EP051 Trust is a Must: Unlocking SEO Success for Ecommerce === [00:00:00] Darin Newbold: All right, good day and welcome to Commerce Today. Hey Josh, glad to have you on board today as we have a, uh, a fun conversation. My name is Darren, by the way. I didn't get that in in the, uh, did they know? All right. Well, let's hope so. They probably know who you are as well. But anyway, we are here to talk about hocus pocus and magic. [00:00:25] Oh no, no. Sorry. That's not, you told me I wasn't supposed to say that. We are going to talk about. Trustworthiness in SEO for e commerce. Now this is all based on a HubSpot article that kinda, that launched this, but I think this is a really neat topic at the end of the day, but help me understand this whole new frontier of trustworthiness. [00:00:45] Joshua Warren: Yeah, well, you're missing the best part that y'all will all see in the stream or feed or wherever you're watching. This is trust is a must. Um, I don't know, kind of cheesy, but I like it. so yeah, we're talking about, um, trustworthiness and it was interesting. So, um, HubSpot did a survey and had a really interesting article they put out around, you know, what matters most for SEO, what will actually get your pages ranking highest and higher in Google and Google has publicized in their very long, quality guidelines. [00:01:17] It's 170 page, 168 page PDF publicized for a long time that it's about EEAT, [00:01:23] Darin Newbold: But you've read all 168 pages, I'm sure. Exactly, exactly. All right, so EEAT. That's not how you pronounced it earlier, but let's go with this. [00:01:32] So, and that, for those keeping score at home, this is E E A T framework and how trustworthiness fits in. So what is, what is this? [00:01:42] Joshua Warren: EEAT framework? Yeah, and so, and that's Google's Abbreviation, not mine. And with the double E, I was pronouncing it, EEAT, I don't know if that's how they say it around the Googleplex, but [00:01:53] It stands for Experienced, [00:01:54] expert, authoritative, and trustworthy. So those are basically the kind of the four key things Google's looking at in content to determine if it's quality content. [00:02:03] They're going to surface in the search engine results. [00:02:06] Darin Newbold: Gotcha. All right. So that gives us a framework, but what does this ultimately kind of look like or how does it manifest itself really in content out there? [00:02:15] What does that [00:02:15] Joshua Warren: Yeah, well, and I kind of I missed the key point here of what HubSpot found is that while all of EEAT is important, trustworthiness is actually now the most important factor. [00:02:25] So the most important factor in your SEO rankings come down to trustworthiness, which Google defines trustworthiness primarily as, you know, is it accurate? Is it honest? Is it safe? Is it reliable content? [00:02:37] Darin Newbold: so we have a definition or we have a, you know, how it, how it looks in our content. But, how do we build some strategies around that? And, and kind of what can we take action on that would help us? [00:02:50] Joshua Warren: Yeah, so some of it's the basics that hopefully everyone's heard before of, Hey, create original and valuable content that stands out. So write content that your users are going to [00:03:00] Darin Newbold: So all that stuff from ChadGBT, right? Oh, exactly. [00:03:03] Joshua Warren: right? But then there's some really specific things, um, that I didn't realize just how big of an impact they have that they called out in this HubSpot article of show who the author is and not just a name, but show a photo link to a bio page, show the credibility of the author. [00:03:18] So if you have someone that's writing content that has 20 years of industry experience, put that there. If they have some certifications, put that there, kind of express that. Also, um, Google places a high value on a high level of trustworthiness and user generated content. So things like user reviews and user comments are actually ranked pretty highly in figuring out if something's trustworthy or not. [00:03:40] And then Google now is, um, and has been for a while, but especially lately, is looking at how often is this content being updated? Is it actually frequently updated? Um, you know, thanks to ChatGPT and all sorts of things, it feels like, kind of best in class content and knowledge and information is moving so fast these days. [00:03:58] And so have you, you know, if you have an article just making, making things up here, but you have an article that says that, you know, let's say you're selling toys for toddlers and you have an article talking about, you know, all the experts agree, this type of toy is the best thing for developing this skill in your child. [00:04:16] And we'll link to something, say, okay, this is based on a 2018 study. And if a new study comes out link to the newer study. So keep updating it. Keep kind of that level of, uh, relevance and refreshing. [00:04:30] Darin Newbold: Got it, got it. So then, how do we kind of put a whole bunch of things together in, in going just beyond the trustworthiness to a more holistic approach? [00:04:41] Joshua Warren: So this is where we were talking about hocus pogus and magic beans earlier. [00:04:46] I have a lot of opinions about SEO, if you are a professional SEO or work for an SEO agency, I'm sorry if I'm about to offend you. I'm sure there's some great people out there in that industry. I've just seen over the years, a lot of snake oil, a lot of magic beans, a lot of pay us a whole lot of money. [00:05:04] We can't tell you exactly what we're going to do, but we're going to make you magically rank higher in Google. And