With Google’s update to EEAT ranking signals, trustworthy Google Reviews from real customers are more important than ever.

AI technologies can do a lot; replacing or enhancing many of the tasks we perform each day is already well underway. Writing and producing content are two of the big ones. Hone your ChatGPT prompt writing skills and you may never need to draft that email newsletter from scratch ever again. 

But, AI content generators are only as good as the information they’re given. They can crank out website copy about a particular product or service, but they’re not equipped to go out into the world and experience those products and services firsthand. 

As sentient beings, that’s still a job only we can perform. And from a Google search perspective, that gives real-live marketers and business owners a huge leg up.

Google is Putting More Emphasis on the Experience an Expert or Business Brings to its Content 

Marketers are likely familiar with EAT, Google’s ranking formula used to evaluate whether a piece of content is helpful and informative. EAT stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Up until now, they were the golden three when evaluating your site’s content quality for optimum ranking in search.

Google recently added another E to the equation: Experience. Now, EEAT content must demonstrate not only expertise and authoritativeness to be considered trustworthy, but it must also show that the source has some amount of experience with the product or service it’s referencing. 

And it’s here where we uncover a significant limitation of AI content generated without human touch: a complete lack of Experience.

With EEAT Comes Opportunities for Marketers

By coming at content from the perspective of experience, marketers have a huge opportunity to catapult their websites ahead of competitors and capture a coveted spot atop SERPs over time. 

According to Google’s Latest EEAT Update, content that demonstrates experience could include a person with firsthand knowledge of a product, service, or topic. For example, a product description on a website is enhanced by adding a product review from an actual customer.

Google Reviews are an Effective Way to Flood Your Site with EEAT 

At WTM, we see Google Reviews as one of the biggest opportunities for marketers looking to add valuable EEAT content to their sites.

AI-generated content can’t experience products or services first-hand, and therefore can’t produce the authentic user reviews Google so highly values.

How do you get your customers to submit Google Reviews to your Google Business Profile? 

The short answer: ask. You’ll likely be surprised as to how many customers say yes. 

The longer, more strategic answer, though, is that requesting a review needs to be built into your customer journey process from day one. 

What does this look like? Depending on your customer’s journey and interaction with your team, it can take many forms. We recommend that the ‘ask’ come with an easy way for customers to send you a review right on the spot.

Adding a QR code to a business card or thank you card that connects customers directly to your Google Business Profile is one easy way. A few ideas for how to incorporate these cards into your customer journey could include:

  • At point-of-purchase locations
  • Shipped along with a product 
  • Within a customer thank you note
  • Handed out after a completed job
  • Events 
  • Any other interaction with happy customers 

Here are several business review card ideas to get you started.  

Helping Businesses Create Content Strategies Optimized for Google Search is What We Do

Our SEO and content strategy experts know a thing or two about how to create and leverage the type of content that Google loves and that drives revenue. Whether you’re ready to revamp your web content for EEAT or simply looking for a few tips, let’s talk.