Using rel=author on your blog appropriately could be the most important SEO technique this year.  Why?  Well, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt released an excerpt from his upcoming book “The New Digital Age”, which sent digital marketing heads spinning and offered great insight into the direction Google search is headed this year.

“Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.”

Irrelevance.  Let’s read that one more time.  Irrelevance.  Google's Chairman is flat out telling us that unless your blog is properly using rel=author, you might as well not be writing it.  Google is always working to improve search to make it more intuitive, and to help search bring you the relevant content you are looking for.  What better way to do this than to connect you with like-minded people and the content they engage with?

Searchenginewatch.com does a great job of outlining some of the data points that highlight the importance of author rank on your blog.  Author Eric Enge says:

“When I wrote it, I was focused on emphasizing that people don't want to interact with nameless behemoths, or ‘anonymous.’ Seems that Google doesn't want to either.”

The things that are truly important online – the things that draw attention and generate ROI – are human-to-human interactions.  We all know that word of mouth (WOM) is the golden goose of marketing, and even in the digital age that rings true.  Without rel=author, your blog is a thing.  Your blog needs to be people in order to truly take full advantage of this invaluable business tool.