Google E-A-T: Guidelines and SEO Benefits

Ensure That Content Matches the Intent of the Target Keyword / Search Query / Top Ranked Pages

When researching a new piece or a meaningful update for an existing piece that may not be ranking as highly as we would like, take some time to assess what the intent of the search is trying to solve for. By looking at the top ranking pages for a given keyword we can quickly get a high level assessment of what Google thinks the intent is based on who they choose to rank. Often times, what we think a page should be about based on our own experience may not actually map to what is happening in the search results. Therefore, it is always good to check what is happening in the SERPs as part of our initial research.

Benefits:

• The primary goal for any page is to fill the immediate need(s) of our users

• By mapping our content to the right intent, we are able to boost engagement & conversion

• Matching intent will also help boost dwell times & help keep our content on Google’s good side

Guidelines:

• Identify the most important keywords for the content you are writing / updating

• Run a search for each of those keywords & look at what the top ranking pages focus on

• E.g. For “Best x”, do most articles actually pick ONE as the best or do they compare a list?

• Are top ranking page more information based vs commerce oriented or is their a healthy mix?

• Get a feel for what Google is ranking & looking for, then expand on that with deeper quality

Use a Healthy Mix of Copy & Supporting Images/Media/Infographics/Etc. To Enhance Engagement

Another healthy and helpful way to boost the quality and appearance of content is to try and incorporate additional media elements alongside the core copy. When possible, we want to look for ways to visualize key data points or concepts with imagery, video support or interactive elements.

Benefits:

• Adding visual or interactive elements can make content easier to read / consume

• These elements can often increase user engagement, time spent & dwell times

• Premium visual assets or interactive tools can often garner more links & shares

• Aesthetically pleasing content also improves brand trust and quality

Guidelines:

• Look for ways to incorporate visuals that help explain / validate points on the page

• Premium pillar content assets should look to leverage support assets in a meaningful way

• Consider tools/calculators/infographics/explainer videos for content with high competition

• Look at existing top ranked pages and identify visual elements that can set us apart

• Share visual assets across social & partner sites to encourage external links / mentions

Be Aware of Editorial, Commerce/Affiliate & Ad Unit Balance

Another important consideration when creating content for SEO success is the balance between helpful information and revenue generating commerce or affiliate links. We want to make sure that we are always striking a healthy balance that allows us to monetize our content in the most effective ways, while also staying in line with what Google wants in its search results. Therefore, take some time to assess what Google is surfacing in its rankings and determine what the appropriate content balance needs to be for the keywords you are targeting, especially for “Your Money Your Life” content.

Benefits/Risks:

• Striking a healthy mix of editorial and commerce can be quite lucrative for the business

• Too much commerce on a page can decrease the overall credibility of the content

• For highly commercial keywords commerce can be a great revenue driver (eg: tech reviews)

• For highly sensitive keywords lean towards stronger editorial and trust (eg: health)

• Too many ad units on a page can result in an SEO penalty from Google

• Too many ad units above the fold where quality content is pushed down can be problematic

• Pop ups, interstitials, auto play videos & related ads that are distracting can be problematic

Guidelines:

• Assess top ranking pages to get a quick feel for how prevalent commerce links seem to be

• When commerce opportunities present themselves, look to test them first before a full roll out

• Is commerce sparse in the SERPs? Tread carefully. Make sure the ROI outweighs the risks.

• Is commerce common in the SERPs? Go deep with editorial & try to win on depth / value.

• Ensure that ads are properly labeled / identified as sponsored content

• Ensure that affiliate disclaimers exist on any page that has affiliate links

• Make sure that Ads do NOT distract from the main content (MC) & follow ad placement best practice

Resources:

Google Penalties Related To Ad Usage:

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/bad-ads-usage-practices-that-can-hurt-your-seo/187203/

Google Ad Placement Best Practices (from their Adsense Program)

https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1282097?hl=en

Google Page Layout Algorithm: Been Around For A Long Time & Is Still Very Relevant

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-algorithm-history/page-layout

Ensure That Sponsored/Affiliate Content Is Properly Placed, Labeled & Called Out

Similar to striking a balance between editorial and commerce/affiliate content, we also want to make sure that we follow Google’s expected guidelines when it comes to sponsored content. Google wants sites to be transparent when there is a clear commercial incentive behind a piece of content that ranks in the SERPs. Therefore, we want to make sure that we actively label any content that is sponsored by partners / 3rd parties and disclose any monetary incentives through the proper use of disclaimers.

