Sarah: Hey, hey, hey!

Glyna: Hello!

Sarah: So, what we're talking about today, we have an acronym for you, and it's E-A-T, and "eat" as you may say. But no, we're not going to talk about what I tell my kids 100 times at dinner. We're talking about E-A-T "eat", which stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. So, why in the world would we be talking about this? Let me tell you, how well your business ranks with search engines, this is what you need to be paying attention to. So, let that bell go off in your head. We're going to give you some good information. Cause if you want to rank better with Google, you really need to pay attention to this. So, we're going to explain what E-A-T is, how to make changes to improve it, which translates to better ranking. So, let's get going today!

Glyna: All right, well welcome to Marketing Mix, everybody! Every week we're going to bring you different digital marketing topics like today, EAT, E-A-T, we may even cover some trends Q&A, but the biggest thing is we want to just give you some free good resources to help your business online. So, that is why we are here. Yeah, let's look at our broadcast schedule.

Sarah: Yes. Okay, so as always, we go live on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, and you can catch the replay on Instagram and LinkedIn. We want to ask you to subscribe to our podcast Marketing and a Mic, such good valuable information to help you with all things in digital marketing, and as always subscribe to our YouTube channel, Fusion One Marketing, we're always putting out free resources to help you and your business because that's really what all of this is about. Okay, so let's get started, let's talk about EAT as we mentioned at the top of the show, it stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness and this is essentially the criteria, Google has a lot of criteria, but this is a big, big criterion that they use in determining the quality of your website's information as it pertains to the user. So, just to give you some quick background, we always have to be paying attention to Google, because they keep us on our toes.

Glyna: All the time.

Sarah: Yeah, we never know what changes are up their sleeve. EAT was introduced in 2018, and in 2019 Google confirmed that EAT is going to be a very, very, very important factor to their algorithms. So, they provided these guidelines, and suggestions in some ways of what they're looking for to create better content. The good news, as always is that we did the homework for you, we figured it all out. We read through it all, did the research, so we're going to show you exactly how to build your content to improve your search rankings.

Glyna: Well, moving forward. So, why are we even talking about this today? Again, we are so passionate about making sure that you have the best information you can possibly have, to give your business the best opportunity to show up when people are searching for you. You know what, Sarah, when we first started this, we can really rank somebody literally within a week. They would pop up on Google almost overnight, but things have changed. Just as you mentioned, the algorithm changes so much. Just last year, the Google algorithm changed more than we have days of the year. So in other words, it was over 500 different changes, obviously, we can't keep up with all of them, but this is a biggie. This is a real biggie to make sure that you're getting your best chance to rank. So, to rank well on Google, nowadays, you need to really nurture your brand. You need to build its expertise, just like we're talking about E, authority, A, trustworthiness, T, which is where EAT comes from, and that's exactly what it stands for. So, websites should be created for users and to help them, and each one of your pages needs to be filled with purpose, and having that in mind. Because these days Google takes content very seriously. So, any bad information, let's think of this, incorrect information, bad information can negatively impact your visibility. And they're going to like shoot you down in the rankings.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. See that's the thing, is a lot of times these things start because of something that's out there that's just not supposed to be happening. So, that's how this started, right? A lot of websites that were offering help- the medical advice, then they started to kind of have some red flags with them, because of some inaccurate information. Then it kind of branched off to any kind of site that was under what Google calls, YMYL and I don't want you to confuse that with the Village People's YMCA. So, YMYL is a quality rating that Google uses that stands for "Your Money, Your Life". Truly, that's what they're talking about, your money, your life. So, that's the cool thing, right? Google not only cares about delivering relevant information, but they want to make sure that they're delivering accurate information. They not only want to meet what your search inquiry is, but they also want to make sure it's correct. When it comes to your health, financial issues, safety, news, it goes on and on and on and on, Google doesn't want to serve up links that are giving uneducated advice, opinions, and potentially fraudulent information. So, hey, thank you Google for looking out for us, right?

Glyna: Yeah exactly! Well, think about this, what is the first thing you do when you're not feeling well? You start Googling all your symptoms and know sometimes just thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'm guessing I'm going to die, I don't know. I have all these horrible things." That's kind of being funny about it, but Google didn't want you to have problems, they want to make sure that the information is correct out there. So, important things when you're searching for these things, you know, you're not going to get incorrect information. They really want to protect users from low-quality content or content that's just not true. Like think of this, if you're searching for puppies or cute puppies, EAT or E-A-T doesn't really matter that much. But if you have a sick little puppy, and you're searching for information about "what's wrong with my puppy", you really want to make sure that that information is correct, so you know what to do next, or what is your next step? When it comes to SEO, the question you should be asking yourself is, how can I improve my site rankings? It's very important and the answer should be, we're talking about content, create great content that your audience will find very useful and that they can count on.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Exactly. They may be able to count on it, it needs to be accurate. So, let's talk about the E, expertise. Expertise, if I look in the dictionary, it's defined as being very knowledgeable or skillful in a particular area. So, in Google's terms, you need to not only be an expert, but you need to know how to communicate your expertise in a way that the users can digest that information. That's really important. You can't be Mr. Smarty Pants if what you're putting out there, nobody can compute. So, in other words, not only to have the correct information, but you need to communicate it and deliver that information to your audience in a way that they're like, "Aha, I get it." Not a lot of jargon, so to speak.

Glyna: Yes. And so we talk about expertise, which is the E, in EAT, exactly what are they looking for? All right, let's talk about that, and let's give our audience a few tips. All right, you need to really find out what topics in your industry that the audience is searching for. And that's kind of where keywords come into play, and we're really good at figuring out what people are searching for, or if people are even searching for keywords at all. So that's really important. Discover the searcher's intent. What's their motive behind the search. How people search for answers has really evolved, and with the change in the search engine algorithms, they've been adjusted to return the most relevant results, so that you're not wasting your time on a lot of stuff that doesn't make any sense for what you're looking for. So, develop content that's not mixed up with a lot of jargon. And what do we mean by that? You need to make sure that your content is there, but that people can easily digest it. Explain it, think about what people are really looking for. So anyway, just make it so that they can understand what you have on your website.

