Breakfast Briefing - December 2023 How brands can E-E-A-T better in 2024

First off, an introduction to us 2

1 What E-E-A-T means What happened to Google’s algorithm in 2023 Why you need to care about it

E-E-A-T is part of Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines 1. Google Quality Raters are Google’s workers who manually check content ranking 2. E-E-A-T is not a ranking factor, it informs them 3. E-E-A-T can’t be measured 4. Algorithm updates are ALWAYS linked to E-E-A-T (helpful content, product review update…)

E-E-A-T matter most for YMYL pages 5 Google splits topic types into two categories, YMYL and non-YMYL. E-E-A-T’s importance will vary depending on the level of YMYL a site is

What can be considered YMYL site? ● Finance. Sites that offer financial advice (like fintech companies) ● Shopping. sites providing information about shopping research ● News and public information. Misinformation about politics, current events, etc ● Medical and safety. Sites that offer guidance regarding physical and mental health (that includes fitness sites) ● Government and law. If a page informs readers about the law, local politics, voting, and the like, it must provide up-to-date and accurate information. ● Associations. Pages making claims about people based on qualities such as ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, age, disability, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, or veteran status get closely monitored to protect users. 6

2 Considerations and best practices

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Experience Quality content often demonstrates the creator’s first-hand experience with the subject matter. This helps prove that suggestions are tried and tested. And that insights are authentic. The author talks about their personal experiences and opinions. And provides unique product photos to prove they’ve played the game. Written in first person and providing examples of your past experience helps. 9

Expertise 1. Set up a bio for you or your client where your expertise can be constantly shown 2. Refer to that expertise when writing the content 3. Link to potential case studies, awards, certification, studies your client might have about the topic while writing 4. Write unique content that is not there already 10

Authority 1. Engage in forums about the topic 2. Showcase in social media your expertise and authority 3. Get coverage from authoritative pages that are important in the industry/niche by giving commentary 4. Do guest posts or get authoritative people in the field to write content in your blog too 11

Trustworthiness 1. Be transparent with your content - do not copy and paste content from other sources and if you do 2. Rephrase the content and cite the origin of it 3. Research your topic, explain the process followed, write content that is new 4. Source other’s experts content, or opinion too 5. Be helpful & empathetic - do not try to sell your product or brand, try to help the user 12

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3 Speaking of authority, how does Digital PR fit into this?

62% of shoppers search for a brand online they are not familiar with before committing to a purchase Online reputation was highlighted as the number one way to improve trust with customers According to Trustpilot

When your next customer searches for your brand, what are they going to see?

Digital PR is the act of creating external credibility, using a brand’s expertise and experience to create trustworthy PR stories that position brands as voices of authority within their sector

Let’s break this down further Expertise Interviews, guest posts, thought leadership articles and more across relevant websites and titles Authority Brand mentions and backlinks from respected media titles is an extremely effective tool for building your brand and website authority Trust Links from reputable third party sources acts as a clear signpost to Google that your website is trustworthy. Experience Your catalogue of onsite and offsite content that showcases your content creators’ first-hand experience in the sector. Reviews are also this. 18

E-E-A-T doesn’t just affect brands. It affects news publications, too

But we’re operating in a world of… 20

Disinformation

AI illiteracy

Cancel culture

Done well, Digital PR is your chance to stand out from crowd online

Here are three ways how… Business updates Share company, product, service, employee, and social good news to your local titles and industry niche publications Industry or topic thoughts What are the challenges facing your industry and what solutions can you provide? Reactive insights The news is a 24/7 rolling cycle and journalists always need an expert to add weight to their story 25

4 But let’s talk about how you can become more efficient by creating collaborative SEO & Digital PR strategies… all in the name of E-E-A-T

Let us tell you a story about a kitchen brand

There are three phases we need to go through Audit and research Strategy collaboration Content gathering 28

Solid content strategies begin the same way - with an audit, research, and data: ❏ Audit of current content on-site (landing pages and all) ❏ Updated keyword research ❏ Link and Competitor Gap analysis ❏ Identify internal and external experts ❏ Content roadmapping ❏ Search and trends analysis ❏ Social ❏ Answer The Public 29 Discover the opportunities

Don’t build links for links sake

Create content that your audience and journalists want 31

And plan it into a reusable, evergreen, strategy that is used year in, year out

Planning for the future + recommendations E-E-A-T is here to stay so make sure: 1. Your content is unique and fresh 2. You have experts writing for you 3. You share the content in social media 4. You follow the trends 5. You analyse and look after reviews 33

Thank you! Q&A