How to add a named author and bio to your pages
A named author with a short bio builds trust and supports the experience and expertise signals Google looks for. Show the byline on the page, add a meta author tag, and include the author in Article structured data with a link to an about page.
By ratemysite.ai editorial team. Updated .
How do you fix it?
- Add a visible byline such as "By Jane Smith" near the title, and link the name to an author or about page.
- Write a 2 to 3 sentence bio that states the real experience the author has with the topic.
- Add <meta name="author" content="Jane Smith"> to the head.
- Add an author object with name and url to your Article JSON-LD.
- Re-run the audit and confirm the Author check passes.
What is E-E-A-T and where does the author fit?
E-E-A-T is a Google framework that stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust, used by quality raters to judge content. It is not a direct ranking factor, but it shapes how raters assess pages and how systems are tuned. Anonymous content gives readers nothing to trust. A named author, with a bio that shows real background, answers the question "who wrote this and why should I believe them?" in one glance.
How do I mark up an author correctly?
Show the byline in the page, because visible information matters more than hidden tags. Then repeat it in machine readable form: the meta author tag and the author field of Article JSON-LD, with the same spelling in both. Link the name to a page that lists the person's other articles and public profiles. Keep the bio factual, with roles and years of experience rather than praise, and update it when the person's role changes.
How much does this check matter?
- This check is worth about 1.7% of the overall score.
- A finished report is reused for 24 hours before you can re-analyze it.
- Each page is fetched with a timeout of 10 seconds, and HTML larger than 2 MB is not audited.
What else do people ask?
- Can the author be a company?
- Yes, for corporate content. Use the organization name, link to an about page and keep the author consistent across pages. A named expert is stronger for advice topics.
- Does an author page need to exist?
- It helps. A short page with a photo, bio and links to profiles lets engines confirm the person is real.