The E-E-A-T framework from Google and the core updates around it are bringing sanity to search results.
The search giant seems to be delivering on its promise to prioritize content that shows first-hand experience over SEO-stuffed content.
Case in point: Seer Interactive’s Will Reynolds recently shared that he “de-optimized” an article about SEO RFPs and replaced the “SEO’d content” with his real-life experience.
The result: the page went from #3 to #10 for a bit but shot back up to #1 afterward.
So, yes, Google is serious about this: pages that show E-E-A-T have become (or are becoming) critical to search rankings.
But this poses a big problem to most marketing and communications pros; you’re hardly ever a subject matter expert (SME) in the industry you’re hired to work in.
There’s almost no chance you’re creating content from first-hand experience.
So what do you do?
The solution is common: collaborate with SMEs (preferably those inside your organization) and use their experience and expertise to fuel your content and PR campaigns.
But that leads to another challenge: if you’ve ever tried collaborating with SMEs on content, you know it’s rarely easy.
The Internal SME Collaboration Problem
Picture this scenario: you’re leading comms and content for a drone tech company.
You and your team have zero experience in that field, and your execs or SMEs—with years of drone tech experience—don’t have time to share the expertise you can use to create content for the company.
It’s a common problem now; Content Marketing Institute’s 2024 report shows that 39% of marketers have difficulty accessing an SME.
Regardless, we need them and their experience.
Today’s marketing landscape requires SMEs and marketing/comms teams to work together to ensure the overall success of your brand.
I’ve had my fair share of the SME collaboration problem when I ran an agency and found some working solutions. But I’ve also talked with several marketers about how they’re solving this problem, so I’ll share their experiences and mine here.
Convincing Your SME
I could bloat this section with not-so-relevant steps that look relevant, but let’s focus on the three key steps that truly matter:
Step 1: Get Buy-In from Higher-Ups
In most conversations I’ve been in, the decision for a company to involve in-house SMEs in marketing often comes from the topmost people in the organization.
Usually, the CEO or a C-suite exec wants a better reputation for the company. They’ve seen enough personal brands blow up on the internet to know that one way to do it is to amplify the voices of internal experts in the company. So they’d often call in the experts for help.
If this is the case in your company, getting SME input should be easy.
But if it’s the other way around, meaning you are the one leading the charge to build the brand’s reputation, you’ll often need to do more work to convince execs or clients to back your idea.
And they’ll have questions:
- “Why should internal SMEs carve out time to share expertise for your content?”
- “What are the benefits for the company?”
And so on…
You’ll need to clearly illustrate how their experience and expertise will grow brand reputation, drive high-quality search traffic, and affect revenue.
You could use the Will Reynolds piece I shared earlier to make your case.
Another relevant case study is this one from ZyppySEO—a recent survey of sites that either lost or gained significant organic traffic between August and December 2023.
The study shared that sites that used the following phrases gained significant traffic in the period being examined:
“We found this pillow the most comfortable in our tests.”
“Here’s where I made a mistake on my tax form.”
“When we showed up at the restaurant, the owner greeted us at the door.”
Sites sharing first-person experiences and expertise ranked better than those that didn’t.
Sharing case studies like this and showing business effectiveness is one way to convince leadership to support SME collaboration.
More importantly, it’s how to convince them that expert collaborations are the new way to win in SEO and even comms in general.
Step 2: Convince Your SME It’s Worth It
You might find that after getting buy-in from company executives, you’ll still need the willingness of individual SMEs to smoothen your collaboration with them going forward.
Plus, there’s a chance their world looks a lot different from what your execs think.
For instance, the boss might feel it shouldn’t be too difficult for the SME to get on regular 30-minute calls with you, but the SME has a million other daily tasks and is wondering how to communicate their lack of time.
So, while executives may have asked them to work with you, and they agree, you still need to sell each SME the vision individually.
