What Are The 3 Pillars of SEO?
SEO is the subject of constant scrutiny. There seem to be two distinct schools of thought, and they differ greatly. There are those who say SEO is dead, and isn’t worth putting any time into. And there are those who say SEO is absolutely pivotal, and must be considered in your business marketing strategy.
We believe that SEO is still alive, well, and constantly changing. The fact of the matter is that there’s a lot of bad information out there on the world wide web. Search engines want to be considered sources of credible information, so part of their search algorithm is to find reliable, trustworthy websites to display as results. They use robots and crawlers that they utilize to better understand what type of information is available on a website. Search engines such as Google also use human searchers to make sure that the information on a website is actually readable, among other things. How this information is interpreted is a large part of how your website shows up as a result of searches. That being said, high quality, easy to read content plays a huge factor in SEO. The content that you put out on your website helps you establish the three pillars of SEO, which are Expertise, Authority, and Trust.
Why Should You Care About The 3 Pillars Of SEO
As we mentioned before, the content of your website is interpreted by robots, crawlers and humans, and that helps determine where and even if your website will appear in search results. Gone are the days of keyword stuffing, and paying for backlinks! In today’s world, your website must demonstrate the three pillars of SEO. Maybe your website is just cute pictures of pets, or cool plants, in which case these three pillars may not matter as much to you, but if you are trying to attract more visitors and ultimately customers, these three factors should drive the creation of all content for your website.
Part of the process is to determine if you prove expertise in your particular subject. For certain fields, like law or accounting, this may mean demonstrating that you are educated and qualified to perform that kind of work. In other fields, demonstrating “everyday” expertise can be enough. For instance, if you are a food blogger that specializes in finding the best ramen in every city, Google would consider you an “expert” if you can demonstrate that you have eaten enough ramen in your lifetime to be able to effectively judge each bowl you consume.
Authority is based on your reputation. That being said, it does rely out factors outside of you and your organization. Authority is demonstrated through reviews, references, news, articles, recommendations from other experts, and other credible sources of information that is created by someone outside of the organization.
Lastly, trust is related to the quality of the information available on the website. Searchers are looking for legitimate and accurate information, which builds trust. Trust that the information is accurate can be built by utilizing proper citations. Offering proper contact information also helps build credibility and trustworthiness.
Now that we’ve covered all three pillars, does a website that accomplishes all three (E-A-T) always rank in Google searches? Not necessarily. It is important to have all three pillars present to help computers understand the bits and bytes of information that they process, but it isn’t the end all be all solution to ranking on Google.
Improving the E-A-T of your website will have positive effects on your website, that ultimately will help attract more visitors and turn them into customers. The effects are not instant (well nothing is in SEO!) but we believe they are worthwhile!
Our next post will be about how to improve the E-A-T of your website, so stay tuned!