Benefits:

• Being transparent with users and Google helps keep our credibility high

• Transparency provides users with a better understanding of what they are reading and why

• Properly labeled modules are now best practice and becoming an expected norm with users

• Being upfront about sponsored content helps set user expectations & build more trust

Guidelines:

• Make sure that commerce modules / widgets are clearly labeled as Sponsored or Ads

• Never try to trick users with fake module headers Eg: Related Links that actually contextual ads

• For articles that are sponsored, make sure the label is clear above the fold

• Consider no-indexing sponsored content / articles that have limited value to the business

Understanding Google and the FTC’s Guidelines On Affiliate Content / Ads / Etc.

Google Affiliate Guidelines: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/76465

Original FTC Disclosure Requirements / Guidelines (2009): https://www.dropbox.com/s/z68rzbexg2pn9h2/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf?dl=0

Updated FTC .com Disclosure Requirements / Guidelines (2013): https://www.dropbox.com/s/guajb3hp96xv25j/130312dotcomdisclosures.pdf?dl=0

Ad Units: What To Avoid: Key Excerpts From Google’s Ad Placement Policies

For full details on Google ad placement policies you can review them here. We highly recommend that key team members read all of the resources in this section at least once to familiarize themselves with current best practices and risks.

Use Proper Disclaimers For Any UGC On The Page and Ensure UGC Is Moderated

UGC can often be a great way to expand the depth and uniqueness around a piece of content or section. However, if left unchecked or moderated, it can also be one of the fastest ways to get a site in trouble with Google. Therefore, it is highly recommended that any comment areas, user review sections, forums and related UGC assets come with a clear disclaimer to ensure that our editorial content and trust is kept separate from any UGC that gets posted.

Benefits:

• High quality UGC can often add meaningful depth to existing content

• UGC can create strong engagement between users and representatives of the brand

• UGC can help foster great feedback for content improvement and future expansion

• UGC can enhance the value of pillar content by providing multiple points of view

Guidelines:

• If possible, always moderate any UGC that exists in the site / areas you are focused on

• Try to encourage users with guided instruction to contribute in the most effective way

• Establish guidelines & codes of conduct that users must adhere to in order to participate

• Consider guided forms with questions vs simple free form to help curb low value commentary

• Remove spam, derogatory comments and related UGC as soon as possible

• Always ensure that links within a UGC posted area are no-followed to prevent link spam

• Consider forcing users to register & confirm their email/cell number before contributing

• If forums exist, try to keep them separate from editorial content (Eg. Use a subdomain)

Template / Site Structure E-A-T Guidelines

Always Choose Static, Evergreen URLs Over URLs With Dates & Related Limitations

One item that often gets overlooked on a site is how to properly structure URLs for long term SEO success. In order to maximize effectiveness over the long haul it is important that the URL for a given article follow certain basic guidelines to help prevent unnecessary SEO problems down the road.

Benefits:

• Static URLs can be updated frequently without having to change the URL using a redirect

• Evergreen URLs are able to age and build trust with Google

• Evergreen URLs are able to keep (and expand) on their external links and mentions

• SEO friendly URLs typically produce higher click through rates

Guidelines:

• Opt for SEO friendly, evergreen URLs that can stand the test of time

• Avoid putting dates into URLs. Opt for dates inside the article itself instead for easy updating

• Avoid parameter based URLs for pages that are SEO focused

• Be careful applying folders to URLs when a page might connect to multiple categories / topics

• If changing a URL, always ensure that a proper 301 redirect is applied to the old URL

• If changing many URLs at once try to apply 301 redirects in small batches and test the results

• Always consult with a member of the SEO team before making a decision to change a URL

• Try to avoid redirecting or changing a URL to an existing high traffic page. Assess the risks first.

