Boost Your Local SEO with a Winning E-E-A-T Strategy

Develop the best strategy that focuses on the quality of the digital presence of your organization with local SEO to E-E-A-T.

Despite some SEO practitioners chuckling at the term “E-E-A-T” and thinking about food, there is no denying that it is a crucial factor in achieving quality in online content. To create an effective E-E-A-T strategy, multiple critical components must work together seamlessly. This blog delves into how to integrate local SEO tactics into your E-E-A-T strategy to enhance your online presence and increase your brand’s visibility. With the implementation of the E-E-A-T strategy into your website, you can build a strong foundation for your organization’s digital success.

Elevate Your Organic Growth with E-E-A-T

 

E-E-A-T, which stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, is widely addressed by SEO practitioners as the key to achieving long-term organic growth. Developed as part of Google’s search quality rater guidelines, E-E-A-T has become a cornerstone of successful digital marketing strategies. Whenever Google rolls out a new algorithm, its recommendations invariably point back to E-E-A-T factors.

“Google’s automated systems are designed to use many different factors to rank great content. After identifying relevant content, our systems aim to prioritize those that seem most helpful. To do this, they identify a mix of factors that can help determine which content demonstrates aspects of experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, or what we call E-E-A-T.”

What is the need for E-E-A-T in local SEO?

There are several key local SEO strategies that directly impact E-E-A-T, i.e., Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

• To improve the Experience aspect of E-E-A-T, it is important to have a Google Business Profile with regular postings, highlight local employees, and encourage customers to share photos of their experiences with your business.
• To showcase Expertise, you need to create local service pages and write blog posts that demonstrate your knowledge and expertise in your field.
• To improve Authoritativeness, it is essential to have local links that connect to reputable and trustworthy sources in your community.
• To establish Trustworthiness, it is crucial to have positive local reviews from satisfied customers.

By incorporating these local strategies into a larger E-E-A-T strategy, an SEO marketer can gain a competitive advantage and achieve high-impact rankings. E-E-A-T was not designed as a series of ranking factors, it emphasizes more on quality. By prioritizing the customer experience and delivering high-quality service, a website can improve its E-E-A-T and position itself on top of search results pages.

Experience: Concentrating on How are you Doing?

As the latest addition to the E-E-A-T, experience highlights the importance of the customer’s perspective. Sometimes, users prefer to hear from other people who have used a product or service rather than reading content from licensed professionals.

So, how can a local business make the customer experience more accessible? There are a few ways to do this, such as encouraging and showcasing positive local reviews from satisfied customers. Having a regularly updated Google Business Profile, including employee bios and featuring customer photos, can also help improve the customer experience and create a more relatable and authentic online presence.

• Local Reviews

Local reviews are closely connected to trust, which is the most crucial factor of E-E-A-T.

However, a business’s reputation is significant to a consumer’s decision-making process. Positive local reviews can significantly impact a business’s overall reputation, while negative reviews can have the opposite effect. Therefore, it is important for local businesses to prioritize collecting and showcasing positive reviews to build a positive reputation and attract more customers.

• Google Business Profile Posting

Regularly posting on a Google Business Profile allows an organization to connect directly with users who want to get a sense of the company’s day-to-day culture. By sharing updates and insights on what is happening behind the scenes, customers can better understand what it might be like to experience the business.

Posting regularly on Google Business Profile helps to establish a human element and build a more relatable and authentic online presence. This, in turn, can help businesses to attract more customers and improve their overall reputation.

• Employee Bios

When people are searching for a service, they want to know more about the people who will be providing that service. Employee bios can contribute to a culture of transparency and communication, allowing customers to get a sense of the people behind the business.

Now a question arises in mind whether customers care about the company name or the individual employees.

By providing information about the team, customers can better envision their potential experience and feel more connected to the business on a personal level. Employee bios should be easily accessible to users, either by being posted on the GBP or placed directly on location pages.

