A useful checklist for you to review when auditing your brand’s web presence against your competitors in relation to the E-A-T principle.Is your brand seen as an expert, authoritative and trustworthy to Google? Read our checklist for more information.
Authorship credibility
Is your website content being authored by authors with expertise, authority and trustworthiness footprints on the web?
Have you created author pages for your website contributors that outline their expertise?
If you search “author name” topic ~site:yourwebsite.com in Google do your authors have much relevant coverage?
Backlinks & 'linkless' links
Does your website have a backlink profile that is stronger than those of your competitors?
If you search for your brand name using content analysis tools (e.g. BuzzSumo) or Google News does it return a greater number of results for your brand versus your competitors’ brand names?
Are you getting regular rel=follow backlinks to your website from credible (high authority) referring domains?
Are you getting a greater number of unlinked mentions than your SEO competitors on credible domains?
Is your website linked to, or brand name mentioned in the correct context, on websites you expect Google to ‘seed’? (‘Seed’ websites are manually assigned by Google quality raters – e.g. New York Times)
Review sentiment
Do I have a review generation strategy in place to facilitate a medium / high velocity of positive reviews for my brand / website? Check websites such as the following…
Yelp
Better Business Bureau
Amazon
Google Shopping
Google My Business
Do your competitors have a much greater number reviews online?
Are competitors generating a much greater velocity of positive reviews than your brand?
How does your brand compare to your SEO competitors on websites such as Better Business Bureau or TrustPilot?
Wikipedia presence
Does your brand have a Wikipedia page?
Do your competitors have a Wikipedia page?
Content
Can you increase your perceived E-A-T scores by publishing original research that gets mentions on authoritative websites?
Are you able to summarise new third party research and attract links?
Can you connect with journalists via HARO or via Twitter to offer useful information?
Are you working to develop genuinely valuable relationships with authorities in your field for future collaboration opportunities?
Forums
Are you monitoring forum discussions for relevant questions where you can offer useful information on credible forums likely to have an impact on your E-A-T score?
Is it evident that your competitors are much more active in forum conversations than your brand?
Brand trustworthiness
Does your brand have lots of negative reviews online complaining about staff, refunds or other issues?
Is it easy to find customer complaints about your brand online via Google?
On-site page content
Does your website content reflect expertise, authority and trustworthiness?
Is your About Us page easy to find for users and crawlers?
If you would like a free consultation on your brand’s web performance in relation to the E-A-T principles, please reach out to us.