The three most important letters for any small business owner are E-A-T. They stand for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These are some of the most important criteria Google uses to determine how high your business’s website deserves to appear on the search engine results page.
One of the best ways to boost the E-A-T levels of your website is to start a blog with content your customers will want to read regularly. However, it’s critical to make sure you’re only putting high-quality content on your blog, as low-quality content could actually get you penalized by Google instead of boosting your ranking. Here are six key questions you should ask yourself before posting blog content.
There are two kinds of relevant content you can put on your blog. The first is timely articles relevant to current events. This is a good type of content because it will get people talking, and you’ll pick up a lot of hits as people search for content on the breaking news. However, producing this type of content is a common strategy, so you may have to compete against more prominent brands.
Evergreen content is the best type of content to have on your blog because it generates a consistent level of interest and searches over a more extended period. While it does have to be updated on occasion to keep it current, you won’t have to worry about a sharp fall-off in traffic as the moment passes. If your content is particularly high-quality, it can be relied on for link-building well into the future.
One of the best assets you have as a business owner is an expert knowledge. If you or someone in your business has a specialty area relevant to your audience, utilize that resource to create content for your blog?
Few pieces of content deliver more authority and interest than interviews with industry experts. This is a great way to build backlinks, and Google takes the presence of an industry expert as evidence of quality and will give your site ranking a boost. Make sure to include research data from relevant projects and any other compelling content. The more unique information you have available, the more authority will be conferred upon your site.
When you create content, make sure you have an audience in mind. This means figuring out who is most likely to search for the relevant keywords in your article, and whether they’re the customer you are trying to encourage to patronize your business.
This can take some trial and error, but it’s crucial to find a union between the base for your company and the base for your blog content. Once you know your target audience, read some other blogs targeting that same group to see if you can pick up the tricks that make them most likely to click on a link.
The best content is only useful if people find it, and one of the best ways to spread the word is through backlinks on other sites. A backlink is created when another website includes a link to a page on your site in their content.
To make sure your content finds its audience, make sure you have an outreach strategy to get those backlinks. This will involve reaching out to other sites and asking them to include a link to your page in their content. Make sure to research potential homes for links before putting your content out there, so you can be sure you’re forming beneficial digital relationships and striking while the iron is hot.
A glitchy interface can ruin even the best content if it leads people to click away out of frustration. Ensure your website interface is smooth to use and easy to navigate, without too many pop-ups or processes.
Check how your site appears on both desktop and mobile devices and with adaptive devices like screen readers. All of these factors play a role in Google rankings and can also help bring more visitors to other areas of your website. A simple test can give you an idea of how accessible your site is.
The Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness metric isn’t just a good way to check your content—it’s how Google ranks sites and determines how they show up in the search engine. It’s also at the root of all five of the previous questions, and if you’ve put your blog to the test with them, the odds are it passes the E-A-T metric as well. Professional SEO companies like PureLinq can show you how to create E-A-T content for your blog.
One of the most significant advantages of a blog is how it raises your profile online. This will be the first impression many people get of your company and product, so you want it to form a positive impression. That’s why it’s important to make sure whatever that first article is, represents you well and sets you up for success.
Irfan Bajwa is an emerging business enthusiast and passionate blogger and writer on a versatile level.