Sarah: Yeah. So that's the takeaway with EAT, the expertise. I'm sorry, the expertise part of it. Have content that is useful and can be easily digested, so you want to write it in a manner that people can understand. And so they want to make sure that you sound like an expert, and that you're delivering it in a way that people can understand it. So, let's move on to A, Authoritativeness. Being an expert, it's great, we're going to give you big brownie points for that. But Google cares about more than that. You need to have a place of authority. What that means is you need to be an ongoing source of information, to the point that your brand becomes synonymous with those relevant topics. At that point, you're not only just an expert, you're an authority. So, authority is somebody who is the author of the content itself, and the website of where that information is housed. People, hey, they know you, they know your background, they believe that you're a valuable resource, and you're providing ongoing information to kind of build that up. So yeah, as I said, "People know me."

Sarah: I don't know what movie that's from, but-

Glyna: I don't either, but I know exactly what you're talking about. "And they love me, people love me." All right, so if we're talking about, and I'm going to have a hard time spitting this one out Authoritativeness. Ooh, I think I did it. So what are they looking for? We're going to give you some tips. All right, how can you become an authority? Well, links from relevant websites are huge for your ranking factor. Why? I mean, if you have relevant websites that are linking back to you, it's going to help your website, gain authority, get stronger, and have a lot more boosts behind it when you're trying to rank. The next thing is, in addition to having those links from... I'm just going to try to spit authoritativeness out, I'm not going to, I'm not saying that anymore.

Glyna: Being mentioned will also help your-

Sarah: Authoritativeness.

Glyna: You get mentioned by another author or another website that loves your information, that's a really good nod in Google's eyes. So that's really cool if people like what you have, but they're willing to share it. So, having your content shared is going to be a really good boost for an authority. All right, brand authority is also a factor, if more and more people are searching for your brand name, obviously, that's going to be a great thing for Google.

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So now we're going to-

Glyna: Move to T.

Sarah: Okay, T is trustworthiness, can you put that in a sentence, Glyna?

Glyna: That's a little easier.

Sarah: Okay, so we've got expertise and authority, very important. There's a third piece that matters just as much to Google, and that's your trustworthiness. So, if your business trust or lack thereof, if it's in question to Google, it's bad news, it's bad news. There are some big pieces to your trust in Google's eyes. Reviews is one of them, that's a big, big deal, too many bad reviews and not responding to those negative reviews is really going to make you suffer on Google because it's a sign of low-quality. It's a sign that you're not delivering the right information or that you're not putting the right information on your website, or you're not delivering quality service. They look at it as, "Hey, we don't want to recommend you, when we are delivering search results to our users, because you don't have a good-" What's the word?

Glyna: Reputation?

Sarah: Reputation! When too much negativity is attached to your brand, Google's like, "I don't like that. I don't like that."

Glyna: I mean, it only makes sense.

Sarah: It just makes sense. So you need to have positive reviews everywhere, Yelp, Facebook, Google, having all of this and a steady stream of online reviews, shows that to Google, you've got a lot of satisfied customers and that builds their trust with you.

Glyna: Yeah. I mean, gosh, we're all using reviews, we're all looking at what other people are saying. Reviews more than ever are so important with people making decisions, so that's huge. Here we go, what's Google looking for with trustworthiness? Here are a few tips. Have an easy and accessible way for users to contact you. That sounds easy, but you should have a place where they can email you, you should have a contact form, you should have ways that they can contact you easily. Have a physical location on your site. That's very important, that gives you some credibility with Google too. Especially if you can put one of the Google maps on there that can show exactly where you're located. Make sure, oh gosh, this is a big one. This is so big. Make sure your website's domain is secure, you have to have it secure to make sure that nobody can intercept it. You don't want people being able to come in and just ruin your whole website because your security is not up-to-date. You know, still today or every day, I'm looking at websites and at the very top, it says not secure on these websites. It's like, people come on! A lot of that has to do with your hosting service too. So anyway, that all works together, but it has to be secure or Google is like, "I don't trust you at all." We're talking about trustworthiness. Having a terms and conditions section, which people don't even think of this, a privacy policy, if you have one that applies to your business, put that on your website. Again, we're building trustworthiness, with Google and with your users. If you're an e-commerce site, make sure returns, refunds, or other policies are clearly stated, so that they have the information.

Sarah: Right, exactly. It's all kind of building to your trust as a business, and making sure that they can look at and be like, "Hey, they've got everything in place, where people can trust that this is a credible website."

Glyna: Yep.

Sarah: So, yeah. All right, that's really it. Now, EAT, as I said top of the show, it is super important. Following EAT should be the framework for developing your content, and we always talk about ongoing content. Your blogs, and just making sure you're keeping everything on your website fresh. It's such a smart way to organically build your SEO, which we love us some SEO and your content marketing. The bottom line, there are no shortcuts when it comes to Google, they're on it and they're on these factors, big time. So, you really want to make sure you pay attention to this stuff and follow these guidelines if you want to improve your rankings with Google, and you know what? It's going to help you!

Glyna: Yeah, exactly. I hope that gave you some great info, and as always, if you want more information on any of this stuff or anything as far as digital marketing is concerned, we love to help and would love to have a conversation with you, so message us, and we can start that conversation and just help you out with whatever you need. Until then we will be back next Friday at 8:00 AM, so have a great week everybody!

Sarah: Bye!