SEO tools for conquering the HCU and boosting E-E-A-T
- George Nguyen
- Apr 16
- 5 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
Author: George Nguyen
After the disruption of Google’s Helpful Content Update (HCU), SEOs have relied on a mixture of best practices and novel tactics to ensure that their content has the best chances of meeting standards for users and Google.
That formula for content success post-HCU includes:
Delivering experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T)
Satisfying searcher intent
Featuring unique content angles
To do that, you’ll need data on how your audience searches and what they’re looking to find. I’ll provide suggestions for tools to use, based on suggestions from experts Ashley Segura, head of content at ContentYum, and Crystal Carter, head of SEO communications at Wix, during our webinar on content optimization strategies after Google’s HCU. But first, let’s begin with a quick primer on E-E-A-T.
Table of contents:
For successful content, E-E-A-T before all else
Potential customers are constantly on the lookout for signs of expertise, experience, trustworthiness, and authoritativeness when comparing brands and businesses. For in-person businesses, that might mean maintaining a clean environment (a signal that an establishment might be more trustworthy), but we’re without those types of physical indicators in the digital space.
That’s why the term “E-E-A-T” exists—to refer to the qualities that you need to showcase in the digital space (via our website/content) to help users make the right choice for their needs.
In practice, this has manifested as a set of tactics, strategies, and best practices to create content that ranks well on Google (especially after the Helpful Content Update). To truly take advantage of this knowledge, you’ll need tools (especially if you work on large websites or with a lot of clients).
Here’s what we recommend…
Content tools to help you post-HCU
“‘Optimization’ is making it so easy for the user to find exactly what they’re trying to figure out,” Segura explained during the webinar, “And that’s why it’s so important to understand the user intent behind a specific topic or keyword before you even write it.”
Segura recommends Semrush for multiple aspects of topic and keyword research, including searcher intent.
Going beyond the basics, “I like to use Semrush’s Topic Research Tool here to really identify the ‘who, what, where, when, why, how’ questions that people are actively searching for around a specific keyword,” Segura said, highlighting the tool’s side-by-side feature that shows the top 10 current ranking articles. “So, it kind of gives you a snapshot of how you should package this information as well—if most of everything is a ‘how-to’ or a guide, that’s a good indicator that you should probably package this information similar to that, but of course, with your unique angle.”
Segura also uses Semrush to conduct content gap analyses, which can help you identify ways to distinguish your brand online.
“If you have solutions to the things that people are complaining about from your competitors, that’s a great [content] win for you and your brand.” — Crystal Carter, Head of SEO Communications at Wix
Sometimes, though, relying on SEO tools means you’re getting the same data that’s available to everyone else. For the best odds at gaining the first-mover advantage and creating content that’s actually useful for your potential customers, include a user-first approach in your content strategy.
Use our user-first keyword ideation worksheet to manage your insights and inform your content.
Another way to tap into first-hand data and feedback is via discussions that happen on forums or in communities. “Say you have an idea for a new piece of content that you want to write,” Segura said, “I would take the primary topic for that (or the primary keyword), I would go to Reddit, Quora, Facebook and go into the search bar, drop the topic or the keyword in there, and start to understand—what are people talking about? What’s the sentiment behind what they're talking about? Are people angry? Are they excited? Do they have brands they’re recommending?”
Maximize your content by auditing customer journey & UX
“Make your content so incredibly helpful and focus on addressing exactly what the user needs and meeting their intent. You want to optimize for a natural engagement.” — Ashley Segura, Head of Content at ContentYum
Getting a given piece of content to show up exactly when a user is ready for it positions you for the most natural engagement. Creating a user journey map can help you cover the bases when it comes to various topics and move your users along their path to becoming your customer.
To create pillar pages for your user journey, Segura recommends tools like Answer the Public (shown above). Wix Studio users can also take advantage of our AI-powered visual sitemap generator to deliver better UX and SEO at scale (shown below).
In terms of improving your existing user experience, you can use heatmaps and recordings (via Microsoft Clarity) to minimize instances that may cause rage clicks, excessive scrolling, quick backs, and so on.
Cover critical elements with Wix
In addition to the specific considerations above, there are additional ways that your website should showcase your brand’s E-E-A-T for better search visibility.
For instance, you can use Wix Studio templates to create your ‘about us’ page and profile pages, informing users about your brand and the people (i.e., expertise) behind the content.
In addition to listing your social accounts in the footer or menu, consolidate your presence for search engines by also adding your social links to your structured data.
And if you sell products, get your customers to vouch for them using Wix Reviews. Services-based businesses can use their ‘about’ page or a dedicated testimonials page to highlight customer experiences or reviews from their GBP.
“If you can get video reviews, it is so helpful to have on your site, but then also have the transcript below so, as crawlers are identifying the website, they’re able to see what people are actually saying,” Segura said, adding, “Especially with LLMs now—language learning models that are trying to identify if you are an authority in the mix—they’re taking patterns within sentences and piecing them together [to identify your specific expertise].”
Search visibility is about quality and relevance—not tools
You need to display solid judgment when creating the content that represents your brand—in this regard, no amount of tools can replace a focused, intentioned digital marketer at the helm. To that end, make sure to balance out your data from the tools with first-hand experience (via user-first research, etc.) to ensure that your digital strategy is grounded in the real world.
George Nguyen is the Director of SEO Editorial at Wix. He creates content to help users and marketers better understand how search works. He was formerly a search news journalist and is known to speak at the occasional industry event.