that's why I resonated so much with this update about trustworthiness, but I do want to acknowledge there are other aspects of SEO. And so really content relevance. So are you writing content that your article even cares about? [00:05:23] backlinks, which this is where [00:05:26] Darin Newbold: You mentioned some magic beans when we talked about this earlier. [00:05:28] Oh yeah, [00:05:29] Joshua Warren: So don't go out there. And I think most of our listeners know this now, but don't go out there and just pay someone to get a bunch of really low quality links to your site just because you've heard more links equals a higher ranking. [00:05:42] What Google's really looking for is links that make sense, like links that Is this someone that is actually basically vouching for your content saying this is quality content, or is this someone that you and a thousand other sites obviously paid to link to your site? Um, but beyond that, the domain authority. [00:05:57] So like overall is your domain, your site, does it look like something that Google should trust and should rank highly? Um, some, some of [00:06:06] that is [00:06:06] Darin Newbold: pretty subjective, Josh. [00:06:08] Joshua Warren: Oh no, read the 168 page PDF. They [00:06:10] have it [00:06:11] down to very specifics. And some of it is things like how old is your domain? You know, is it something that was just created? [00:06:17] Is it, you know, a very long string of gibberish, or is it words that actually make sense? Just some basics there. and then obviously, as we talk about a lot at Creatuity, um, Google's also looking at the user experience and at the page speed of your site. So, are you serving a modern experience with something like a PWA, or is your site not even mobile friendly yet and still kind of running 2015 technology? [00:06:41] Darin Newbold: Yeah, and that definitely plays into opportunities for, for merchants to consider even audits to their site and, and having that opportunity to really have a review and even having a third party review. [00:06:52] So it's not, not necessarily just coming from their own look of, uh, what's going on. So those all kind of. Our factors that come together in, uh, in the overall creating that robust SEO strategy, correct? I mean, that's kind of really what we're trying to put together, [00:07:09] Joshua Warren: Correct. Correct. [00:07:11] Darin Newbold: so kind of move into our our last kind of segment piece of this is How how do we have our merchants? [00:07:20] Implement this trustworthy content in their in their e commerce sites [00:07:24] Joshua Warren: Oh, yeah, this is the fun part. [00:07:25] Darin Newbold: who [00:07:26] Joshua Warren: so, you can implement this on your product pages, obviously. [00:07:30] So having good trustworthy product descriptions, having user reviews, um, Please don't do something like only show five star reviews. Google's smarter than that. Customers are smarter than that. Show all the reviews. Um, you can definitely have ways to filter them and things, but don't hide the bad reviews. [00:07:47] Um, that will definitely ding your trustworthiness factor. but I really like to focus on the educational content. And I think that's what most e commerce sites, and especially kind of the smaller merchants that we work with, Lots of times they're missing out on that aspect of search engine optimization and the ability to drive really a lot of traffic to your site through that type of content. [00:08:06] Darin Newbold: So just adding some educational, kind of helping the customer understand more about their product or service, and is a way to then rank higher. [00:08:17] Joshua Warren: well, and yeah. And it's a way to bring more traffic through SEO. And so for instance, you know, think about what are common things people ask about our products, like what questions they often have. [00:08:27] Write some content around that. But you can even go beyond that. And the way I recommend you look at it is think okay. Who is likely to purchase from us if we can get them to our website, who is most likely to purchase from us? Okay, what problems and challenges are they facing in their, average day? [00:08:44] And how can we help them with those? And so it might not even be about your product. So going back to my very hastily assembled idea of toddler toys earlier, um, even an article about how to sleep train your toddler or how to address sleep challenges. Doesn't have to be, you don't have to sell products around that. [00:09:03] You could just have an article about that, really focus in on those trustworthiness factors, um, write that article in a way that you're citing some sources, you're linking to some other sites, you're even maybe encouraging other people that find it helpful to link to you, and then. Either directly or indirectly kind of put them into your e commerce funnel. [00:09:24] And what I mean by that is you could at the bottom of the article say, Hey, if you found this helpful, check out our toddler toys and take them into your product catalog, or, you know, you could just have kind of the holistic effect of, okay, they're going to see your brand name, they're going to see. This is a company that cares that is helping me understand how to address this problem and just build up some brand loyalty that way. [00:09:45] So you can be kind of more direct or indirect depending on the [00:09:49] Darin Newbold: audience. [00:09:49] Yeah, that's a really interesting way to do that. One quick question, and this isn't on our, on our notes here, but I wanted to ask it. Do you put that kind of, ancillary educational content, would that still be on your, or part of your e commerce page? Or