Premium Content Should Be Within 2-3 Clicks of Homepage

In order for content to achieve SEO rank success we need to make sure that Google can easily find, crawl and index the page. Google is able to locate pages in a variety of different ways, but if we want Google to treat a particular piece of content with extra care it is important to surface it as soon as possible in the crawl process. The further away a given page is in the site hierarchy, the less trust and power that page will most likely have in Google’s eyes. Therefore, any important page should strive to be within 2-3 clicks of the homepage where possible.

Benefits:

• Pages higher up in the site hierarchy tend to have more power & authority in Google’s eyes

• Pages found within a few clicks are often crawled & updated more frequently by Google

• Pages higher in the site are able to better distribute links & trust through the rest of the site

• Pages higher in the site that are tightly themed help establish topical authority for better SEO

Guidelines:

• Surround important content with a rich, highly inter-connected site structure

• Leverage your main and sub navigation for premium content assets

• Actively map all content to specific categories, tightly relevant themes and topics

• Leverage a proper and full breadcrumb tree to encourage improved crawl efficiency

• Include tightly relevant link modules around important content for internal link distribution

• Don’t forget to include all important pages in XML sitemaps and related A-Z pages

Content Should Be Mapped to Both A Master Topic/Category and Related Sub Categories/Themes

Building trust and authority for SEO purposes goes beyond having great content. We also want Google to see us as a trusted site the topic areas we service, not just one specific page. Therefore, we want to ensure that our editorial content is packaged up and cross linked in tightly relevant groups (also known as Silos or Topic Hubs). In order to make this happen, it is incredibly important to ensure that each article gets mapped in the CMS to categories/topics that are relevant so that supporting modules and template elements can be automated in a hyper targeted way.

Benefits:

• Tightly mapped content helps users engage in a deeper way within a given topic area

• Tightly mapped content helps establish topical authority in Google’s eyes

• Tightly linked content helps distribute powerful internal links to our highest value content

Guidelines:

• Ensure that every page is mapped to one core master topic / category

• Where appropriate, map content to secondary topics/themes

• As content scales in a given topic, look to expand down into tighter sub topics / niches

• Look at contextual links within an article & ensure that they are relevant & not over done

• Look at link modules surrounding the page & make sure they are as relevant as possible

• Topics should have a minimum of 7 pieces of valuable content, 10+ is preferred

• More than 20? No problem, but look at possible subtopics that can be created as new silos

Use A Proper Breadcrumb Tree to Help Users and Search Engine Crawlers Navigate the Site Efficiently

As mentioned in a recent bullets, having a proper breadcrumb tree added to the site structure can be a tremendous help for Google (and users) when navigating the site. For the purposes of authority and trust a breadcrumb provides a natural and relevant way to distribute links and authority to key pages within the site. This becomes increasingly important the bigger a site becomes, as more and more content gets grouped into deeper silos and themes.

Benefits:

• Natural link distribution with targeted anchor text for search engines

• Improved user experience with easier navigation through a topic area

• Provides a natural way to ensure that parent topics / themes get added power

Guidelines:

• Ensure that content is always mapped to a relevant topic / category

• Pay close attention to the naming of links in the breadcrumb – use relevant targeted keywords

• Include a link to the homepage at the front of the breadcrumb trail

• At the article level include the title of the article in the breadcrumb, but de-link it

Ensure That Content is Surrounded with Related Links/Content Modules That Are Relevant to Page

This is a critical piece when it comes to long term SEO success and the ability for a site to establish strong topical authority and trust. By introducing modules that cross link to related content and topics we provide users with a natural way to continue their journey, while also providing search engines with relevant contextual links that help boost our authority within a topic area.

Benefits:

• Relevant link modules can help boost pageviews per visit and engagement

• Link modules help distribute hyper relevant links within a silo / group of content

• Link modules help to boost authority for our most important pages within a topic

• Link modules help distribute domain authority more efficiently throughout the site

Guidelines:

• Every article we post should have at least one related links module tied to it

• For long form pillar content look to include multiple link modules if relevant/appropriate

• Always keep the mobile experience in mind and ensure that modules show up in both mobile / desktop

• Module examples: related links, editor’s picks, most popular, featured spotlight, link river at the bottom of an article based on most recent, related topics, etc.

