Provide value by using EEAT as your starting point

Ed says: “Start with EEAT and the rest will follow.”

How do we start with EEAT?

“EEAT is a slightly imaginary metric that a lot of SEOs often overlook. In recent years it’s really risen to prominence in terms of just how important it is. Previously, it was especially for YMYL websites whereas now, in the age of AI, it’s for every website.

Starting with EEAT means having that value proposition early on in all of your messaging and making sure that everything you publish on your website has some form of value attributed to it. It also means not just publishing content via ghostwriters and not having any author bios present. Make sure that users, website visitors, and ultimately search engines can understand who is behind the content and why that content was published.

Obviously, we want to gain brand exposure, brand visibility, new customers, potential clients, and new business, but the ‘Why?’ will help you deliver your value proposition: I’m looking to educate. I’m looking to solve a problem for somebody. I’m looking to provide the value that has ultimately led the user to use a search engine that day.”

Should SEOs be doing some kind of EEAT analysis for every existing page on a site?

“Definitely, especially for service-led pages. If someone is going to be working with a specific member of your team, making that person’s information readily available on the corresponding service or landing page raises your prominence and brings the human element that ultimately drives EEAT.

From a user’s perspective, they get to see the person that they might be working with. They can get an idea of who they are and why they should feel comfortable trusting this individual to support their business, offer them a service, or sell them a product.

These can be product specialists but it could be anyone who is trying to sell you anything. It could be someone giving you tech insight on whether you should choose Apple or Windows, Apple or Android, etc. For anything like that, having someone who can act as a figurehead really raises the status of the interaction. Ultimately, it’s not [Company A] telling you [XYZ]; it’s the person within [Company A] who has this experience and is offering you their insight.”

Why should you start with EEAT at the beginning of your marketing strategy and how does that work?

“By starting with EEAT, while the rest of the strategy evolves with sales funnels, etc., the messaging stays consistent. When you are retroactively adding people in and then crafting an almost-false narrative on your website – where information has been published by the company and is then attributed to a person – 3/6/12 months down the line, there are changes in staff and there’s no consistent messaging.

If you integrate EEAT at the very start of your strategy then you are futureproofing yourself, but you’re also doing something that a lot of businesses overlook. Commonly, you will be looking at competitors that you’re striving to beat one day, and they have the luxury of 10-15 years in the industry. There is already a level of trust attributed to the domain and the brand.

Focusing on EEAT from the very start is how you can fast-track your way into ranking prominently, especially if you’re starting out. You are showing who you are and what your credentials are, and nothing’s being hidden. You’ve got clear messaging that basically says, ‘You can trust us, and here’s why’, or ‘You can feel safe transacting with us because we’re regulated, and we have all of these trusted accreditations’. Integrating that from the very start raises you at least two, three, or four steps up from the next person looking to start up in your space.”

What elements of Experience are websites missing out on in 2024 and beyond?

“From an Experience perspective, everyone tends to just say, ‘The company has been operating for the past 20 years’. It’s all well and good to highlight that because it gives you a quantifier. X years of experience should show expertise and, if the company has been running for 5/10/15 years, there is that element of authority within the industry and trustworthiness.

However, when it comes to Experience, a lot of people overlook the journey and progression of a brand. You’ll often see people saying that they’ve grown loads in the past 20 years, but having a real timeline saying, ‘The company was founded [Here] by [Person A] and [Person B]. Over the years, the workforce has gone from five employees up to 500.’ really starts to paint that narrative. It shows the scale. It gives an idea of what the mission statement was and how true they’ve stayed to it, but also what obstacles they’ve overcome and how they’ve managed it.

You can even include things like COVID, how you managed to navigate that, and either elevate your services or maintain consistent growth in a time when a lot of industries and businesses were struggling.”

What’s an element of Expertise that tends to be missing?

“Expertise can be related to awards, accreditations, partnerships, and also any third-party media mentions. Not necessarily direct PR mentions that are very self-serving, but where you’ve been shortlisted for an award and you have coverage on external websites. Centralise that information and make it accessible to the user and search engine bots on your website.

This can be through an In The News section, In The Media, or even a press package. It will centralise that information and create a digital business card saying, ‘You can trust us. This is where we’re featured. We’re experts in our field and here are other people who can vouch for that.’”

What about Authoritativeness?

“Authoritativeness lends into the Experience and Expertise side of things, through having years within the industry, having awards, highlighting that, and even mentioning times where you’ve been shortlisted for things or you’ve contributed to other articles.