Here are a few pointers you can work with:
- Have a conversation with the SME
- Communicate how sharing their expertise benefits the organization
- If there’s a benefit it contributes to their work, share that too
- Ask about their current schedules
- Ask for the easiest way they can share expertise (more on this in #3 below)
Most of all, this is an attempt to build a deeper relationship with the SME rather than just getting them to do extra work.
I recently interviewed Coupa’s Vice President of Education Services, Brett J. Powell, for an article about how to reach out to SMEs and get buy-in.
He shared how he prioritizes relationship-building with SMEs when asking for their collaboration:
“If there is a wrong way [to reach out to SMEs], it would be reaching out to SMEs without first establishing a collaborative, or in some cases, a personal relationship that includes an understanding of your educational [content] processes and their working environment.
“The first step is to find 30 minutes to meet, get to know each other and establish a relationship.
“From there, you can ascertain their interest in sharing knowledge, willingness to assist, and availability to help.
“It also helps to have some idea of the level of effort required for the learning project that will determine the level of support you can expect (i.e., how many hours of their time will be required).”
Step 3: Collaborate on Their Terms
It’s one thing to access SMEs’ time and cooperation, but it’s another to create an environment that fosters easy collaboration.
So, find out what their preference is for sharing insights. You can also give them some options and ask them to choose.
Do they prefer Zoom calls where you ask questions? And do they have the time to do that regularly?
Or would they find a more async process easier? SMEs usually have preferences for collaboration, so just ask them.
While writing this piece, I asked three SMEs in sales, product management, and knowledge graph management how they prefer to collaborate with their marketing team for content creation:
Avi Shapira (VP of Sales at Memo Global) prefers emails.
Oksana Pavlenko (Senior Product Manager at Playtika) prefers to start with a call to discuss topics and the scope of collaborations going forward. And a more async/written form of communication afterward.
Genie Jones (Knowledge Graph Manager at InLinks) prefers getting on calls because that’s much easier for her.
So, find your SME’s preference and adhere to it. It’s often easier to go their route than trying to introduce them to a process that’s not easy for them to commit to.
Step 4: Reward Their Efforts
Rewards motivate people to take action. When they aren’t rewarded for their work, they feel demotivated and might not want to do it again.
No wonder 40% of employees (according to a Reward Gateway study) feel demotivated when they don’t get recognition for their work. And that leads to a 49% reduction in productivity levels.
This stat is even more important when asking SMEs to share insights for content because you’re asking experts to do work that was probably not their primary responsibility.
So, find rewards that work for them.
In my experience, some (or most) are okay with the reward of sharing the content and contributing to their network. It helps them build their brand and influence in the industry, and that’s enough reward for them.
So, feature the SME’s quotes, bios, and headshots in published content. Then, share content on the company’s social channels, tagging SMEs and encouraging them to share it with their networks.
Knowing their work supports a cause or positively affects the organization is enough for others. If you properly explain the results they’ll gain, they will be happy to join.
For these types of SMEs, it’ll also help to make it a collaborative process. Involve them from the start rather than asking for input after you’ve created the content. Collaborate with them on:
- Determining content topics and angles that address common customer pain points
- Outlining the content structure and flow based on their expertise
- Reviewing drafts and providing feedback to ensure accuracy and depth
Others may prefer completely different reward systems. So, find what works in your situation and use it. The key here is to ensure you’re giving enough rewards to motivate them to collaborate.
Let Stakeholders Know What’s at Stake
The bar for content keeps getting higher, and subject matter experts are often the only people who can help us as marketers hit that bar.
So do what you can to help them see that and explain the importance of their contributions:
- Detail how their expertise can elevate the company’s content quality and credibility, directly impacting search rankings and traffic.
- Highlight how their involvement can establish the company as a thought leader in your industry.
- Share data on how customers/clients prefer content from credible, knowledgeable sources—so they can see the business impact of their collaboration with you/your team.
By involving internal SMEs through a well-structured, rewarding, and collaborative process, you’ll create high-quality, expertise-driven content that resonates with your audience and search engines.
