Experience. Expertise. Authority. Trustworthiness. No matter how many times Google representatives like to insist it’s not a ranking factor, thanks to the way human brains work, it absolutely is.
While there may not be specific scores in the algorithms for this one, E-E-A-T is really what earns people’s trust, attention, and retention. All of which point good signals back to the search engines that your content is worth reading.
But here’s the thing a lot of people misunderstand about this SEO principle. You don’t need to cram all four components into every piece of content. In fact, they should be spread out according to content type. The way I see it, it goes a bit like this:
- Experience: mentions in your website copy of how long you’ve worked in the industry supported by proof across other sites like LinkedIn and how long your name has been attached to various roles across the internet
- Expertise: this is built up over time via your blogs and case studies in particular. Proof that you know what you’re doing and you’ve done it before
- Authority: similarly to expertise, this one is focused largely on your SEO content over time, with a sprinkling of mentions in and backlinks from other industry publications
- Trustworthiness: this one focuses primarily on your website copy and social proof like case studies and testimonials. Bonus points for testimonials on other sites like Google reviews, LinkedIn recommendations, Feefo, and other platforms
There’s a lot more that goes into E-E-A-T than this, but this provides you with a quick overview. Even Google’s own guidelines on the matter are vague, but this one extract really pops out:
Of these aspects, trust is most important. The others contribute to trust, but content doesn’t necessarily have to demonstrate all of them [E-E-A-T]. For example, some content might be helpful based on the experience it demonstrates, while other content might be helpful because of the expertise it shares.
So why is trust the more important signal? And what can we do to help it along?
Trust is the most important part of E-E-A-T
Trust is the real endpoint of experience, expertise, and authority. And especially when you’re running a B2B business, one that typically requires either a larger or a longer term investment than many B2C businesses, trust is paramount to actually converting your customers.
We have to think about the balance between trust as an SEO signal and building trust as user experience and conversion optimisation best practices. Because, sure, getting more organic traffic is great. But what happens when someone lands on the site? How do they know they can trust you?
Trust as an SEO signal
The most important thing to remember is that for anything to be a ranking factor, it relies on data and algorithms. In the case of trust we’re looking at things like:
- Existence and prominence of case studies on your domain
- Reviews on external sites like Google Reviews, LinkedIn Recommendations, Feefo, Trust Pilot, etc
- Organic mentions in industry publications
- Bylines in other publications (which also contributes to authority and expertise)
- Coverage in news outlets and other broader publications
- Maintenance of SSL certificates
All of these things are trackable, measurable, and able to be allocated within an algorithm. But what about the human visitors of your website?
Trust as a user experience and conversion optimisation best practice
So you’ve done the things to catch the algorithm’s attention. What do you do to keep users not only engaged but willing to convert on your website? Here are the things to focus on in your website copy:
- Jargon-free language and clear copy
- Plenty of white space to make it easier to read the copy
- Font size no smaller than 16
- Key information easily available at a glance (pricing, packages, timelines, process, etc.)
- Consistent heading structure, both in tags (H1, H2, H3) and in design
- Nested headings (you’ll see that on this blog post here. The H1 at the top of the page, followed by H2s and relevant H3s nested underneath. This one is good for both SEO and user experience)
- Integrating testimonials and links to relevant case studies within your copy
- Consistent tone of voice that actually sounds like a human
- No AI-generated website copy. It sounds too much like everyone else and a lot of people are sick to death of reading the same tone/vibe everywhere
Trust is both the most important signal for the search engines and for your conversion rate. So don’t get stuck on just the SEO side of things.
You have more control over your UX than you do your SEO
That’s not to say SEO isn’t important, we all know it is. Especially as zero-click search and generative engines are on the rise. However, you have direct control over the usability of your website. There are no SEO tactics that are guaranteed to bring you success. You do the things you’re told to do and sit and wait for the results. You won’t always have a clear insight into why they did or didn’t work. All you can do is follow best practices and hope for the best.
User experience on the other hand is controlled entirely within your own website. So you don’t have a good reason to not optimize for it. There’s, of course, a shit ton of testing you can do for UX. Everything from heat mapping to customer surveys to A/B testing can be a huge help to understand how users behave on your site.
But if you don’t have access to those tools (either financially or from in-house resource), you can start with the list above when it’s time to refresh your website. In fact, if you can do those things right now without breaking your site, I highly recommend it.
Website copy is a vital part of user experience optimisation
Now, obviously I’m going to be a bit biased here as a website copywriter. But I do wholeheartedly believe that without clear, well formatted, and considered website copy, your attempts to optimise the user experience will fail.
Folks often see UX as solely a design practice but it’s very much both. And you’d be surprised how much of it is determined at the copywriting stage of the project (if your copywriter is UX informed). UX direction that comes from copy includes:
- Heading structure
- Page layout and formatting (tables, bullet points, etc.)
- CTA placement and button text
- Anchor test for hyperlinks
- Link direction (to maintain a sensible and conversion-focused user journey)
- Clarity of the language
- Consistency of tone throughout
- Repetition of key messages, phrases, and taglines
- Consistent heading style (e.g. capitalisation, flow, structure)
- Helpful UX copy such as form defaults and error messages
And that’s just the basic copy of it all. When I work with my clients, I also support them with sitemap redesign aligned with their goals and user behaviours, basic wireframes to help their designer(s) support the content design, and URL designation and redirects to keep things flowing and avoid the dreaded 404 errors.
What to do when you get good traffic but shit leads
It’s time to bring in an outside expert. It takes some digging to figure out what’s going wrong. It could be messaging misalignment, it could be poor conversion optimisation, and it could be a lack of UX consideration. In my experience, it’s usually a combination of all three.
I’ve already given you all of this for free. Imagine what we could do if we worked together. If you’re ready to improve your website performance and win your audience’s trust, get in touch and we’ll figure out the details.