• Customer Photos

A culture of documentation is the process of implementing transparency on the website. With this, businesses should share imagery that accurately represents the customer’s experience.

By asking customers for permission to repost their images and reviews, a business takes ownership of its value in the local community and builds trust with potential customers.

For instance, a local renovation company might include an “Examples of our work” section on its website with “before” and “after” pictures. By showcasing actual customer photos and experiences, businesses can provide a more realistic view of their services and establish a sense of credibility with potential customers.

Expertise: A Factor Focusing on Why are you Qualified?

When an organization’s employees have diverse skill sets and extensive experience, it can provide significant benefits to the community it serves. This has been highlighted by Google, which recently introduced new search result features like “About this author,” “Perspectives,” and increased visibility for “About this page”, all of which emphasize the importance of knowledge and expertise of the content creator or the website owner.

Google recently emphasized the importance of expertise for customers by saying:

“As we surface new voices and perspectives, we want to ensure that people can easily learn more about the authors behind the content they are reading and discover new voices they can trust.”

When a user clicks “More about this page” on Google, they can now access additional information about the author, due to new features implemented by the search giant. Furthermore, Google is currently in the process of rolling out even more extensive author information capabilities.

One way that an organization can showcase its expertise is through its content, especially with the help of local service pages and blog posts. By leveraging these channels, an organization can establish itself as a knowledgeable and authoritative voice in its field, which can help it to build trust with its audience and ultimately drive success.

• Local Service Pages

Using location pages is a common strategy for local SEO, but local service pages do not provide enough information to rank well in search results. This is because a single location page does not have enough space to cover all the necessary details about a business’s products or services.

To build upon their local expertise, businesses can use local service pages to offer more detailed information about their services to specific communities. By proactively providing substantial content about a local service, businesses can demonstrate to both users and search engines that they are knowledgeable and authoritative in their field.

Creating a page that focuses on particular services for a specific community can help establish a deeper level of expertise. In addition to providing details about the service itself, businesses can use local service pages to share additional informative content. For instance, they might include a troubleshooting section or a resources section that links to relevant blog posts and customer testimonials that pertain to that particular service. This approach can help to further educate potential customers and demonstrate the business’s expertise in the field.

• Blog Posts

Blogs are a common feature on many local websites. To create content that resonates with the target audience, it is important to understand what challenges they face, what kind of information would help them, and what topics are not addressed by other local blogs.

A blog post is helpful in providing informative content to customers who are searching on Google. As a result, a better approach would be to focus on specific pain points or questions that potential clients have, and the major responsibility of the content creators is to provide valuable information that helps address those issues. By aligning the blog’s editorial calendar with customer needs, businesses can create content that connects with their audience and drives more traffic to their websites.

Instead of writing the same content that everyone else is publishing, businesses should focus on creating more specific and unique content that addresses the needs and interests of their target audience. For instance, a local business could write about a recent event or incident that occurred in their community, such as how residents came together to support each other during a natural disaster or a pandemic. Such a post could highlight the legal challenges that arose during this time and offer practical advice on how to handle them. By focusing on these unique and specific situations, a business can attract local attention and improve its rankings. However, the content must also be well-researched, localized, and easy to read, and the author should have expertise in the subject matter. Ultimately, businesses should look beyond keyword research and focus on creating content that is unique and establishes thought leadership in their community.

Authoritativeness: Considering to which extent are you known for?

To establish authoritativeness, a business cannot just create outstanding content; it also needs validation from third-party sources. According to Google’s rater guidelines, the website’s or content creator’s reputation as a trustworthy source for the given topic should be considered. To build authority around a target keyword, a business must be acknowledged publicly for its quality products or services, relevant content, and local significance.

In local SEO, it is crucial to consider different types of local links, such as citations, community involvement, and knowledge sharing.

