E-A-T, comprising Experience, Authority, and Expertise, is a blend of factors crucial for Google’s assessment of content relevance and utility, influencing its search result rankings.
Our recent articles have explored leveraging Experience, Authority, and Expertise to enhance international business strategies. However, there remains a vital aspect within the E-A-T framework: Trust. Despite being the final element discussed, Trust holds immense significance.
According to Google’s search quality rater guidelines, Trust is pivotal. It evaluates the accuracy, honesty, safety, and reliability of a page, placing it at the core of E-A-T. Regardless of a website’s experience, expertise, or authority, lacking Trust results in lower E-A-T.
Demonstrating trustworthiness is especially critical for “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) topics, which can profoundly affect individuals’ or society’s health, finances, safety, security, knowledge, or overall well-being.
When devising international strategies, leveraging E-A-T becomes essential to enhance our global footprint and establish credibility with users worldwide, particularly in demonstrating honesty and reliability.
Let’s explore specific actions that can be implemented to achieve these international goals effectively.
How To Show Trust To Users From All Around The World
Accessibility And Usability
One of the initial steps in expanding product or service sales internationally is to ensure that users in each region can access the website seamlessly.
This entails ensuring the website is fast, secure, displays correctly, and is user-friendly. It should enable users to easily search for relevant information and make purchases without difficulty.
International Brand Name
In addition to ensuring website accessibility, it is crucial to make the brand easily discoverable by consumers.
Whenever feasible, having an “international” brand or domain name that is simple to remember, spell, and search for online can significantly enhance visibility for users across different countries, regardless of their native language.
Localization: The Key Element To Show Trust
Localization plays a fundamental role in establishing credibility and trustworthiness with users from diverse regions worldwide. Each country, language, or region has its unique characteristics and preferences.
Attempting to market our product using identical messages and strategies across all target markets will not instill enough confidence for users to perceive us as the most knowledgeable, experienced, and authoritative website in our sector. Therefore, adapting content and strategies to cater specifically to each target market is essential.
When aiming to sell internationally, it is crucial to:
- Analyze Language Preferences: Evaluate the languages spoken in each target region to determine if and how they should be prioritized on the website.
- Transcribe, Not Just Translate: Adapt the message to each market by transcribing rather than simply translating content. This ensures that local knowledge and nuances about our products or services are accurately conveyed.
- Implement Proper Language Display and hreflang Configuration: Ensure that the correct language is displayed by default based on users’ locations when they search for it. This requires both accurate translation and the proper implementation of hreflang tags on the site to indicate language and regional variations.
- Understand Local Buying Habits and Cultural Customs: Study the local buying behaviors related to the product or service, as well as cultural customs surrounding its use. This understanding helps tailor marketing strategies and content to resonate with local audiences.
- Define Optimal Content Types: Research how users search for products or services in each region to determine the most effective types of content to create. This could include text-based content, instructional videos (such as tutorials or how-to guides), or images that demonstrate and teach the product’s use effectively.
For instance, when searching for keywords like “Tió de Nadal” or “Caga Tió” – both referring to a local Christmas tradition in Catalonia, Spain – the results and the messaging strategy need to resonate with local users.
In Catalonia, where the tradition is widely recognized, such searches often serve both informational and transactional purposes.
Conversely, searching for these terms in the United States would typically serve a more informational purpose. Since this tradition is less familiar there, users are likely seeking detailed information about the custom before considering any transactions.
Therefore, content targeting Catalonia would be more transactional and familiar, whereas content for the United States would focus more on providing comprehensive descriptions of the tradition.
For these reasons, it is crucial to geolocate content in each region to instill sufficient confidence in potential customers.
Transmit That You Are The Safest Site
Selling internationally can be challenging if the website fails to convey sufficient security measures. It’s crucial to ensure that users trust the site’s security when purchasing products, especially since they can’t physically address legal claims or reimbursements. Clear and precise communication regarding payment methods and shipping is essential to establish reliability, safety, and trustworthiness with users.
To accomplish this, it’s highly advisable to:
- Display the currency of each country on the product page.
- Integrate the most commonly used payment methods in each country. This includes credit cards, Bizum, and PayPal, ensuring familiarity and convenience for users in the target region.
- Provide comprehensive details about the shipping process. This should cover delivery times, return policies, the shipping company used, and a tracking code. Offering this information instills confidence in customers who may be thousands of miles away from the product’s origin.
Tell Who You Are With A Detailed “About Us” Page
For businesses targeting local markets, clearly defining their identity is crucial. However, when expanding to international markets, this becomes imperative. It’s important to recognize that potential customers may lack familiarity with our company, the products we offer, or our brand identity.
Therefore, it’s essential to develop a comprehensive “About Us” page that covers:
- Company Location and Origins: Provide detailed information accompanied by images or videos showcasing our origins and current location.
- Manufacturing Process and Product Creation: Explain our manufacturing process in depth, emphasizing how our products are created.
- Team Member Details: Introduce each team member with comprehensive bios, and include links to their profiles on other platforms like social networks, if available.
- Expertise and Recognition: Highlight our expertise with awards, certifications, quality seals, and other relevant achievements.
- Third-Party Reviews: Incorporate ratings and testimonials from third parties to build credibility and trust with potential customers.
Reliable Customer Service
Ultimately, to inspire international customers to purchase products or services from a website, it’s crucial to showcase reliable customer service and emphasize the presence of real people behind the platform.
To demonstrate reliable customer service on a website, consider the following actions:
- FAQ Page for International Queries: Develop a dedicated FAQ page that addresses common international questions, particularly those related to international shipping and ordering processes.
- Direct Human Contact Options: Offer multiple avenues for direct communication such as live chat, WhatsApp, phone, and email. Providing prompt responses from human representatives helps instill confidence in potential customers.
- Transparent Location Information: Clearly state your business location and link it to Google My Business for a detailed profile with images and comprehensive information about your operations.
- Customer Service Reviews: Showcase reviews and testimonials highlighting positive experiences with your customer service. This allows users to gauge the quality of support they can expect.
Link To Other Platforms And Sites
Lastly, another strategy to establish trust with global users is to demonstrate our presence on various social networks and showcase how others perceive us. Here’s how we can achieve this:
- Create and link to profiles on diverse social networks.
- Garner mentions from local influencers or industry leaders.
- Secure features on pertinent local websites.
- Get listed in relevant directories within our industry.
Leverage Trust To Boost International Strategies
Trust holds significant importance not only for YMYL (Your Money Your Life) topics but also extends to other sectors, especially in international sales contexts. Demonstrating accuracy, honesty, safety, and reliability is crucial for building trust with global users. Equally important is showcasing our experience, authority, and expertise in our sector, products, and services.
Original news from SearchEngineJournal