Any time you write an article for the internet, you give credit to the author. At least, you should. An author bio is a great chance to gain additional SEO value, and it’s a chance that far too many publications overlook. So how can you optimise your author bios in a way that gives your whole site value?

Authorship provides validity and authority to readers and search engines alike, and is an ever-increasing measure of importance when it comes to search engine optimization and performance in the search results.

Here’s some top advice on how to write the perfect SEO-friendly author bio.

Why the author bios matter

Google has a history of looking at who is writing your content, and now that expertise, authority, and trust are metrics that Google is evaluating, your author bio is (without question) an important component in this. After all, expertise and authority depends heavily on the author.

How to Write an Optimised Author Bio

A good author bio is relatively short, but that doesn’t mean it’s not finely crafted. Some of the hardest SEO writing in the world is writing short pieces like the author’s bio, product descriptions, and meta descriptions.

Follow these four tips when writing a description about each of your authors:

1. Keep it relatively short

Most author bios are between 50 and 100 words long. Some websites even give you a fixed allotment of space, either of words or of characters. Trying to keep your bio under 100 words is generally a good place to be.

2. Write in the third person

When you write in the first person, you’re drawing the reading into a more intimate understanding of who you are, and that can undermine your authority. People are used to factual information being delivered with impartial authority and power.

3. Include information about your credentials

Who are you, that people should listen to you? What have you done that is noteworthy enough to be mentioned? List your credentials, such as past jobs, years of experience in a certain field, citations and supporting content to build a bigger picture.

4. Include information about where you can be found

This could be a link back to your homepage, or a mention of social media profiles so people (and Google) can dig a little deeper.

Three technical SEO factors to consider

1. Use Schema markup

Schema.org is a type of structured data that Google and other search engines have adopted to get more value out of individual pieces of content. It allows you to say who the actual author of a post is rather than hope the search engines pick up based on the format of your site. It’s not normally a problem, but Google gives a small bonus to sites that use markup.

2. Keep your author pages separate

Google will be able to crawl information about each author a lot easier if the information is kept on separate pages. This is good practice.

3. Link to supporting pages

Linking to supporting pages that add credibility to an author is a great way to improve authoritativeness. See how LOYAL can help with the linking process. 

Getting authorship right is a great way to add authority and trust to your publication. Choosing the right author is a top priority, of course, but getting this information across to Google is good best practice for any organisation.