It seems to be the hot topic at the moment, but I did initially find it quite difficult to sift through all the long, in-depth instructional “How To” articles to find a simple step-by-step guide to implementing sitewide Google Authorship Markup on WordPress, so I thought I would try and offer a simple set of instructions. For a fantastic (and far more in-depth) alternative also covering blogs with multiple authors, check out Joost De Valk’s guide to implementing Google Authorship Markup.

1. Get a Google+ Profile

Most of you will have done this already – just make sure the photo is a clear headshot. I don’t think it’s quite as strict as applying for a passport, but better to be safe than sorry because you can bet Google won’t give you a reason if they decide your photo isn’t appropriate for the SERPs.
 

2. Add your site to the list of sites that you ‘contribute’ to

Edit Profile > Contributor To

3. In WordPress, add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file

This will stop WordPress from stripping all links of “rel” attributes: 


function yoast_allow_rel() {
global $allowedtags;
$allowedtags[‘a’][‘rel’] = array ();
}
add_action( ‘wp_loaded’, ‘yoast_allow_rel’ );

 

4. Choose a Page to Use as Your Author Page and Link to it Using rel=”author”

If you want your picture to show up in the SERPs for every page on your site then you can go into the menu manager in WordPress and change the link relationship of your “About Me” page (or any other top level page for that matter) to “author” and that will add the rel=”author” for you. 

5. Link To Your Google+ Profile From Your Author Page Using rel=”me”

You must also include a “+” symbol as either the first or last character in the anchor text – eg. MikeHall+
 

6. Fill in This Form:

Google Authorship Request Form 

Sit Back and Wait for your Page to be Cached

Once you have been approved as an author (which seems to take a couple of days) and Google has then had a chance to go back and cache your site’s pages, you’ll start seeing something like this