Vic recently wrote about why E-E-A-T matters more than ever in a world of “AI-generated slop”. She’s spot on. If your site doesn’t clearly demonstrate expertise, experience and credibility, you’ll be on the back foot.
But that’s only part of the story.
For a lot of businesses, especially the ones selling something that isn’t a quick, low-risk purchase, trust isn’t built on your website alone. And it definitely isn’t built just by being visible elsewhere either.
Due diligence
If you’re selling something like legal services, a home extension, financial advice, or any kind of consultative service, people don’t behave in the same way that they might if they were buying a new pair of shoes. They don’t simply skim, click and buy within a matter of minutes, knowing the purchase can be returned if they’ve bought in haste. They slow down. They compare. They dig around and check you out. If it were a major business-to-business purchase, it would be called due diligence.
That might mean searching for your company name rather than your services. It might mean looking at who’s behind the business, how long you’ve been around, what your Companies House profile reports, what you’ve said publicly, and crucially, what other people are saying about you.
Of course, you’ve probably got all of this on your website, but it’s rather like those statistics asterisked at the bottom of television adverts (anyone remember the line ‘8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas’?), there is a level of scepticism/cynicism about things companies say about themselves. Fairly or unfairly, a lot of your own website will be taken with a pinch of salt. Of course, you’re going to say you’re experienced, reliable, and great at what you do.
That’s why people look elsewhere. They’re not just looking into whether you can do the job; they also want to know if you’re the kind of company they can trust with something important, and for many, that extends even further. They want to know if you’re the kind of company whose values line up with their own, how you treat your people, your approach to sustainability, or the standards you hold yourselves to behind the scenes when no one is looking.
I’m not knocking Vic’s blog post, she’s completely right. But website content is highly curated. For anyone putting their hard-earned money into a thoughtful or expensive purchase, particularly where there needs to be a deeper relationship with a company, a company’s own website only goes so far.
The more important the decision, the more important the validation
The more important or expensive the decision, the more people want independent validation. Of course, what is important or expensive is personal to the individual. A £75k home extension might be a lifetime in the planning for one person, and a quicker decision for others, but the point still stands. These types of purchases usually mean people want to see signs that you exist beyond your own marketing.
That could be media coverage, expert commentary, mentions in relevant publications, or even just consistent signals that your business shows up in the right places, or that your people are listed in a specific industry journal with the correct qualifications and professional memberships. None of these are something you can fully control, which is exactly why they carry weight.
And this is where outreach, PR, and the more complex side of link building come into play.
Owned vs earned
It’s very easy to build links quickly if you just want numbers. Directories, listings, and low-effort placements all have their place, and they will help SEO efforts to a point, but they don’t do much for genuine credibility. After all, no one is making a buying decision because they saw you listed on your fifteenth generic directory site.
At the opposite end of the scale, compare that to earning a link because a journalist has actually chosen to include you in their piece. They’ve researched the topic, decided you’re a credible voice, checked who you are, and invited you to input into something they’re publishing.
They might use a comment or quote, they could reference your data, they might invite you to be interviewed on a podcast, radio or television programme, and if you’re lucky, they might link to your site. Over and above media-led opportunities, there are industry awards, league tables, review sites, community involvement, events, accreditations, etc. That’s a completely different level of validation.
In digital marketing, we throw around ‘owned’ and ‘earned’ as shorthand, meaning whether we publish it ourselves or it appears on a third-party site. But in doing that, we lose sight of what earned really means. It takes time, it doesn’t scale easily, and you don’t control the outcome. And that’s exactly why it matters.
If you’re operating in a space where people are making careful, considered decisions, that trust is often what tips things in your favour.
It’s entirely possible to have two or more companies offering very similar services at a similar price point, but after due diligence, one could feel established, and the other like a bit of a risk. More often than not, the difference isn’t their own websites, it’s everything that sits around it – what shows up when someone goes looking online.
Digging around in AI
Coming back to AI, it’s never been easier for people to dig into a company and its background. These tools cast a fairly wide net, so when someone uses AI to research whether to buy from you, they’re often presented with a clear, summarised view of everything they need to know in one place. There’s no need to click through multiple search results and piece things together themselves.
And importantly, AI tends to favour authoritative sources. So if your business is being featured, quoted, or referenced in the right places, those signals are far more likely to be picked up in future AI-driven answers. In other words, the same kind of earned credibility that builds trust with people is also what increases your visibility in AI.
So yes, visibility matters. You need to be found in the first place, but if that visibility isn’t backed up by credible, external signals, it can only take you so far.
For businesses in consultative, trust-led sectors, the real question isn’t just how you get in front of people. It’s what happens next.
When someone takes that extra step and starts digging, do they find a business that looks genuinely established, talked about, and trusted? Or do they just find more of your own marketing? That’s the gap between being visible and being trusted.