If you follow marketing to any degree, especially as it applies to your law firm, you will know SEO is an oft-used abbreviation for search engine optimisation, which is the process by which businesses seek to have their websites rank higher in Google and other search engines than they already do.
Here, we are going to introduce another three-letter term, and it is one that you should take notice of because it comes from the search engine whose policies and algorithms dictate the vast majority of website rankings, Google. Those three letters are E, A, and T and they come together as E-A-T. Before you ask, it has nothing to do with food but instead is a key aspect of Google’s views on what the content on websites should demonstrate if they wish to be ranked well.
Let us start by explaining what each of the letters in E-A-T stands for.
E stands for Expertise.
A stands for Authoritativeness
T stands for Trustworthiness
At first glance, you might be thinking that these are three traits that you would want most people to have, and you are correct. However, just as they might be seen as positive attributes of an individual, they are also regarded by Google as desirable attributes in website content, which is why they must be considered carefully by any lawyer who wishes their content to help their website rank highly on Google.
To that end, our first recommendation is an obvious one and that is you must include E-A-T as part of your content creation within your SEO campaign. However, to do so you must first know what each term means in the eyes of Google, and how you can illustrate that your content is worthy of those descriptions, which is what we are about to explain.
Expertise
Of the three terms, this is likely to be the most easily understood by everyone. After all, we all know what an expert is and how they are seen as the most knowledgeable about a given subject. All true, and when it comes to what Google is seeking when assessing expertise, it is the content on the website that they will be assessing, mainly for reliability and accuracy.
Expertise will have different meanings depending on the subject matter and type of website the content is on. For legal websites, the content will need to be legally accurate as well as entirely factual. It will also help if the content is marked as being written by someone with legal qualifications and experience.
Authoritativeness
Many people regard this as another way to describe someone’s reputation and, based on the information Google publishes, this is not an erroneous way of considering authoritativeness within the content. What this means for the content which you publish on your website is, the better the reputation and thus the authority of the content creator, the more it meets this measure.
A great way to achieve this on your website is to invite outside sources of legal information to write content for your website, and to ensure that each of those individuals can be seen to be authorities on the subject they are writing about. This is more about being seen as an expert rather than the mere fact of being one so publishing professional qualifications or their top legal achievements alongside an author’s name is an ideal way to display this.
Trustworthiness
Many people believe this is the same as authoritativeness, but it is not, and certainly not in Google’s view. Authoritativeness is showing someone is an expert, but trustworthiness is being able to show that not just those writing the content, but also the website and the law firm behind it, can be trusted as a source of accurate content, information, and advice.
Ways that you can illustrate trustworthiness which are relatively simple include having your full business address, along with contact email and telephone number displayed. In addition, reviews and testimonials go a long way toward showing trustworthiness. You can also show certifications and accreditations that your law firm and the individual legal professionals who work there have.