• Double check each article after publishing or updating it to ensure modules are in place and relevant to the page

• Example wireframe uses examples with the right rail, but leveraging modules within the core content block can works very well and is also recommended when appropriate.

Choose Long Form Content Over Paginated Content or Slideshows (when organic is a top priority)

When faced with a choice, always opt for one long form article with depth over a paginated piece of content. Slideshows and fragmented content tend not to perform as well in search engines and can hurt the user experience.

Benefits:

• Long form content is a much smoother user experience

• Long form content tends to rank better in search engines

• Time spent can often be improved with a quality long form article

• Cross linking between articles with modules is better with a long form article

• Long form content is looked at as more authoritative than a fragmented slide show article

Guidelines:

• Try not to paginate content when the option is there

• Look at alternative ways to leverage long form content for ad views

• If pagination is necessary make sure to use SEO friendly code (rel=”next” and rel=”prev”). Follow this guide from Google when needed.

• If using infinite scroll, follow these Google’s SEO guidelines to ensure all content is indexed

• If using a slideshow, keep the # of ad units to a minimum (1-2) to avoid potential SEO issues for having too many ads on relatively thin pages.

Consider Adding Targeted Sub Navigation For Topics / Silos Where You Have Lots of Content

As mentioned earlier, we want to make sure that Google can easily find, index and rank our most important content. We also want to try and rank for as many targeted keyword phrases and variations that we can. This is why we opt for long form content broken down into sections with targeted headings, sub headings and bullets. This provides Google with lots of relevant SEO signals to choose from. Additionally, as we begin to scale content within specific high value topic areas, it may make sense to add in sub navigation to help group content into tighter themes with added value.

Benefits:

• As content grows in a topic area, sub nav elements help us niche down across more keywords

• Sub navigation provides opportunities go much deeper into a specific sub set of topics

• Sub navigation makes it easy for users and search engines to continue on a relevant journey

• Sub navigation helps boost the internal link power (and relevancy) for our critical silos/topics

Guidelines:

• Only consider sub navigation when there is enough content to warrant it

• Sub nav elements can be to new category hubs or long form sub articles

• Sub nav elements can also be in a single long form guide (known as jump links or a table of contents that lives just under the H1 header)

• Choose the sub navigation style that best suits the content or topic area being worked on

• Try not to overdo your sub navigation. 4-7 links is often more than enough.

• When creating a sub navigation menu, try to incorporate keywords with volume in a natural way

When Redirecting, Use Proper 301 Redirects and Test Them to Ensure They Work Properly

When redirecting an old page to a new destination, always ensure that a proper 301 redirect is put in place. This tells Google that the page is permanently being moved to a new location and to update its signals to the new corresponding page. It is very rare that a 302 (a temporary redirect) would need to be used, but if you are unsure, please reach out to someone on the SEO team and we can help make sure the right approach gets used.

Benefits:

• 301 redirects helps maintain SEO signals (external links, trust, age, authority, etc)

• 301 redirects ensure that anyone who finds the old link ends up back on the updated page

• Redirects help ensure that accidental 404s don’t pop up internally

Guidelines:

• If redirecting a page, opt for a 301 redirect

• If you are not sure what to do, reach out to the SEO team for a quick check to help you out

• If changing a URL of any kind, you will want to add a 301 redirect.

• If a choice is there, opt to keep the original URL in place and simply update the content

• If you notice a date in a URL or anything else that seems odd/outdated, ask the SEO team for help

Periodically Run Technical Crawls on the Site to Eliminate Internal 404s and Redirects

With so many changes and updates being made to enterprise websites, it is often inevitable that errors, broken links, 404s and other issues will pop up periodically. Therefore, it is important to ask the SEO or technical teams to run periodic website crawls (or Google simulations) to help identify areas that need to be fixed. This helps ensure that problems are caught early and can be fixed before any real long term damage can be done to SEO performance.

