Updated on 20 February 2023

If you’ve already set up a website for your clinic, you want to ensure that the information provided finds your target audience. As you may already know, the way to do this is through Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and on-page SEO. When it comes to SEO, there are various factors that contribute to a website that search engines like Google choose to look at. 

We will be looking at some key components, such as E-E-A-T and YMYL, that Google looks at to prioritise your website in search results – helping you reach more patients who are in need of your services and treatment. 

What Is Google’s E-E-A-T and Why Is It Important to Your Clinic’s SEO?

While originally E-A-T, Google added an extra E to the acronym in December 2022.  But what does E-E-A-T stand for? Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness. These are all things that Google takes into consideration when crawling your website. How do they affect your on-page SEO? They act as a framework, and a website that meets the expectations for each of these is more likely to be prioritised over one that does not. 

Google’s intention is to give users clear answers to their queries, so naturally, it wants to ensure that your content is relevant and reliable. 

• Expertise 

When it comes to ‘Expertise’, one should be asking whether or not the subject matter on your clinic’s website is being created by experts in the field. This is especially relevant in the medical industry. 

As mentioned, Google wants to provide its users with clear, relevant, accurate, and comprehensive content. When looking at healthcare, this is increasingly necessary as users are asking important questions, and Google wants to provide them with content that is current and correct. 

You can go about doing this by having your doctors write the content that is to be placed on your website. Alternatively, if your content is written externally, ensure that it is always fact-checked by a doctor or medical professional. At Cleveraa, we aid clients in ensuring that all content that makes its way up onto your site is accurate and reliable. 

• Experience

The most recent addition to the acronym; Google has added real life experience as a valuable factor in your content’s ranking. Content written based on first-hand experiences are more likely to be highly ranked and the skill level is determined based on the content, engagement and user reviews.

However, this is also dependent on the intent of the user. For example, if the user wants to know how to fill out their tax returns, content from a trustworthy accountant is more likely to rank higher as they have the experience in filling taxes. On the other hand, if the user wants to know the best accounting software to purchase, first-hand reviews of these applications will rank higher as they are written by people who have had experience using the application.

While Experience and Expertise are somewhat interlinked, not all users may want to read content from experts. Depending on the intent, content like reviews may trump expert opinions. For medical clinics, it’s always a plus point to have positive reviews on your Google Business Profile for users looking for the best doctors in Singapore.

• Authoritativeness

Google judges the ‘Authoritativeness’ of your clinic’s website by looking at something called ‘backlinks’. These are links leading back to your clinic’s website from other websites. The quality of these backlinks that lend to your authoritativeness is based on the quality and relevance of these other websites. 

Therefore, while the number of backlinks that your clinic’s website has is important, their quality takes precedence. This is because these links act as recognition from others both inside and outside of your industry that your content is trustworthy and helpful. 

The most effective way to ensure that your clinic’s website receives quality backlinks is to ensure that your content meets the needs of ‘Expertise’ that we have mentioned. 

• Trustworthiness 

A simple and straightforward way to increase the ‘Trustworthiness’ of your clinic’s website is to highlight your content creators’ credentials and the website as a whole. In the healthcare industry, this can be done by having your doctors and medical professionals create your content. 

After all, a user seeking information on a particular condition, treatment, or disease would much rather see that the answers they are being given are coming from a credible source. 

What Is Google’s “Your Money Your Life” (YMYL) and Why Is It Important to Your Clinic?

Websites providing services, products, or information that can affect a user’s health, financial stability, happiness, and safety are categorised by Google as ‘Your Money Your Life’ or YMYL. 

Due to the nature of your clinic’s website, you should bear in mind that Google holds your content to the highest standards. In summary, when creating your content, remember that it should not pose a threat to users or potentially bring harm to them. 

If you are creating factual content with your end user’s well-being and safety in mind, you need not worry about being penalised. At Cleveraa, we want to work with you to ensure that the content you create is not only relevant to your patients but also easy to understand, while being search engine optimised. 

How Does E-E-A-T Affect Your Clinic Website’s On-Page SEO?

Now that you have a better understanding of Google’s E-E-A-T, you should also better understand how it affects your clinic’s website. Simply put, you can meet the bar of Google’s E-E-A-T requirements and be prioritised in search results by ensuring that you are producing and publishing high-quality content. 

When planning your clinic website’s SEO strategy, remember Google’s framework of Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. 

• High-Quality Content

How can you ensure that your website is creating high-quality content? High-quality content should serve Google’s users. As a website containing medical and healthcare information, you should ensure that the content does not harm your users. 

As a website for your clinic, it should clearly list the services you provide and how potential patients can get in touch with you. The information provided on conditions you treat and manage should be clear and concise. Cleveraa’s team or writers and editors can guide your clinic or practice towards creating and publishing content that checks all the right boxes in Google’s terms and improve your on-page SEO. 

By doing this, you also are likely to gain quality backlinks from other websites that mention or speak about the conditions you can treat. This adds to your credibility and authoritativeness, both critical ranking factors that Google takes into account. 

• Low-Quality Content 

On the other hand, low-quality content does not provide the end-user with a beneficial experience. This could be due to the lack of accurate information, an excessive amount of ads that distract from the user experience, or an exaggerated or overtly shocking title. 

Any of these factors could lead Google to give your clinic’s website a poor E-A-T score and, in turn, lower your on-page SEO and not prioritise your clinic’s website in relevant search results. Cleveraa offers the option of a content clean-up, where we go through your website’s existing content and make edits and additions where necessary. This can help improve the quality of your content without losing articles that you put time and effort into.  

How Can You Improve Your Clinic Website’s E-E-A-T?

In summary, the primary way you can improve your clinic’s websites’ E-E-A-T score is by striving to ensure that the content published is high-quality. Once this is achieved, you will notice that you can target each of the requirements and be prioritised in Google’s search results. 

Additionally, remember that aside from publishing high-quality content, you can also improve your clinic’s websites’ score by striving to remove irrelevant and low-quality content. 

You can also opt to improve said low-quality content. This can be achieved by reworking the existing content and optimising or including relevant images. 

Remember that at the end of the day, beyond Google’s E-E-A-T score, as a healthcare provider, you want to benefit your users and potential patients. You should aim to make your clinic’s website a reliable source of information for patients, a place they can rely on for trustworthy information – and we want to help you achieve this!