Creating Content for Search

We look at how to create content that works with present-day search engines, both traditional and AI-powered, using Google's Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness framework.

Transcript

Creating Content for Search

While 53% of website traffic still originates from organic search — people going to a browser’s search engine and typing (or speaking) their question or keywords — AI-powered search engines like Perplexity, GPTSearch, and Gemini now account for 10% of website traffic and are growing. This is changing how the practice of Search Engine Optimisation maintains website visibility, builds authority, and improves the website’s ranking in a search. 

I’m a PR/communicator, not a marketer, so I will focus on how to create content that works with present-day search. Google's E-E-A-T is an excellent framework for evaluating the quality of content. It consists of experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. It is Google’s search quality guidelines. They use this framework to improve their search algorithms.

Here's a breakdown of E-E-A-T:

⌨️ Experience refers to first-hand or personal experience. It demonstrates practical knowledge and understanding of the subject matter. Create helpful, well-researched content that demonstrates first-hand experience. For example, if you are reviewing a product or service, you should have actually used it. Content created by those with direct experience of the product/service/issue is seen as more trustworthy and reliable.

⌨️ Expertise identifies the creator's knowledge and skill in the subject matter. This is particularly crucial for topics impacting users' health, financial stability, safety, or well-being. Demonstrate your subject matter expertise through the depth and accuracy of your content and by citing reputable sources and studies. Show that your content is created by people with expertise. You could reference their expertise within the content or attach a short biography of the content creator. 

⌨️ Authoritativeness assesses a website's credibility and recognition. Build your website's authority by consistently publishing high-quality content, gaining coverage and mentions from other respected sites or people, and thus growing your reputation. Showcase testimonials and user reviews.

⌨️ Trustworthiness is the central, most important concept of E-E-A-T. Is the webpage accurate, honest, safe and reliable? Untrustworthy pages have low E-E-A-T regardless of their experience, expertise, or authority levels. Be transparent about who is behind your content, provide clear contact information and follow ethical practices. Google has advised against publishing AI-generated content without human review and editing. It is also actively deindexing websites that contain significant amounts of AI-generated content. 

While E-E-A-T is not a factor that directly ranks a website, it significantly influences search performance, especially in today’s hybrid world of traditional and AI-powered search. It provides a good model for creating credible, authentic, engaging webpage content.

[Image: Dung Anh on Unsplash]