Benefits:

• Periodic crawls help surface technical problems quickly before they become a big problem

• Crawls can help both the dev and edit teams to identify broken elements in a page/template

• Crawls allow us to see what Google sees to ensure the site is up to best practice standards

Guidelines:

• Run technical crawls on the site at least once a quarter, but monthly is highly recommended

• Ensure that the SEO & dev teams are involved when setting up and managing your crawls

• Tools include: Botify and Deepcrawl (cloud based), Screaming Frog and Sitebulb (desktop client)

• Contact the SEO team to see if the site has access to one or more of these tools

• If you have custom areas of the site you want to assess, the SEO team can help with that too

• Get SEO & dev approval on crawl setup to avoid accidentally creating server performance issues

Tools / Resources:

• Botify.com (highly recommended enterprise crawling and analytics platform)

• DeepCrawl.com (also a very good option if Botify is out of budget)

• ScreamingFrog.com (desktop crawler that is good for one off or custom extraction crawls)

• SiteBulb (desktop crawler with some great visual mapping features)

• URL Profiler (great for pulling 3rd party metrics or custom code from a list of URLs)

Ensure Proper Use of Schema, Open Graph & Related Rich SERP Elements for Each Template

Over the last number of years Google has gotten more aggressive when it comes to testing out new ways to present search results. You have probably seen many of these changes yourself without thinking much of them. Eg: reviews and ratings, author name and thumbnails, dates for a given article, multiple links (known as sitelinks) for a single search result and many more. These “rich results” are often achieved based on the structure of an article and in many cases, special code on the backend known as schema. Therefore, to help maximize the value of our search results it is now important to ensure that each template contains the most relevant schema markup that exists.

Benefits:

• Schema markup provides a clean way to categorize and organize content

• Schema is used by Google, social networks and others to enhance listing presentation

• Enhanced search or social listings helps boost the click through rates for each page

• Higher CTR = higher traffic and a better presentation can often = higher engagement/trust

Guidelines:

• Look at the existing search results for the page being worked on to see if rich results appear

• Make a note of anything you see and connect with the SEO team to see if schema can be applied

• Look at schema.org to identify schema opportunities and examples for any given page/template

• Make sure that any schema or open graph elements that already exist in the CMS get filled out

Resources:

• Schema Documentation: https://schema.org/

• Schema Platform & Learning: https://www.schemaapp.com/

• Open Graph Help: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/

• Microformat Help: http://microformats.org/wiki/get-started

Add Relevant Links to Your Top Content From High Value / Highly Linked Pages In The Site

As mentioned throughout this guide, links are a critical factor when it comes to long term SEO success and growth. In essence, links are the lifeblood of SEO performance. Therefore, it is absolutely critical that any important piece of content get fed with enough relevant, high quality and powerful links (both internally and externally) to give us the best chance for SEO success. In particular, we want to ensure that highest value pages get featured as high up in the hierarchy as possible.

Benefits:

• Our existing network is fortunate to have a large amount of brand trust & authority to share

• Featuring content on the homepage, in the main nav, in top categories helps boost page power

• Featuring content in these areas also helps ensure Google finds/indexes/ranks content faster

• The more relevant and powerful our internal links are for a page, the easier it is to rank

Guidelines:

• Look for opportunities to feature top content in the site, especially during a new page launch

• Areas include: the nav, homepage, category or topic hubs & feature modules across templates

• Contextual links within older existing articles are also a great way to add relevant links to a page

• If launching a new pillar guide, look for relevant articles in the topic area to add contextual links

Make Sure All Relevant Pages Are Included In Your XML Sitemap and Keep Your Sitemap Current

In order to have SEO success one of the first critical steps is to ensure that our content is being found, crawled and indexed by the search engines. A number of the items in this guide are designed to facilitate this process and put ourselves in a good position. However, having a simple XML sitemap (or series of XML sitemaps) is one of the first and most important items to have to ensure that Google and other engines have easy access to our content.

Benefits:

• Sitemaps are basically large lists of links designed to give Google access to our content

• Sitemaps provide an easy index of pages for the search engines to find & index content

• Sitemaps can also provide other basic signals: i.e. when was the page created/updated?

