Most people who work in the property industry will think that E-A-T stands for Estate Agent Today, one of our regular property news channels but that is not the E-A-T I am going to talk about here.
E-A-T as a strategy for Estate Agency SEO
This means that if you are writing content for your estate agency business, or indeed, any business, you should focus on these 3 things:
- Your expertise
- Your authority
- Your trustworthiness
E-A-T is a principle that appears in Google’s Quality Ratings guide (3.2) and is very important if you want people to be able to find the content that you have written about – ie you want it to rank on search engines such as Google.
“(3.2) High E-A-T news articles should be produced with journalistic professionalism—they should contain factually accurate content presented in a way that helps users achieve a better understanding of events. High E-A-T news sources typically have published established editorial policies and robust review processes.”
The author of the content also needs to have a high E-A-T score which means that they need to have a strong organic profile that can back up their expertise, their authority on the subject and how trustworthy they are. Make sure you do some thorough research before you put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, and do not present any inaccurate information – which, when the digital world moves so fast – can happen in the blink of an eye.
One thing that many estate agents or letting agents do is “buy” content and if you Google the first sentence of many an estate agent’s clogs and you will have so many different estate agents coming up on your search listings BUT all with exactly the same content – maybe they have just changed the name of their Town or Agency. Would that instill confidence and trust in your business? Google won’t think so, it will be detrimental to your organic search because it does not adhere to E-A-T policy. The May 2022 Google algorithm update stresses a focus on the principles of E-A-T.
How to improve your SEO using the E-A-T principle
Firstly it is good to put yourself into the “shoes” of 2 different entities:
- Your audience: Think about what words or sentences someone might type into a search engine and be directed to your website.
- The Search Engine (ie. Google): Using its spider eyes, how will this massive web find your little blog article, amongst 1.93 billion websites in the world?
Now you need to write all of the words and ‘phrases’ into your article, that you believe your readers would type into a search engine in order to get the answer that you are going to write about in your blog. These are called “Keywords and Keyphrases” and they are very important if you want the search engine to find what you have written about.
When you write all of the questions that you think someone who reads your article would ask Google and you then answer them with your words, in your style and with your credibility behind you, so not only are you explaining something important to your customers or potential customers, but you are explaining the purpose of your page to Google and other search engines too. The main content of your page needs to have a story, credibility, accuracy, and backlinks to other pages which can substantiate your words. Use images – remember to Geotag & Alt Text them – and video content too.
If you want to stand out from the avalanche of content being produced every single minute of the day, you have to focus on making quality content. The main content of your page needs to have:
- a good story,
- credibility,
- accuracy,
- and backlinks to other pages which can substantiate your words.
Blogging takes time, but it has a big impact on your SEO and how your potential clients can find you on Google. Do not be lazy and buy content that someone else has written for bulk use (genuinely this is a thing)!! Either employ a company (like us) to write you rurally unique content or write down questions that your customers ask you and then answer them. Use an SEO tool like SEMrush or Answer The Public, or simply scroll through the SERPs, so that you can quickly identify questions related to virtually any keyword. Write as much as you can on the subject, you really want to be 600+ words and jam-packed with information, then add in your keywords and key phrases or long-tail keywords, add in your images and video content, and backlinks to verify your research or analysis and you’ll be fine!
What Are SERPs?
Search Engine Results Pages (also known as “SERPs” or “SERP”) are the search engine responses to a user’s search query. SERPs will include organic search results, Google places, reviews, paid Google Ads results (these are usually at the top of the page), Featured Snippets, Knowledge Graphs and video results. If you want to see where your business ranks for your typical search queries, make sure that you use an “incognito search browser” otherwise your own website will probably be cached and will come up much higher than if a ‘new visitor’ was searching.
Jane Gardner
I work all over the UK with various business owners, dedicating my creative and expert property knowledge from 35 years in the industry. I am a Level 4 ARLA Propertymark examiner, I sit on the board of Agents Giving Charity and I love everything property related! I can be contacted on 01923 627777 or by email to jane@social-angels.co.uk
