UPDATE JULY 2014: Google has now withrawn authorship photos from SERPs. We still recommend implementing authorship as results will still have a byline and your content will rank better for your Google+ connections.

Google have just announced that they are going to start showing author information in search results. This is great for author awareness and can help Google raise the rankings of pages written by authority figures. It is also great for SEO's who are worried that al the great content they are writing is getting ripped off or assigned to the wrong author!

Even better, Google are replacing 'rel=author' and 'rel=me' tags and are instead automatically linking your Google+ profile to content you have written. All you have to do now is add the URLs of the sites you write for to your Google+ profile, and then when scanning those sites, Google will attribute any posts with your author name to you. Then when those posts appear in search results they will come with a 'Written by' box including a link to your G+ page. It should end up looking like this:

So why the need for this new change when Google first announced author tags last year?

The web is alight with Google+ fever at the moment, and it seems that Google might have come up with a Social Networking concept that will truly challenge Facebook.

Like everyone else we've been getting to grips with how to get the best out of our profiles.

We've also devised a natty method for customising your Google+ profile design using tiled images.

pimp your-google+ profile

And what's more we've put together a Photoshop Template to make it easy to implement for anyone who knows a bit of Photoshop (for those that don't - we run a great 2-day Photoshop course here in Brighton!)

We're sure you can all come up with some brilliant and creative ways of using the method to customize Google+ profiles that really stand out - we'd love to see the results - so if you use our template please post a link to your profile in the comments section so we can check out your work.

If you're on Google Plus - follow us in the following places for all our goodies: Andy Trainer | Heather Buckley

Here's our step by step guide to customize your Google+ Profile using our PSD Template.

NEW - Check out our selection of the most creative Google+ profile designs!

Step 2:

Open up the template in Photoshop. We've left the images of my face in the template so you can see how it all works - but if you don't want to see my face (and I can sympathise with your position if you don't) then either hide or delete the "Colin" Layers!

Next you'll want to import the image (or images) that you want to use in your own profile.

To do this, select File > Place and select your image file.

Drag and resize it so its in the correct position, and hit enter to place it:

 Click on the image for full size version

The Google+ communities uptake seems to have been staggering but the roll-out hasn't been without its issues. The site seems to be struggling with the amount of activity - so far we've had crashes and glitches galore, but hopefully that won't be a long-lasting issue.

As we've been creating our own Community pages today, we've been learning ourselves how and what to do with them.

Make sure you know your G+ from your LinkedIn by trying our Social Media Courses.

So to help you avoid some of the mistakes we made (believe me, there have been quite a few!) we decided to put together an FAQs post about how to use Communities. We hope this proves helpful but if you do have any other questions, feel free to comment, Tweet or even get in contact on g+ itself and we'll do our best to give you some answers.

Social Media Marketing is now essential for brand reputation and for SEO. But, more than that, it’s an effective way of connecting with existing and prospective customers, and providing customer service.

It’s not enough to set up a Twitter account and post daily about your products or services – you need to maintain an online presence and engage with your followers – just one example of how businesses aren’t using social media to its full potential.

We offer a 2-day Social Media course which is jam packed with advice, guidance, strategic tips, what-to-dos and what-not-to-dos. The course is continually updated with the latest developments in the industry, and you leave ready to begin (or revamp) your business’s social media campaign.

For those who are thinking of coming on the course, or those who can’t make it to Brighton (although we’re happy to train you on site!), here’s our Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing. We hope it helps!

Our #1 Ultimate Most Important Top Tip

The number one thing to be aware of is that social media marketing is not about you - it's about them ('them' being your followers, those who like your pages, your connections and your circles). Never forget to ask yourself what you want to see on social media from a business – and that constant self-promotion is the quickest way to put people off. I see examples of this happening every day.

With that in mind, I’ll take you through how to apply this principle to the various social networks.