Use EEAT signals to make your content more meaningful

Iva says: “Deliver meaningful content and do not dismiss the EEAT signals.”

What is meaningful content?

“To me, meaningful content is content that you write for users. It’s something that will provide value to your audience and something people will search for, need, and want to read. It’s solving some of their problems, answering some of their questions, or addressing some basic needs that they have.

It’s all over the internet. Google has even taken a stance on it. Especially in the age of AI, brands need to have their own valuable content that will attract people and keep their loyalty and trust, which is why EEAT is very important. You need to build that trust through your content.”

Should you only think about users nowadays because search engines are smart enough to understand what meaningful content is?

“When I first started in SEO, it was all about the keywords that search engines would find and rank from your content. Nowadays, you need to talk to the users.

Search engines will pick up on what the users need. They are evolving and they’re always implementing new updates and features. You need to focus on the users because those are people who will buy stuff from you, hire your services, or contact you for something. They are who you need on your website.

It goes beyond your website too. You need to maintain your content throughout all of your channels of communication. Be consistent, have your brand image, respect your audience, and have something for them. Search engines will pick up on the content.

Technical SEO is still important, don’t get me wrong, but there is more value in content than in getting some of the things on the developer task list done. I’ve had a client whose website had bad loading speed, a very bad site structure, and a lot of indexing issues, but the content is what pushed the website through. They did not want to invest in fixing the technical things because they wanted to create a whole new website the following year.

All we could do was push out content, and that content won – and it’s still winning. The same content that we pushed through three years ago is still there now, in the same positions.”

Does it also depend on the technical quality of your competitors’ websites?

“I’m the first to yell at a client to fix the technical things, but it’s a balance. If you’re gunning for big brands like Apple or you’re in a highly competitive market, you will have to fix the technical issues to stay competitive.

It depends on the market, the niche, how you’re operating, and the landscape. However, there is a middle ground with fixing the important technical things. Of course, if your entire website is noindexed, you can publish whatever you want but it’s not going to go through.

Prioritise the biggest blockers on the technical list and then go into the content. If there’s room to get all the technical things fixed, do that. However, I believe that content can beat technical in certain markets.”

How important is EEAT in 2025?

“I believed it was important before they even added the extra E. The Google leak revealed a lot of new information that may or may not go with EEAT, but you still need to focus your brand on providing that value and following those guidelines.

You need to build trust with your content, and you need to have authority in what you’re speaking about. Therefore, you need to implement things that will build trust and authority with your audience – author bylines, About pages, etc. – and do that all throughout your content. You need to have all of those things checked off, at least to some degree.

The extra E that they added is very important because it involves a lot of different things on both the content and technical sides. Users need to have a good experience, whether it’s through the loading speed, high-quality content, or even the site structure.”

Is quality content just what users perceive as being valuable and relevant or can it be defined by things like word count, readability, and the elements it incorporates?

“In content, SEO has grown beyond just marking all the green spots in plugins to identify the readability factors. It’s a bit subjective, but quality can be seen objectively.

It’s important for your content to have something that the users need. The quality is often something that the user is searching for. Do your audience research, your market research, and your keyword research to find out what is bothering the people that you’re targeting.

Of course, you have to determine who you’re targeting first, and then you have to determine what they are searching for. It’s not just on Google or Bing either; you can use social media. TikTok has a growing search engine of sorts. You can use a lot of different tools and channels to figure out what your audience might need, and then focus on delivering that.

In that case, quality is addressing what the audience searches for and what they need. We’ve all searched for things, SEOs and non-SEOs alike, and the first person who answers your question will keep you there. They might keep you browsing through the website, looking for different areas, or you’ll just remember it.

In SEO, we all know that Semrush’s articles deliver a lot, and you can learn so much from them. They offer a lot of different things, but they all provide something for the user. They have a diverse audience that includes beginners and senior SEOs, and they have guidelines for when you’re starting out and for when you’re diving deep into schema. If it’s a small business, they might offer a product that the user did not know they needed. It’s a competitive market and there are a lot of brands building new things.

If you’re building something new in a new area, then it’s easier. If you’re breaking into an existing market that is already very competitive, you need to be on top of your competitors and you need to be the one who will attract the users towards you. You’ll do that by answering their needs and their questions.”

What does your keyword research process look like?

“I use keyword research for topic creation. It’s an inspiration thing, it’s not set in stone. I have a subscription to all the main SEO tools: Ahrefs, Semrush, Majestic, Moz, etc., and I cross-reference my keyword research because they have different inputs, they use different data, and they have different focuses. I also use tools like AlsoAsked and Keywords Everywhere. There are a lot of different tools that can go deep into providing some insight.

