Why EAT Will Be the Three Most Important Letters in SEO for 2015
2015 is just a few months away. Over the past year, we’ve seen considerable changes in the SEO industry.
Of course, we’ve seen considerable changes in the SEO industry every year since the internet was invented.
So what kinds of changes can we expect in 2015? And more importantly, how can your business take advantage of these changes to beat your competitors’ search rankings? Let’s find out.
Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EAT) are more important than ever before
Over the past few years, Google has implemented a number of algorithm changes that have heavily emphasized three characteristics:
-Expertise
-Authoritativeness
-Trustworthiness
Sites and businesses that can foster all three of these characteristics are likely to be rewarded with high search rankings.
From Penguin to Panda, Google’s major algorithm updates have all centered around these changes. Throughout 2015, Renew Marketing expects even more of these updates to take place.
Building expertise
How can you prove you’re an expert on a particular topic?
Well first, it’s a good idea to focus on a particular niche. If your small business sells bikes, then find experts who specialize in mountain biking, road biking, or other topics. Publish articles or videos by these experts on your blog.
This demonstrates your expertise in a particular topic while also building your company’s unique selling point, or USP.
Before long, your brand will be known for its expertise in a particular field, and once that occurs, backlinks and visitors start pouring in and Google starts to reward you with higher search rankings.
Obviously, producing expert-level content is easier said than done. Here are some tips to improve your expertise in the eyes of Google:
-Think of the unique skills and experience you or your employees have developed over the years. Is there any unique information you can add to the internet? Any industry tips, tricks, or guides you could talk about?
-Blog posts are good, but videos are often better. One viral YouTube video can change your business forever. Is anyone on your staff particular skilled, entertaining, or knowledgeable? Are there enough talking points in your niche to start an active YouTube channel?
-Look at your competitors’ websites and blogs. Are they talking about everything important in your industry, or are they missing a few essential concepts?
-Which kind of expert information would genuinely help your website’s visitors solve problems?
Growing authority
Authority, like expertise, cannot be grown overnight. It can, however, be promoted in a number of different ways.
Growing authority on the internet requires a careful balance of:
-Unique knowledge
-Expertise
-Brand recognition
Growing all three of these things takes time. You cannot grow brand recognition overnight, nor can you suddenly gain access to unique industry knowledge.
Of course, you can suddenly increase your brand presence. Let’s say you publish a controversial blog post with exclusive insider information. That blog post can go viral and, overnight, you could have significantly increased your brand’s presence.
A similar thing occurs when you publish an infographic online. Simply attach your company’s logo or URL to an infographic which features unique research or information. That infographic is sharable and demonstrates authority for your brand.
You can also hire experts or grow experts within your company. You may already have experts on a particular topic within your company. Maybe an accountant is particularly good with a certain type of software, or maybe a salesperson has some unique cold-calling sales tips.
When you provide useful, intelligent, and unique information to website visitors, you increase authority.
Do people link to your website? Are your product reviews quoted by notable publications? Do you have someone on your staff who is considered an expert or authority in any particular field? If so, then you’re well on your way to building authority.
On the more technical side of things, growing authority requires backlinks from other authority websites. If you follow the above tips, those backlinks will come naturally. Authority websites like to link to other authority websites – especially if you have access to some unique or exclusive information.
Fostering trustworthiness
Expertise and authority can be grown relatively quickly. But building trust takes much longer.
Human beings have a natural tendency to trust other humans. It’s difficult for humans to trust a website or a company, but they may trust the human beings behind that website.
That’s why fostering trustworthiness typically requires a personable approach to brand development. Here are some tips to increase the trustworthiness of your brand online:
-Have a personable social media presence. Can your customers easily contact your business online? Do you maintain an entertaining, interactive presence on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.?
-Has your business continually maintained strong ethical standards and practices? Have you ever given customers a reason not to trust you?
-Are all your employees committed to the same goals and company attitude? Or does your company lack a unified internal/external appearance?
-Do you have a strong privacy policy? Do you share information with third party advertising partners? Do you collect customer data? Have you ever experienced data leaks or other issues?
Building trust with Google and your customers is a lot like building trust with your friends or significant other. It requires a long-term commitment.
And just like in real life, trust is difficult to gain and easy to lose. One data leak or one stupid tweet and all your hard work could disappear.
Google is going to continue expanding the importance of Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness throughout the near future. Unless the company suddenly pulls a complete 180, EAT aren’t going away anytime soon. Start implementing the above tips into your online marketing strategies to expand your brand’s online presence.
