Authors posts not showing in SERPS under their names

[andymossy]

I have a consumer travel site https://tripreporter.co.uk/ with 27 travel writers. All the posts are linked to each author via their own home page but none of the posts show in SERPS when searching under each author name. The posts do show when searching the post title, so no index issues.
How can I link each post to the author so the search engines match the posts to the authors?

[sybrew]

Hello!

Google currently only shows a few results from a site in the SERP. So, when you query for an author, you most likely get the author's archive/landing page.

Unfortunately, I know no method circumventing this, aside from using advanced site:example.com queries, which your visitors probably won't use.

You can link authors to the post, however. You can do this with structured data:
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/article

We only hold anecdotal evidence on its efficacy (News Articles definitely work, though).

Nevertheless, you can implement it easily with the Articles extension we provide. However, I'm sure you won't achieve your goal of prominently displaying the author's articles on Google with it.

[andymossy]

Thanks for the swift reply Sybre. Would it help if I put in the author's name in the SEO meta description or the excerpt panel?

[sybrew]

Hi Andy, I don't think that will be very helpful.

Yes, it's more likely that the author's name is displayed on Google, but it'll also take up space that could be used to convey the topic of the article.

I can't say whether it will help the articles outrank the author's pages. You'll have to test this for yourself 😄

[andymossy]

Ok, appreciate the feedback.
A