If you have noticed recently, when you perform a search in Google, some of the search results have a profile picture (of the author) displayed beneath the link. There are no special privilege for these authors, nor did they pay Google to do it. If you are a blogger or content creator, you can get your picture in the search result as well, for free. Here is how to do it.
Setup Google Profile
Obviously, if you want to display your Google Profile picture, you need to have a Google Profile. If you already have a Google account (or Gmail address), you already have a Google Profile. Log into your Google account and setup your Google Profile. Remember to upload a photo of you (not any other thing) as it will be used in the search result.
Before Google can display your profile picture, you need to establish authorship of your site. This is to let Google knows that you are the original author of your content. To do that, you just have to insert a link to your Google Profile with the parameter “?rel=author” in every single page of your site. For example, you can insert a link at the end of your content. Or insert an empty link if you don’t want anything to show up. To use Google+ image instead of text, go to this site and enter your Google Profile URL. Grab the generated code and embed it into your content.
Next, go to your Google Profile and click “Edit Profile”. At the About tab, click “Contributor to” and enter the name and URL of your website. Save the changes and click “Finished Editing”.
Lastly, complete this form so Google can contact you for any implementation issue.
That’s it.