It can also simply be having policy pages on your website. Having a publication policy on your website shows that any writer or contributor to the website has to follow a certain set of rules and guidelines. You are ensuring that your content is of the highest quality, it can be trusted, everything is well cited, and you are referencing data and any external websites that you use. That helps to build credibility behind every piece of content and everything that the business puts out.”

Does Trustworthiness blend in with other elements or are there distinct elements of trust that you’d like to highlight?

“Trustworthiness is, in my opinion, the most important aspect of EEAT. However, it is generated by all the other steps. If your website is Trustworthy, you’re displaying Experience, Expertise and Authority. It takes all of these components working cohesively to form a website that efficiently achieves that EEAT strategy.

There are additional things that you can do. If you are an e-commerce brand, show what payment types you accept, have clear refunds, returns, and shipping information, and other policy pages like that. Make your contact information easily findable and basically ensure that there is nothing hidden on your website. Everything should be easily accessible, and users shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to find ways of getting in touch with you if they have any sort of dispute.

You can have reviews and testimonials, including a blend of both the good and the bad. If you see a website or a business that has 500 five-star reviews and no negatives at all, you know that something a bit untoward is going on. No business is perfect, and you shouldn’t pretend that it is. I’m not saying that you actively want to display one or two-star reviews but there should be a blend of five-, four-, and three-star reviews.

How you respond to them is also incredibly important. If someone offers you constructive criticism then you can say, ‘Thank you so much for this insight. We’ll review this and see how we can apply it to the business going forward.’ That shows commitment, and that you’re not just content with how things currently are. You’re constantly looking to improve which, as we know, is part of Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines as well. Any website that’s consistently putting care and attention into the content it puts out and its relationship with customers is always going to outperform someone that doesn’t.

It may take a longer time, especially when you’re starting off. SEO is a long game. You can’t just do these things, increase your EEAT by 20 points, and then suddenly start ranking. However, integrating it into the day-to-day business and your ongoing marketing strategy is one thing that will really solidify your business for success going forward.”

Can you carry out one EEAT audit and implement those changes into the production of your future content or should you carry out further audits as well?

“Definitely continuously audit. It could be little things. If you have an evergreen piece of content, even if you don’t physically update anything that’s on it, at least have a note on the blog article or landing page that says, ‘This page was recently reviewed on [X date] by [Person A] to ensure accuracy’.

That’s another signal, in the grand scheme of your EEAT strategy, that shows you’re not throwing up a singular piece of content and saying, ‘Fantastic. High fives and handshakes all round. That’s job done.’ You’re continuously making sure that every bit of content you have on your website is factually accurate at all times.

At Swoop, when interest rates change or schemes end, we have to update the website content to ensure that we’re reflecting the current rates on loans, interest rates, etc. to make sure the user isn’t misinformed. We’re also regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, so we have to ensure that everything we do is above board and hitting those criteria. This obviously fits into YMYL but there is no reason why any other website shouldn’t be doing this to make sure that they are meeting or exceeding what is expected from an EEAT perspective.”

How do you measure EEAT success?

“EEAT success is the continuous growth of your website. Obviously, this also relies on the other content that you’re putting out, the feed of content, and the improvement in rankings, but the real testament to it is continuous growth. It can also be the fact that, when core algorithm updates happen or there is volatility, your website isn’t impacted.

Google will always say that, when a website gets affected by a core algorithm update, it’s not necessarily that they’re doing anything wrong; it’s just that other websites are doing something right. Starting with EEAT will ensure that your website is doing something right because you’re focusing solely on white hat tactics, you’re focusing on EEAT, and you’re delivering that value to your website visitors.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2024?

“Don’t go too big too soon. Everyone wants to go after these high-volume keywords that offer 20,000/30,000/40,000 monthly searches. That’s not immediately obtainable and, realistically, the brands that are already holding those rankings are going to hold them for a very long time.

You need to focus on the long-tail searches and weave your experts into that. Really create a persona and a voice for your brand as an authority within these long-tail searches. Over time, you’ll be able to compete for the bigger, higher volume searches that will ultimately generate a higher volume of traffic, almost as a vanity metric. We all want more users on our website, but we know that the long-tail high-intent searches are the ones that are actually going to convert. They’re far more transactional whereas a seed keyword has a lot of discovery, informational, and navigational intent behind it.

Focus on long-tail. Build your authority within a certain aspect of the business. Have your experts reviewing, publishing, and vouching for content. Have clear experts listed on-site, cite their credentials, and really build them up as people within the organization. Over time, you may well see that you’re ranking for that seed keyword you initially wanted to target as a byproduct of going after the long-tail keywords.”

Ed Ziubrzynski is Global SEO and Content Manager at Swoop Funding, and you can find him over at SwoopFunding.com.