E.E.A.T. The Podiatrist’s SEO Superpower
Clinicians Have an SEO Superpower!
As clinicians we actually have a huge advantage over the average Joe or Jane.
Google wants to protect the power of it’s search engines when it comes to dangerous disinformation, or Fake News as it is often termed these days.
When it comes to anything to do with money or health matters, Google is putting in a massive effort to push good quality information from qualified sources above armchair practitioners.
Google employs an army of humans (yes, actual humans) who look through search results to ensure that the best quality information is getting through.
Especially when it comes to “Your Money, Your Life” (Y.M.Y.L.)
Any website that is giving advice on financial or health matters attracts extra scrutiny.
At first this might sound like a scary prospect, but I think it helps us a lot.
Disinformation is Everywhere
Just think of all the armchair experts and quacks out there giving out advice on home remedies, wives’ tales and even dangerous treatments, Google is out to get them!
This leaves room for people with real qualifications and experience in Podiatry (or any other health discipline for that matter), to give REAL advice that is actually beneficial to the reader.
We also let them know when they need a consultation with an expert to make sure that they are on the right track to recovery and not just let them go along at home without guidance.
E.E.A.T. = Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E.E.A.T.)
E.E.A.T. is an acronym created by Google to guide its Quality Raters to know if high quality content is being returned in its search results.
This is where qualified and experienced health practitioners should really step up and take charge.
As you can tell from the name E.E.A.T. means they are looking for all the qualities that YOU/WE already possess: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
These are the qualities that you should have front of mind whenever you are writing content for your clinic website.
How can you display these qualities?
Instead of regurgitating what everyone else has already written on the net, provide high quality insights based on your education, your experience, and any further research that you have read or conducted along the way.
This is something that AI cannot produce. It is unique to you and the world needs to know about it!
1. Experience
Ensure that the person writing your content has first hand experience in what they are writing about.
In most practices either the owner or one of the other podiatrists will be the author, but you need to make sure that Google and all of your readers are aware of their experience.
Make sure that the author’s name is on every piece of content, near the top, and that there is an easily accessed bio on the author. Describe in the bio any qualifications they (or you) have and what experience they have in the specific topic being written about.
Google also want to know that anybody writing a review of your business has actually been to your business, so don’t go in for buying reviews or getting friends and relatives to write them if they haven’t actually been a patient.
2. Expertise
To demonstrate your expertise,any qualifications you have should be easy to find on your website.
I’m still amazed when I look at a practice website and can’t find any information on the members of their team.
A detailed biography of each practitioner is a great way to demonstrate that your practice employs people with the expertise to advise readers about your topic.
Make sure to mention their university degree, any memberships of professional associations and any areas of the profession where they have conducted extra study or have particular experience in.
Although we can’t ask for reviews, they are another factor that Google often looks to for displaying the expertise of the practice.
3. Authoritativeness
Instead of regurgitating what everyone else has already written on the net, provide high quality insights based on your education, your experience, and any further research that you have read or conducted along the way.
This is something that AI cannot produce. It is unique to you and the world needs to know about it!
4. Trustworthiness
Trustworthiness is said to be the most important part of E.E.A.T.
If your clinic website is known to regularly contain non-factual or unsubstantiated material – this will damgage your Trustworthiness.
Google’s quality raters take into account everything to do with your site to determine trustworthiness: who wrote the material? what do reviewers say?
Here’s some things that you can do to improve the Trustworthiness of your site in the eyes of Google:
- Don’t cover up material with big ads – don’t you hate it when you’re trying to read an article and a huge ad pops up and covers what you’re trying to read? I do! And Google does too.
- Make sure that all of your content is edited for ACCURACY, this is very important. Also make sure that as things change in your field of expertise, you update your information to reflect these changes,
- HTTPS safety certificate! I can’t emphasise this enough and I’m dismayed when I come across a site that still doesn’t have HTTPS security. This tells the internet that your site is safe, Google will basically tell people to run away by displaying a message that the site may be trying to steal your information.
- Make sure that any external links that you use in your content are from reliable and Trustworthy sources. They say you are a product of the people you hang around with, and Google agrees!
- Make sure that any backlinks you have are also from reputable sources. There are dodgy sites out there who will try to link to your site which can seriously damage your online reputation.
- Make sure that your “Privacy Policy” and any “Terms and Conditions” are easy to access. Google places high priority especially on Privacy Policies and wants to know that yours is solid and easily found.
Final Thoughts - Be Helpful!
In conjunction with your E.E.A.T. considerations when creating content, always make sure that you are being helpful.
Believe it or not in 2022 Google announced a “Helpful Content” algorithm update which is quite self explanatory, they made steps to reward content that people find helpful, and punish sites that contained unhelpful content.
They especially decided to target websites that were creating content purely for search engines and not for people.
I know that this concept seems almost too obvious, but consider that for many years “Black Hat SEOs” were employing tactics that were purely designed to make Google believe that their content should be at the top of search engine results, whether it was helpful or not.
So always keep that word “helpful” in mind and you’ll rarely go wrong.
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