I tend to go for long tail keywords – especially those that are question-based, because that is something that users are most likely to search for. A lot of tools will provide those. If I don’t select that question as the main keyword, I will integrate the questions into the content as well.

I tend to assess what is something that the user will search for and put myself in their shoes. What would I type into Google if I was searching for this? I have the topic idea in mind then, based on all the keywords I got from that idea, I think about something that I would search for and what I should focus on.

I do look at keyword volume. However, it depends on the client. For some clients, I will try to go for a high-volume keyword but, in some markets, I go for zero volume as well. I might focus on that because I believe it would be a good topic to have on the website, regardless of whether or not anybody has searched for it.

If it’s a new client who does not have any other content, I tend to balance out the high-volume and the zero volume terms, but it’s not a deciding factor for me.”

How should brands go from selecting the keyword to deciding what content needs to be produced?

“Pull everything you find into a Google Sheet, then go through it and arrange it to see if something that you thought could be a separate topic might not be a good option. That’s where you could bring in the volume factor. If it’s something that you thought would make a good full-on guide, you might split it up into two.

You can go through all that, rearrange everything, and google the keywords to see what the competition is like, what they’re targeting, what their headings are, etc. Then, you can create a whole keyword set for that.

Then you can decide which keywords to go for. If it’s a new, blank client, you would go for the big keywords that you need to process first: ‘What is…?’, ‘How is…?’, ‘How to do…?’, etc. Then, in the second batch, you can go for something more specific. If it’s an established client, assess the content that they already have and try to implement rewriting or updating that as well.

It should be on a case-by-case basis. There’s no ultimate rule on how to decide what to focus on, how it will go, and which keywords come first. You need to look at the whole picture. You need to look at the industry niche and the client themselves, then prioritise the keywords and topics based on that.”

Do you try to incorporate EEAT into the content or is it something that happens naturally as you write?

“Yes and no. Sometimes it happens naturally as I write and sometimes it needs the client’s input. You might need to get on a call with the client or hand them the content so they can add something more relatable to the brand. They know the brand best. They are the ones who represent the brand. They know everything there is. You are learning what they are all about and you need their input.

In the first couple of months of working with a client, you might need to ask what they offer in relation to a topic or ask them for some content changes or comments. I try to implement it naturally if I can, but I also go through the clients.

Of course, when I get a new client, I have an initial onboarding call that includes everything I need to know, but I also like to have monthly meetings – or bi-weekly meetings, if possible – to get some information.

You can do research and find information, but you might need their input to make the content better and more meaningful, and show their expertise, trust, authority, etc. I also advise my clients to add other EEAT signals. I always advocate having things like author bylines and About pages, and adding visuals like infographics, FAQ sections, accordion sections, or even tables and statistics as well.

The natural writing process does implement a lot of those, but you want to advise the clients to add other things on the technical side as well.”

Is AI involved in the content production process?

“I use it, but it’s not at a level where you can rely on it. It’s good for brainstorming ideas and there are a lot of areas where it can be useful.

However, do not leave it raw. Do not leave it unedited. It doesn’t know your brand. Even if it becomes familiar with your brand, it’s still not factually correct, it doesn’t produce good sentences, and it will repeat itself. A lot of things that it does will mean that it’s not producing quality content.

Don’t use it to create fluff and empty content. It can give you entire paragraphs that don’t provide anything. It always uses the same phrases and gives the same generic ideas, and it doesn’t add anything that hasn’t already been written. It can produce good content after a lot of prompts, but it tends to repeat itself and include those empty paragraphs.

I avoid using it for data unless it can give me a source. I use it as a helpful tool, not the main one. Some clients come to me who only use raw, unedited ChatGPT content, and you can tell from a mile away. It has its patterns, and it has its flaws. You can use it, but don’t use it as the main thing.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2025?

“Stop overthinking. Don’t overthink and don’t over-focus. As SEOs, we are bombarded with everything. There is a core update, there is a spam update, there is a leak – there’s a lot of information out there and it is intimidating.

It can be overwhelming because you have your work and your life, and then you have to do all these other things as well. Stop overthinking it. Filter out everything that you don’t need and focus on what you or your client needs.

Don’t focus on everything and don’t stay in one place. Try, test, play, get creative, explore things on your own, and interact with other SEOs. That has helped me a lot. I’ve also learned so much from other departments, like developers, social media teams, and ads people. That can help you focus on what you need.

You don’t need to know everything. You need to know how to get the best out of everything that is out there. Don’t overthink. Experiment, and get creative.”

Iva Jovanovic is SEO and Content Specialist at Made Online Agency, and you can find her over at MadeOnline.com.