Google recently introduced a new way to identify, validate, and rank content called “Authorship.”  This is accomplished by linking your Google+ Profile, which should contain a head shot picture, to the content (article posts) on your WordPress site.

By claiming ownership of your content, it enables Google to know that the article was presumably written by a real human being, you, as it is linked to a Google+ Profile.  When your article appears in the Google search results, a picture of you will be displayed next to the search results.

The coolest things about the new Authorship search result are the two links: “by Jason Palmer” and “More by Jason Palmer.”  When you click on the “by Jason Palmer”, you will see my Google+ Profile page.  When you click on the “More by Jason Palmer”, you get a mini-Google Search engine of all my content which enables readers to find other articles that I have written.

Google has not yet fully disclosed exactly how the new Authorship link will improve your content position.  One could assume that authenticated content will rank higher because it is from a real person instead of an anonymous source that could have simply plagiarized or copied it and republished it with erroneous attribution.

Another great benefit is that if you use Google Analytics, you will get additional activity statistics on your Google Authorship enabled content.

If you have the Genesis Framework, implementing Google Authorship can be accomplished in three easy steps:  Find your Google+ Profile URL; Enter it in the Google+ box on your user profile page in WordPress; Add your site to your “Contribute To” section in your Google+ Profile.  Rather than duplicate other great content, see this article at CopyBlogger.com “Claim Google Authorship for Your WordPress Website in 3 Easy Steps” for screen shots and an extended narrative on how to do it.

If you are not using the Genesis Framework, you can use a generic “Google Authorship” WordPress plugin to accomplish the same task.

Two of the more popular “Google Authorship”  WordPress Plugin options are:
Google+ Authorship WordPress Plugin by WP-Buddy.com (Pro Version $8)
and
AuthorSure WordPress Plugin by Authorsure.com

Once you have this setup, you can test what your article search results will look like with the “Google Structured Data Testing Tool” available in the Google Webmaster Tools site.

If you are still not convinced of the value, again from CopyBlogger.com, here is another great article entitled, “10 Reasons Writers Should Claim Their Google Authorship Markup”