Did you know that 89% of consumers use search engine results to influence their purchase decisions? Additionally, 77% of B2B buyers declare that they won’t reach out to a sales representative before they carry out their research on the web.
Is your business positioned to grab this traffic?
With such high stakes on the table, search engine optimization (SEO) is increasingly becoming a must-have for companies and brands.
But for your SEO strategy to yield valuable results, you need to work on your E-A-T. If you are wondering, “What does EAT mean?” then here is a guide to help you understand its value and how you can optimize for it.
What Does EAT Mean?
E-A-T in SEO is an acronym that stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
Essentially, E-A-T is the measure through which a website can ultimately matter more to a user in a meaningful manner. E-A-T is essential as it’s one means through which Google fights misinformation.
There are three pillars to E-A-T, and for you to generate the best results, you need to have an in-depth view of each aspect.
1. Expertise
Traditionally, being an expert means that you have in-depth domain knowledge of a particular area or subject. When it comes to SEO, having a tremendous wealth of knowledge is not nearly enough to deliver the traffic you desire.
High-value knowledge is only useful when you can communicate it in a way that resonates with your target audience. Failure to do this can get your site to be perceived as a low-quality one. To do this, you need to have deep insight into what your audience desires.
When you can correctly point out the audience’s needs, then you can tailor-make your knowledge for them to best pick it up.
2. Authoritativeness
While it pays to be an expert, it’s only part of the three-pronged E-A-T approach. Many professionals who study SEO trends tend to lay extra weight on expertise, but authority is just as critical.
Developing content that can get other experts in your field to reference you is a level up from merely being an expert. You now become an expert with authority, and search engines love such experts.
With this in mind, you must develop a strategy that enables you to grow and sustain your brand online. When users specifically look up your brand, it can act as a signal to your authoritativeness.
An even better outlook for this is when users run searches for your brand name together with specific keywords. That acts as proof that your target audience connects your brand with particular expertise that they value.
3. Trustworthiness
Many people assume that once you achieve authoritativeness, it comes with guaranteed trustworthiness. Not so. You must work to optimize the integrity of your brand, or else all the hard work you have put into being an expert with authority can fly out the window.
Developing trustworthiness primarily revolves around dealing with any negative sentiment towards your brand.
Therefore, as you surprise and delight your clients, you should seek to deal with any negative feedback swiftly. If you don’t, over time, such sentiment will build up and eventually move the search engine to designate your site as a low-quality one.
How You Can Promote Your E-A-T Markers
Once you grasp the critical importance of fostering E-A-T, the question becomes how you can go about optimizing it.
Here are some practical tips to help you begin improving your E-A-T markers.
1. Include Author Bios
An author bio is essential to any piece of content you put out as it helps establish your credentials. A bio not only tells the audience who developed the content, but it also makes a case for why the author is best placed to create such material.
Even if you are a nationally recognized brand, it’s essential always to include author bios. It is that consistent pointing to why you qualify to speak on an issue that builds credibility over time, coupled with other factors, of course.
2. Fact-Checking From Experts
When you develop content that’s not in your primary field of expertise, you need to hire professionals to fact check it for you. Investing in this is especially critical if you tend to source material from content creators.
You can leverage the experience of great content creators and seek the stamp of approval by real-world experts on the subject matter.
Don’t forget to mention in your content that your material has been fact-checked by a qualified professional. Where possible, go a step further to name the professional.
3. Recommendations from Experts
Having your content recommended by noted experts in a particular field is a clear signal of your authoritativeness. To execute this, you need to cultivate links from other authoritative and relevant websites that point to your material.
However, you have to ensure that you regularly scan the incoming links from other websites using a domain authority tool. Doing so frequently can help you better determine what you need to work on to gain more authority.
Another signal that you are an authoritative source would be to garner mentions on authoritative sites or in the news. In relation to this, getting others to share your content on social media organically also counts towards increasing your authority score.
4. Clear Contact Information and Location
You should not underestimate the value of adding a transparent and credible way that visitors to your site can reach you. Knowing you can be easily reached counts quite a bit towards your site being considered as trustworthy.
To enhance the effect of credible contact information, you can also associate your site with a physical location. For example, if you can link to your office or outlet location. That helps users realize that they can trust you are a real and existing operation beyond your web presence.
Make Your Website More Valuable
Business buyers and end consumers now use search engine results to determine how they will spend their money. It’s, therefore, imperative that you position your firm to grab this traffic and convert it if you’re going to grow.
SEO can help you achieve this goal, and working on your EAT is critical for valuable SEO results. When you can accurately answer the question, “What does EAT mean?” you’ll be well on your way to garnering remarkable SEO results.
Is your passion understanding how SEO can help lift your business? Check out more of our content on ways and tools you can use to make your digital marketing more fruitful.