thorough author credibility analysis. That is a practice that Aungst also recommends in addition to including a short bio at the end of each article on a website.
Author Bios Verify Reputation
Google has reiterated their assertion that there is a difference between the quality rater guidelines and the algorithms themselves, clarifying that the quality rater guidelines are used to provide feedback on and improve their algorithms. Despite some discussion on whether author bios should be referred to as a technical issue or a user experience issue, it is clear that showing author credibility is an important aspect of website quality and reliability.
To learn more about the SEO consulting services that Pam Ann Marketing provides, you can submit an inquiry here.
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