The topic of misinformation hit an all-time high globally in October this year.
Google is well aware of this and recently announced a $13.2 million grant to the International Fact Checking Network (IFCN). This is Google’s largest fact-checking grant.
False alarms are a big problem for Google.
Garbage in Google search results keeps users from coming back. This affects advertising revenue.
Therefore, Google actively promotes Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trust (EEAT) as important considerations when we want content to be ranked in our index.
(The first “E” experience is new. Google updated guidance on December 15th – Learn more – tl;dr Does the author of the content you are looking for demonstrate the right type/level of experience? Google uses tax return examples to find advice on preparing returns. If so, you would like to see content created by professionals in the accounting field. )
One of the oldest EEAT signals is the backlink. Links from third-party sites pointing to domains/pages you want to rank for.
Using PR to generate these signals has spawned a new generation of digital PR agencies that are adept at generating stories and online coverage using publicly available data sources.
But Google has made a lot of noise about links over the last few years. Also, the number of links is less important than ever. This culminated in what Google’s John Mueller said on stage at his BrightonSEO September 2022: [LINKS] It doesn’t matter as much as it does today. Already, I think it’s something that’s changed quite a bit. ”
So if links are less important and EEAT signals are more important, what should you focus on as a PR professional in 2023?
The good news is that Google has dropped quite a few clues on how to build EEAT.
User trust and authorship
In 2019, Mueller said: The people who are creating the content for your website, they are really great people, they know what they are talking about, they are qualified or whatever is related to your field .
Bottom Line: Research your client’s target audience/prospects on what to expect in terms of their employee’s expertise. For example, if I find out that my client is a commercial battery manufacturer, and they expect to see chemical engineers create content published on their site, in their author profile, who is who? and it should be clear how relevant they are. PhDs earned by the team and number of awards won.
Regarding author profiles in particular, at Google SEO’s office hours from April 2021, Muller advised:
Bottom line: Decide with the client about a central profile (such as LinkedIn, Twitter, or a profile page on your website) that integrates signals of author expertise, and audit and optimize that location.
Google is always trying to establish. Who Behind something (this is a much bigger problem if you have a common name!). = Recognizing which entities belong together is called “reconciliation”. This is why experts are calling for her to choose one social profile and direct all her EEAT signals there.
I think LinkedIn is great for coordinating authors. It’s crawlable and there are many different ways to indicate EEAT. Recommendations, qualifications, linked contacts, posts, and the list goes on. Also, by introducing “experience” into the EEAT conversation, we can make a good argument that the author’s work history may also help assess her EEAT qualifications.
Therefore, ask your clients to audit and optimize the LinkedIn profiles of all their professionals, and ensure that any content you create on your client’s website includes a link to that profile. Using structured data makes it clear which social profile Google should associate with the author ( sameAs Schema.org property).
Better brand search
When was the last time you searched for a client’s brand name (using search operators to filter the results) and considered what was returned?
This is what Google wants from you.
Check out the quality rater guidelines (especially section 3.3.3 “How to find reputation information about a website” – I did a three-part Tiktok review in that section).
@b2bcommsman A quick refresher on Google Quality Rater Guidelines – Part 1 #digitalPR #reputationmanagement #businessreputation #B2B ♬ Original sound – b2bcommsman
He advises quality evaluators to:
This is classic PR bread and butter!
Tip: Do a site search review for your client’s brand name. Aside from the results you have, what’s left? “Very high-quality news content” that meets the “professional journalist’s standards”? If not, you should. Now you know what you need to do in 2023. Tip: Think about paywalls. Google’s algorithms need to be able to find mentions of your brand, so make sure you’re not stuck behind a paywall. Also consider the authority of the publication. At a basic level, a search for your brand name is much more likely to bring up a national newspaper website, but that coverage is maintained and comes from a publication that adheres to professional journalism standards. is also important.
All full?
In late 2019, Danny Sullivan, Google’s official search liaison, said:Uses various signals as proxies to determine if content matches EAT as humans would rate it”
Is EAT a ranking factor? It doesn’t mean that there are technical things like speed that can be measured directly.
It uses various signals as proxies to determine whether content matches the EAT that humans evaluate.
In that regard, yeah, it’s a ranking factor.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) October 11, 2019
Essentially, remember to consider and respond to your client’s online profile. as a human being. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. As Google becomes more sophisticated and its machine learning algorithms consume larger datasets, the importance of building traditional he EEAT signals increases and the importance of tracking traditional ranking signals increases. declining.
In 2023, we will read the Quality Rater Guidelines end-to-end and offer EEAT Authorship Reviews, EEAT Search Audits, and Owned and Earned Content Audits. Take your time and consider all the different ways Google tries to associate clients with what you want to sell.
Reposition traditional PR services to get EEAT for clients, use PR to improve organic search performance and link it to inbound lead generation to be as persistent and Secure the importance of reputation. The administrative work you do is properly recognized and rewarded.
Luke Budka is Director of PR and SEO at Definition.