• We can also use sitemaps to help Google prioritize pages, but this is less important

Guidelines:

• XML sitemaps should always be kept fresh & up to date with a full catalog of our content

• New pages need to be automatically added to the XML sitemap in a systematic way

• 404s, redirects & other changes to older content need to be cleaned regularly from sitemaps

• For larger sites, look at segmenting XML sitemaps by type / theme & use an index page

• XML sitemaps should be periodically checked by the SEO team for problems or issues

• Pay attention to the XML sitemaps section of Google Search Console to identify any errors to fix

Resources:

• XML Sitemap Validation Tool: https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/validate-xml-sitemap.html

Domain Level E-A-T Guidelines

For Maximum Organic Visibility, Strive To Increase Your Site’s Domain Authority / Domain Rating

One of the first areas that Google looks at to determine your level of Trust is your Domain Rating (DR) from Ahrefs or Domain Authority (DA) from Moz. These are 3rd party SEO platforms that help us compare trust scores vs our competition. Google has its own historical scoring algorithm known as PageRank (PR) to help classify sites by trust / power. The higher your DR/DA, the more likely you are to rank. The same applies to the types of keywords you are likely to rank for. The higher your trust/authority… the more likely you are to rank for more difficult and highly competitive keywords.

Benefits:

• High DA/DR provides means that site is much more likely to rank in the SERPs

• The more authority you have, the faster your pages get indexed and ranked

• The more authority you have, the more likely you are to rank for high volume keywords

• The higher authority you have, the easier it is to protect & maintain SEO rankings

• The more authority you have, the more power is available to distribute throughout the site

Guidelines

• Try to acquire relevant, trustworthy links from 3rd party sites and partners

• Leverage existing sites in our owned and operated properties to cross link relevant content

• Leverage the footer in existing sites in our owned and operated properties for branded links

• Try to launch and acquire quality links, social shares & mentions for individual pages / articles

• Never BUY or RENT links from 3rd parties for the sake of ranking. This can lead to penalties.

• Never link OUT to sites or pages that are not trustworthy

• Links to the site should be natural, relevant and “White Hat” to avoid any SEO penalties

• Assess the search results (eg: free tool at canonicalized.com) to determine links / DA needed

Other Common Tools / Metrics for SEO: (consult the SEO team if necessary for more details)

Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) – lots of tools use Moz metrics

HTTPs Is Now The Standard For Most Industries When It Comes To SEO Performance

Over the last couple of years more and more sites have moved away from HTTP and have now gone to a more secure HTTPs website. Google has been quite aggressive in recent years telling businesses to make the migration and to secure their websites and has rewarded many websites who have with better ranking performance. Truthfully, the adoption of HTTPs has recently become table stakes for most industries, with more than 8 out of the top 10 ranked sites now being secure. Therefore, it is important to ensure that any new page, site or network that we pick up is properly secured with the recommended HTTPS protocol.

Benefits:

• HTTPs ensures far greater security for our content and users

• HTTPs helps prevent data from being stolen / hacked / etc

• HTTPs provides better overall performance

• HTTPs is now a ranking factor and minimum requirement for SEO ranking

Guidelines:

• Make sure that the site you are working on has adopted the HTTPs standard

• Make sure that content / pages are fully secured with no links to old HTTP pages

• Make sure that old HTTP pages redirect to their HTTPs equivalent with proper 301s

• If HTTPs has yet to be done, consult the SEO team for a full migration checklist / strategy

• Make sure that SSLs & related security badges are all renewed and kept up to date

A Mobile Responsive Website Is Also Standard With Google’s Rollout of Mobile First Indexing

Google has moved to mobile-first-indexing when ranking and prioritizing pages. This is because mobile is becoming the primary source of searched on their network. Therefore, it is more important than ever before to ensure that our mobile experience across our websites is fast, responsive, user friendly and meets Google’s mobile first best practices.

