Table of Contents
Google Search Essentials Explained
People-First Content
What is E-E-A-T?
Content Evaluation
Why Should You Care About Google Search Essentials?
In a recent discussion with a client about SEO strategy and implementations, I pointed out the important role of Google Search Essentials (formerly known as Webmaster Guidelines). In particular, I explained what Google Search Essentials were and why he should care about it as it pertains to his company website.
Google Search Essentials Explained
Google Search Essentials are the rules, guidelines and best practices that can help website owners create “original”, “reliable” and “helpful” content meant to benefit people (Google users), not your website (from a ranking in Google’s SERPs perspective). Google refers to this content creation approach as “people-first” rather than “search engine-first”.
So, if you are thinking about implementing effective SEO, following Google’s key best practice recommendations is something you should do. Why? Well, failure to follow Google Search Essentials key best practices can result in your website facing significant challenges including algorithmic or manual penalties, making it much harder to find your website pages in the SERPs.
People-First Content
As mentioned earlier, Google recommends creating content for “people” (Google users), not as a way to benefit your website in their SERPs. As such, here are a few things to consider:
Originality
A linchpin of the people-first approach is to create original content. But what is original content? According to Google, original content is not simply copied (duplicate content) or regurgitated content from other sources. Rather, original content is that which you have uniquely written and provides a fresh and useful perspective which offers significant value to people.
Reliability
Google considers content to be reliable when puts the users’ needs first as evidenced by such content being helpful, informative and trustworthy (accurate).
Helpfulness
Helpful content is made for search engine users offering users, them direct answers to their questions or solutions to their problems.
This all brings us to a guiding principle of Google Search Essentials, which is E-E-A-T.
What is E-E-A-T?
E-E-A-T is an acronym that stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. E-E-A-T is the all-encompassing approach to content creation that benefits Google users. As such, website content should offer fresh ideas and deep information. It is not just rewriting what others have said. Original research and unique insights are the hallmarks of such content. Thus, with E-E-A-T in mind, does your content show that you are a knowledgeable expert in your field? Can Google users trust what you say? If the answers to these questions is “yes”, then you have likely done a great job with your content creation.
Content Evaluation
From Google’s perspective, it is important that you evaluate your content to understand who has created it, how it has been created and why has it been created.
Who Created the Content?
Let people know who is behind your content. For example, if you are the sole author of your website’s content, you could create a detailed author profile/page. This would include links to your external social media channels to highlight your credentials and reach, as an established/expert.
How Was the Content Created?
Nowadays, it seems like many content creators are using AI-generated content, because it is fast, cheap to use (free) and requires little effort. Google does not ban the use of AI-generated content. Instead Google is primarily focused on the quality of the content and its purpose (for the user, not as a tool for search engine manipulation), as opposed to the means through which it was created. That said, like human created content, AI-generated content must still be original, reliable and helpful. It must also adhere to the principles of E-E-A-T.
Why Was the Content Created?
This is perhaps the most important consideration from Google’s perspective. If the reason behind creating your web page content is to manipulate search engine rankings in your favor, this would violate Google’s spam policies. If, on the other hand, you are creating content with the Google users’ or your website visitor’s needs in mind, then this would be consistent with the principles of Google’s E-E-A-T, and should help your SEO efforts.
Why Should You Care About Google Search Essentials?
If you operate a business website and depend on attracting new clients or customers from Google searches, it would benefit you to abide by the guidelines of Google Search Essentials. To do so, can contribute to your long-term online success. To ignore Google Search Essentials and utilize black hat SEO, can prove to be a disaster for your online efforts.
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