I’m going to discuss an aspect of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) you might not know about, EEAT. This acronym, EEAT stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust.
I also unpack:
- “Do they like me or not?” What I think about other people’s thoughts about me.
- Why I don’t think AI is the best at giving you the answers you need.
- What if you’re concerned about being seen?
- How I feel about having my face on the internet in 2025.
Transcript:
G’day folks. Are you wondering like about getting visible and seen in your business and… Not only like wondering if you’re in the right place or not but worried if like worried whether or not people like you.
Do they like me?
Well I wanted to get this thought out before it left my brain… Today I was at a business networking event hosted by my local municipal area and I actually like noticed… Like I was you know not only like interacting with people but paying attention to their response to me.
And like I saw people were like not interested in what I had to say. And that’s perfectly fine. Just because some people weren’t interested in what I had to say doesn’t mean that everyone was. And just because some people might not like me doesn’t mean everyone dislikes me.
So if you’re worried about putting yourself out there and thinking, “I’m worried that people are not gonna like me,” that’s like that’s just how it is. Not every person’s gonna like you. And I just say like I don’t [censored] care.
If those people don’t want to listen to me they don’t matter.
To reiterate: Just because some people don’t like me just because some people aren’t interested in what I have to say it does not automatically mean that every person isn’t interested in me or what I have to say. So thank you for sticking around if you are interested in what I have to say.
[Editor’s note: I really should and do care about my reputation with those who matter. This brings us to EEAT.]
But first, what’s SEO?
Today I want to also talk about this acronym in SEO that a lot of people don’t know about.
Just briefly SEO is search engine optimisation — getting your website tweaked so that it’s got a better chance it’s showing up in Google. And nowadays also it’s giving you a better chance at showing up in things like ChatGPT when people are looking for help.
Now this is a bit of a hot button, but I don’t actually like consider ChatGPT all that reliable in digging up actual information. Its primary purpose is to come up with language… It’s to imitate words. And a lot of the time rather than like giving you an actual factual search result from the internet — or some actual like you know data that somebody put together — it may in fact make stuff up.
And just the way this thing works — is that it would rather like make up information based on its predictions — it would rather make things up than say “I don’t know.” It’s never going to say “I don’t know.”
The part of SEO you might not know: EEAT
So with that out of the way I wanted to share something: An aspect of SEO search engine optimisation that is overlooked…
When I see business owners asking for SEO help, I sense this is expectation that they want someone to do some kind of technical thing to their website… That they don’t really understand but it needs to be done. And that’s fine.
There’s some technical stuff you can do to increase the probability that you’ll show up in search results. But that’s only the beginning.
This thing I want to talk about EEAT: Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trust. This is something that a SEO provider can’t really do for you. Because [EEAT] is grounded in what you actually do; Like the real you. Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trust.
Here are the four facets of EEAT (or E-E-A-T) in a handy graphic!
If you want your business to thrive and be found and be known about and talked about, these are these are things that you’re going to have to do:
- You’re going to have to demonstrate that you have the experience that you’ve done the thing [experience].
- Expertise, it may be in depending on your profession you may need qualifications.
- Authoritativeness, or you’re an authority in your space you’re getting talked about and,
- Trust that you have proof that you’ve done work. And people have acknowledged that you did what you said you, did and they were happy with it.
How to implement EEAT for SEO
If you want this this stuff to help you out [with visibility in search engines, SEO] this is you can’t make up.
You’re going to have to actually go out and do it.
And I would boil this all down to one word, which is reputation.
So do good work, get talked about, do what is genuinely needed to be done to be considered an expert and a go-to person in your field.
And yeah that’s something that you’re going to do yourself if you want your SEO. your position in in search engine results and in AI results. If you care about that if you want that to improve… The way to do that is to build your reputation do what needs to be done to be talked about.
One example that I like to give if you do some kind of scientific or medical work is to go out and get published in repeatable journals. In other professions it might be that you go to conferences and get seen, and get remembered as someone who knows a specific thing.
You can do all the like technical tweaks in the world… But if you’re not giving evidence that you’re good at what you do, and you’ve done it for a while, and you’re trustworthy… If you don’t have that evidence… Then no amount of technical tweaks or content writing to your blog is going to help you out there.
So I hope this helps you out in terms of understanding like what kind of work is involved in getting discovered online.
What if I don’t want copies of my face everywhere?
Another thing that I wanted to touch on before it exits my brain is showing your real self.
At the networking group I go to there’s a number of photographers there. And they often highlight the importance of having good photos that tell your story and paint a picture of who you are and what you do for people.
I understand and accept that there are some small business owners, some solo workers — whether you’re doing a craft or offering a service to people — who may not be entirely comfortable with getting their photo taken… And doing reels and videos and stuff like that. I accept that and understand that.
And it’s totally okay if you do not want to have your face all over the internet and social media. Especially now in the age of like AI and biometric data and deep fakes and that sort of thing. I too am concerned about my face being used to make something and my identity being used in ways that I do not consent to. Which is why I have been gearing back from sharing like videos of my face and stuff like that online.
It’s okay to not like your own face
It may just be like you don’t like your face and that’s that’s okay that’s normal for you to not like your face. It doesn’t mean that people will dislike you. I personally like place more importance on appreciating people for who they are, and not how beautifully sculpted their faces are. That’s just me though. I care more about who you are and that you’re good at what you do and that you’re a genuinely good person.
But that aside like full respect to you if you don’t want to use real photos of you on the internet that’s fine.
Some of the ways that I’m going about this is: I’m some creative photos of stuff, and just graphics and uh this audio podcast. So there are ways around the things that everybody says “you got to do it this way!” There’s ways around that, just letting you know. And if you’d like some ideas um here to share that with you.
I’m here for you
I want you to know that you’re not alone. If you feel like people are pressuring you to do things a certain way you don’t have to.
You don’t have to be alone. This is why I’m here.
And if you’d like me to discuss or unpack anything um please let me know, and I’m happy to open that up in a future podcast episode.
This has been Lou and I look forward to speaking with you next time.
Ready to take a step forward with SEO, but unsure how it applies to *your* business. Start here with this 1 hour, on-demand workshop.