• Citations

Have you ever experienced trying to find a business on Google Maps only to discover that its location is entirely wrong? It can be frustrating and detrimental to lead generation. That is why having consistent and accurate contact information such as name, address, and phone number is essential for a local business.

To achieve NAP consistency, a business needs to list its basic information across various websites. This way, search engines can validate the information through multiple online listings, rather than relying on a single resource. It is the most basic tier of authoritativeness, and it is considered a crucial foundation for building trust with search engines and customers.

• Community Involvement

Simply having a Google Business Profile is not enough for a local business to stand out in the community. Establishing relevance and building a reputation as a high-quality provider requires additional effort. You need to engage your customers by providing high-quality products or services to them and thereby gaining the loyalty of your customers.

• Knowledge Sharing

Local businesses should aim for more than just basic content around services, FAQs, and troubleshooting. All the businesses are doing the same thing. So, if you want to attain a competitive edge over your competitors, then you need some innovative strategy to be implemented on your website.

Now, the questions arise in digital marketers’ minds can a business leverage its expertise to conduct a local survey and publish the findings? Or, is there an employee who has introduced ground-breaking technology to your industry?

Original data and innovation are often recognized by local media outlets, industry publications, and social media users. Gaining links from trusted third-party organizations can significantly enhance a business’s authoritativeness.

Trust: Why your website is the Best.

Google considers trust to be the most crucial factor in E-E-A-T, and it is reinforced and maintained through three key elements: experience, expertise, and authoritativeness. When it comes to building trust, all the factors of E-E-A-T play a role, but there is one tactic that plays a more significant role in building trust among your customers. This tactic is reviews, and it is considered the most important element of local E-E-A-T.

A plethora of evidence supports the value of reviews as a trust element. For instance, approximately 98% of consumers researching local businesses will occasionally read online reviews, while around 86% of consumers say that reviews are either the most or somewhat important factor when choosing a business. Furthermore, since 2015, the local SEO industry’s perception of review signals as a ranking factor has increased by 100% (from 8% to 16%).

Local reviews can be broadly classified into two categories: third-party reviews and GBP reviews. Both reviews play a critical role in establishing a business’s reputation and building trust with potential customers.

• Third-Party Website Reviews

Local SEO encompasses a broad range of industries, but certain professions face intense competition and demand in their local markets. These include medical providers, home service providers, legal professionals, real estate agents, and restaurants.

Each of these professions has specific local review websites associated with them. These specialized review platforms provide a targeted way for businesses to build their online reputation and establish trust with potential customers in their local area.

In major local SEO industries, relying solely on reviews on Google Business Profile is no longer enough to establish trust. It is important to also focus on trade-specific review websites that are relevant to the industry.

• Google Business Profile Reviews

While Google Business Profile reviews remain a popular and important review platform, it can be challenging for businesses to encourage customers to leave reviews. There are several resources available to help improve local reviews, such as hiring a reputation management company or using email marketing strategies to promote reviews.

In addition to these strategies, businesses need to emphasize on the value of reviews across all levels of their operation, from marketing materials to customer service and day-to-day operations. By prioritizing review generation, businesses can establish trust and credibility with their local customers and stand out in competitive markets.

Unlocking the Value of Local E-E-A-T Strategy: A Challenging, Yet Rewarding Endeavour 

The four factors in E-E-A-T play a key role in boosting the online presence of your website with the help of exceptional SEO services. Experience factor in E-E-A-T cannot be simulated, while the expertise aspect drives the quality of a website. In E-E-A-T, authoritativeness drives recognition for the websites along with developing invaluable trust among potential customers.

Achieving local E-E-A-T is a complex process that requires a holistic approach. Individually, each strategy may be ineffective, but when combined, they work together to build a comprehensive strategy.

E-E-A-T strategies are best approached with a similar mindset of constant improvement. Businesses cannot achieve high rankings by executing a single strategy. Local E-E-A-T is a compilation of multiple strategies into a larger strategy that emphasizes quality and user experience.