Benefits:

• A mobile responsive website provides users with the best overall experience

• Responsive websites can adapt on the fly for any given device to deliver optimum specs

• Google now scores and ranks the mobile experience first

Guidelines:

• It is vital that our sites leverage a mobile responsive experience for maximum SEO value

• A responsive site is preferred over a separate mobile domain (eg: m.site.com)

• When building our silos with related link modules & features, make sure it works on mobile

• Make sure to check the full mobile experience when creating new content

• Opt for long form content and avoid side swiping / side scrolling on mobile devices

• Regularly check page speed metrics on core mobile pages / templates to maximize performance

Page Speed Across All Templates Should Score At or Above Top Ranked Competitors

Google’s primary objective is to ensure that users get relevant answers to their problems / searches FAST. With mobile now representing the lion’s share of Google’s searches, speed has become even more important because users are one click/swipe/close away from another experience. Therefore, Google has now made PageSpeed a ranking and performance factor in their algorithm and we need to make sure that our content/sites are in line with marketplace standards. Ideally, we want our sites to outperform other leaders in the market on speed to help give us that extra edge in highly competitive areas.

Benefits:

• Fast loading pages / websites provide a better overall user experience

• Fast loading pages improve user trust and site credibility

• Fast loading sites get users to consume more of our content faster

• Page Speed plays a meaningful role in ranking pages in the search results

Guidelines:

• Periodically check templates against the competition to ensure our speed is best in class

• Use tools like: Google Page Speed Insights, Webpagetest, Pingdom & others to score pages

• Leverage the insights and specific recommendations in these tools to boost our scores

• Use a content delivery network to ensure that pages are served efficiently across the web

• Pay extra close attention to the impact of image size/compression, JS and external scripts

• For images and media consider dedicated platforms like cloudinary.com for better performance

Resources/Tools:

• Google PageSpeed Insights: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

• Google Mobile Test: https://testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com/

• Google Mobile Comparison: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/feature/mobile/

• Google Speed Best Practices and Guides: https://developers.google.com/speed/

• Varvy Page Speed Tool: https://varvy.com/pagespeed/ (pretty awesome tool)

• GTMetrix: https://gtmetrix.com/

• Web Page Test: https://www.webpagetest.org/

• Pingdom: https://tools.pingdom.com/

Where Appropriate, Use 3rd Party Trust Seals / Badges / Experts To Vet Content & Add Credibility

Google now employs an small army of people (along with its algorithms and A.I. technology) to assess not only the quality of individual pages in its search results, but also the trust and overall credibility of that content. Therefore, given our dependence on Google for traffic, we want to ensure that we are putting our best foot forward at all times as a brand by highlighting elements of 3rd party trust & credibility where we can.

Benefits:

• 3rd party credibility can help solidify our high authority position within Google’s eyes

• It can help protect our SEO positioning and growth over the long term

• It can help separate our site(s) from the small mom & pop sites that try to compete with us

• It helps provide added security & trust amongst our users (particularly in areas like health)

Guidelines:

• Look for opportunities to boost our trust & credibility at both the site and page levels

• Site level examples include: BBB logos, Verisign & related security badges, memberships, charity & association affiliations, awards badges, etc.

• Page level examples include: expert reviews, author/expert profiles, doctor reviews/approvals of content, helpful unsolicited user reviews that meet quality standards, case studies, research partnerships, testimonials, influencer contributions, etc.

• Always double check to ensure that any security or 3rd party badges and memberships are kept up to date without letting them expire.

Consolidate, Expand/Optimize, Redirect Or Purge Low Value, Duplicate or Thin Content From The Site

One of the most overlooked aspects of site trust and credibility is ensuring that low value content is dealt with and ensuring that it doesn’t end up accidentally becoming the bulk of what Google is actively crawling / indexing over time. The more low value content that Google has to spend resources on, the less likely that your current high value content will get the attention and performance it deserves. Additionally, there are often many opportunities to refresh, consolidate or otherwise optimize old and low value content to bring it back to life.

Benefits:

• Cleaning up old & stale content helps ensure Google focuses on the content that matters

• Optimizing old content that is still relevant can lead to unexpected SEO growth with less effort

• Redirecting old low value content with links to newer relevant pages can boost SEO rankings

• Purging thin, low value or duplicate content improves user experience & enhances trust signals

Guidelines:

• For thin or old content with relevance, look to consolidate pages into a single high value piece

• In other cases, if the topic has legs, look to expand, refresh and optimize the old page

• If optimizing or refreshing an old page, look for internal link opportunities to help re-launch it

• Don’t force it if the value is not there. Opt for a 301 redirect to a relevant high value page.

• Don’t be afraid to purge / eliminate content with no user value.