Why the text on your website still matters

It's been an interesting and varied week, and as usual in my world, it all starts with Google and content. I won't bore you with the technical details, but let's just say the world of web is fundamentally changing—and possibly for the better.

For those who don't know, when I talk about content, I'm referring to the text on your website. Whether it's on your product pages, service descriptions, blog posts, or articles like this one—wherever it sits doesn't really matter. For today's discussion, we can sum up all your text as "content."

In simple terms, Google's search engine works by reading the text on your website to figure out what you're all about. There are a trillion other factors, of course, but good old-fashioned text remains pretty key to the whole thing working.

Over the past few years, pretty much everyone has cottoned on to the fact that pumping their website full of content makes Google view their site as superior to competitors. When that happens, the business with the most content around its subject tends to win and attracts more visitors.

But in many cases, this has become a race to the bottom. Simply having lots of words by churning out endless, poor-quality blog posts is not what it should be about. It has been, but it shouldn't be.

Google knows this too, and the search results pages have been getting a clear-out—not great for some websites but brilliant for others.

Google's mission mirrors yours

You see, just like your business, Google really serves one single function: to make you want to use its products and services.

If every time you search for something you're directed to a poor website, you won't use Google. But if every search connects you to a great website that perfectly meets your needs—guess what? You'll keep using Google.

And there's been some truly awful content out there in recent years.

Enter E-E-A-T: Google's quality standard

So Google changed things up and developed a concept called E-E-A-T to evaluate the credibility and quality of online content and websites.

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. We know Google wants to connect people to great websites that fulfill their searches, and this is a fantastic framework for doing so.

Push forward the websites that demonstrate Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Push down those that don't.

I like it—I like it a lot. Here's why: For SMEs, which make up the vast majority of my clients, this has been and continues to be absolute gold. It's a rare opportunity to shine and compete with the big players online by demonstrating they're experts in their field.

This isn't new, but it's still relevant today and becoming increasingly important.

The AI revolution and your content

Here's the kicker: Google is now moving to fulfill people's search queries with AI summary responses. To do this effectively, it needs to draw high-quality information from reliable sources. And where does it find those reliable sources? The websites it considers subject matter experts in their field.

The ones publishing content that ticks all the E-E-A-T boxes are clearly going to be in the mix.

I ran an experiment using an established website that hasn't had much recent content added but is packed with E-E-A-T worthy material and ranks well for its main search terms.

Google's AI overview and their newer full 'AI mode' both mention and reference the brand name. Even better—can you imagine the authority it gives that business when Google itself is clearly saying "XXX" is the best example for that exact service in that exact market?

There's probably a happy sales director somewhere scratching their head about how their leads just increased without spending a penny more on marketing. Nice problem to have, I suppose.

Back to basics: Quality over quantity

Let's come full circle to the text on your website with some advice: The next time you're tempted to get ChatGPT to write a spammy 150-word blog to "hack the living daylights out of SEO," please do yourself a favor—don't.

Instead, use it to generate topic suggestions, then write something Google will recognize as great for E-E-A-T. Because if it's great for Google, it'll be great for your website visitors too.