would you even think about having that maybe as a separate landing page that would then draw back and be that backlink that [00:10:09] Joshua Warren: It can be both, um, and it really depends. [00:10:11] So you put it on a product page and you can rank for that product page, or if it's more about a category of products. So I don't know, outdoor play equipment [00:10:21] Darin Newbold: Right, right. [00:10:22] Joshua Warren: Then on, you could develop a category page or just kind of a custom assortment page where you have the products in line with this content, or it could be just a whole separate area. [00:10:32] Some sites will call this their blog. Some will call it their knowledge library. There's different things you can call it, but you could have just a separate section of the site that has just this pure content. What I wouldn't do is I wouldn't go set up I wouldn't Let's say it's toddlertoys. com, which I don't know if that's a real business or [00:10:49] not. Probably is. Don't go set up blog. [00:10:51] toddlertoys. com like you want this on your main site. You want this content sitting close to your e commerce [00:10:59] Darin Newbold: Gotcha. Gotcha. Alright, so moving on, beyond all this educational content, you also have a bunch of existing content. [00:11:06] Is there some things we can do there that can really help the whole SEO and ranking? [00:11:11] Joshua Warren: So this is an area where again, like you mentioned before, having a third party come in and audit can really help. you can do this yourself, but sometimes you get so kind of used to looking at your own site that you don't see the forest for the trees. Um, if you do want to try to do this yourself, HubSpot pointed to a couple of interesting tools. [00:11:30] One is called ClearScope and one is called Surfer SEO. And we'll link to those, but really what you want to do, whether you're using one of those tools, you're having someone else audit it, or if you're just doing it kind of freehand by yourself is look at your existing content, especially content that is already getting a little bit of traffic from Google. [00:11:48] Um, and check the facts on it, check the statistics, check and see, you know, is this something I wrote five years ago and now the industry has changed and update it. also if you have some things that are Ranking okay, but not great. Look and see if you have a bunch of fluff in there, especially older content, back when everyone loved to just stuff as many keywords into an article as they could, revise that, and again, think I'm a potential customer, I come to this page, I have this particular problem. [00:12:17] What content is going to help me the most and if you think that way you're going to find your rankings improving [00:12:23] Darin Newbold: Well, yeah, and that's, that's really, really cool stuff. So, kind of as we put this together, HubSpot found a kind of a case where, where some really cool stuff happened. [00:12:33] So, tell us a little bit more about that. [00:12:35] Joshua Warren: Yeah. [00:12:35] So lots of times SEO work doesn't get prioritized. We have a lot going on as e commerce merchants and consultants. And so saying, I'm going to sit down and review all the content on our site and revise it is just not high on the list. And especially when you, you know, you usually think, Oh, SEO work, it's going to take six months. [00:12:53] It's going to take 12 months. It's going to take a long time to pay off. Hostwap found in one case where in 24 hours, organic traffic went up 3x just because someone had gone in and taken an okay page and revised it around these trustworthiness factors. [00:13:08] Darin Newbold: Interesting. That's amazing. So there's actions you can take right away and pulling just from this. that's amazing. That's very cool. And I hope to, uh, I hope to hear of some fun success stories from building out this trustworthiness. What's kind of your final thoughts on the importance around trustworthiness within SEO? [00:13:31] Joshua Warren: Um, so for a long time, Google has said, think like a user and do things that benefit the user. [00:13:38] Like, don't worry about the search engine, don't worry about doing specific things just for Google, design things so that it truly meets your users needs, and that'll help you rank. That is truer now, more than ever, but I think especially as we see Google start to deploy more and more AI. I mean, imagine ChatGPT going to your website and being asked, does it meet these factors? [00:14:02] And I think Google's capabilities to figure out, are you really providing value to human beings or not? Used to it was, you know, hard for them to do that. [00:14:11] And Now [00:14:12] it's getting easier and easier. So focus on that, just that trustworthiness to the user. [00:14:17] Darin Newbold: And once again, through all of this, it comes back to build your site for those that are going to buy your product and do the things that are going to cause them to be interested and want to be there. [00:14:28] it's not, uh, it's not complicated necessarily. It is definitely not easy. And, uh, it's not always, not always as simple as that sounds. Well. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, appreciate your time here with us here at Commerce Today. I definitely encourage and invite you to subscribe to, uh, to our podcast and or follow, whether it's on LinkedIn or on YouTube, subscribe on YouTube, follow on LinkedIn. [00:14:51] Add in your comments. We'd love to hear success stories of, hey, you tried some of these things that we've suggested here about trustworthiness. Let us know how it worked. With that, as always, you take care. Have a great day.