As a small business owner, you have thin margins and a lot of competition. Online marketing and SEO to boost page rank are challenges you must face to have a good online presence that converts to sales.

Because this is so important, it often makes sense to hire a professional to handle your SEO. That said, as an informed business owner, you know that it’s also essential that you learn more about SEO and link-building. An excellent place to start is with EAT, a crucial concept in building a web presence and improving page rank and SEO for your small business.

What is EAT?

EAT stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. The short story is that your content needs to have these qualities to rank in Google. To go back a little further, the term EAT came from the 2018 Google Medic Update, part of the Search Quality Rater Guidelines.

The EAT update is especially important for YMYL sites—Your Money, Your Life. Google wants to reward sites for providing correct and useful information. They apply these criteria especially stringently to YMYL sites because they include information that can impact a reader’s health, wealth, and/or happiness.

In other words, Google prioritizes EAT content, especially for YMYL sites, to keep users safe from inaccurate, damaging information. Obviously included are sites that provide medical or health information, but more types of sites are subject to strict YMYL guidelines than many realize.

This includes eCommerce sites. If customers are being asked to spend money, false information can negatively impact their finances. This is why Google considers eCommerce YMYL and why EAT is essential for your search rank.

Tips for Creating EAT Content

Knowing how to create EAT content is the next step once you understand why you need it. Know the types of EAT content so you can begin to develop it for your site. EAT content can be in any form as long as it is authoritative, trustworthy, and expert. Traditional articles and interviews with experts or trending figures are classic examples of EAT content that are especially good at establishing authority.

Other types of EAT content to try include infographics, listicles, videos, and topic explainers. Any of these can be EAT. Focus on what your target audience is searching for and match their needs with expert content. Use links to authoritative websites, and get your content shared by them in turn. Make it clear who you are and what your credentials are to appear as expert as possible. Make sure that you keep your content up-to-date to keep it EAT.

The Benefits of Evergreen Content

One of the most valuable types of EAT content is evergreen content. This is the content that remains valuable to readers over time, rather than being related to a briefly trending topic. For example, an article on hot shoe styles is not relevant year after year, but a piece on how to fit a shoe properly is. There are several benefits of evergreen content:

• It drives continuous traffic to your pages

• It helps improve search rank

• It establishes your site and brand as an authority

• It helps you connect on social media

Other Ways to Harness EAT

Creating good content is a must, but you can establish EAT on your site in other ways as well:

• Write a clear, compelling “About Us” page that shares who you are and why you are qualified to inform readers on your topic.

• Create an “Our Team” page to highlight the qualifications and contact details for staff.

• Include a page for feedback so customers can reach you. Reviews help build trust and engagement, and Google also factors them into determining the quality of your site. 

• Connect your site with social media accounts and share and link to content with influencers and experts in your field.

What Boosting EAT Can Do For Your Company

Boosting the EAT level of your site, whether you do it yourself or hire a pro team, is worth the effort. Higher EAT levels will boost your rank on Google’s SERPs (search engine results pages). Increasing page rank means more people click on your site and go through to your individual pages, possibly being converted to customers. In other words, more traffic means more sales. You can get more eyes on what you have to offer, both products and services if you increase traffic through page rank.

There are other factors involved, of course, but it all starts with EAT. When you boost your site’s authority, expertise, and trustworthiness, you’ll begin to rise among peers and competitors. It becomes easier to connect with other leaders in your field, which only increases your authority even more.

It All Starts With EAT

You can try all kinds of other tactics to boost page rank and drive prospects into your sales funnel, but if you don’t have EAT, customers won’t stay, and they won’t buy. It’s well worth your time to learn how to establish EAT. It’s also worth the cost to have professionals boost EAT on your site if time is not on your side.