Google Authorship, easy to setup and use.

Woohoo I've just been added to the Google Authorship program. Check out the screenshot below and then I'll tell you a little bit more about what this means and why you want to do this for your own website and your own Google Plus profile.

First, this came as a surprise. I forgot that I had applied for this at all. I had just been following the instructions on how to add your authorship to your posts and link it to your google plus account. But once I saw the email I remembered I had done this a couple months back I think. It took them a while!

This is a good thing because it establishes your content as your own, first. Second, your content is more likely to show up to your friends and people that follow you on Google+ or are somehow connected to you via your friends and family. This is how Google is using Google Plus data; to connect the dots and give you more relevant results.

Pretty cool if you ask me.

edit: forgot to link stuff up for you guys (Thanks Jeff!)

You can read all about the Google Authorship program from inside search at Google. After you read through that you can get started. Here is the form to join the Authorship program. After you've set it up, and while you're trying to get your website setup to work with this, you may need to check if you're doing it right. This tool lets you do that, it's called the Structured Data Testing Tool. After setting my website up, this is what it looks like when I query it:

If you really want to geek out and learn much more than you've hoped for, read this great article by Searchengineland: The definitive guide to Google Authorship markup.