When Google recently changed its algorithm for e-commerce sites, it was based on the ‘EAT’ of a site; Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness. If you want your website to show well in the search engines, you have to consider maximising the EAT of your site.
E-Commerce Page Content
When looking at your e-commerce pages, a good EAT score will include its functionality, useability, design, interface, ease of use etc. Consider adding as many of the items below to improve your EAT score:
- allow customers to add an item to a shopping cart easily;
- allow customers to see alternative views of the item (i.e. side view, back view etc);
- add in an online-calculator for your customers;
- allow customers to create a wish list;
- allow customers to filter products by category and features, weight, reviews, best sellers, price etc;
- make sure the web design is responsive and works on all mobile devices;
- make sure your website will accommodate mis-spellings for words that customers might put in when searching for goods and products;
- make sure you have a payment policy, terms, refunds, exchanges that is easy to find;
- make sure the contact page is easy to find and easy to read;
- a page with lots of reviews
Expertise
Google wants to see that you are an ‘expert’ in your field. If you are the exclusive manufacturer or producer of an item, this helps with Google seeing you as an expert along with a good reputation. It will help to work with recognised experts in the industry who already have good reputations, recommendations, worthy news articles, reviews about the website.
It is recommended that you reach out in other ways to improve and promote your EAT score. This might be by sending your products to product reviewers and experts in your industry.
Failure to do all the above will not give you a negative reputation but will just give the advantage to your competitors that are doing it.