How Subject Matter Experts Boost Your Content Credibility

Using Subject Experts will instantly help your content build trust and credibility, and ultimately help you tap into authority. Tapping into that authority also leads to building authority for you and your company.

Way back in November 2022, I got a surprise DM in my LinkedIn from a content marketing hero of mine, Andy Crestodina. To say I was surprised and elated was an understatement. He told me he was thinking about writing an article on About Pages and wanted to hop on a call.

He visited with me for a few minutes and used some of my thoughts in an article for his company’s blog, Orbit Media. Orbit Media is an agency in Chicago. They have some of the best articles by an agency that I have seen.

Andy has a book on Content Marketing and leads a conference on Content Marketing. Orbit Media has several articles about improving a company’s various web pages. I immediately felt like I had some credibility when it comes to About Pages. Calling myself “The About Page Guy” on LinkedIn for a couple of years led to this opportunity. Many people think about me when they are pondering About Pages and I have done workshops and consulting sessions.

Even though it made me feel like an expert, the thing I was impressed by was that Andy and his team were looking for subject Experts to build the credibility of their articles.

See the About Page Article here.

Using subject Experts will instantly help your content build trust and credibility, and ultimately help you tap into authority. Tapping into that authority also leads to building authority for you and your company.

Let’s break it down, shall we?

Why is SME needed?

Using Subject Experts (SME) is needed in the world of online content. Using SMEs showcases more expertise and authority, which verifies the credibility of what you are trying to say.

The need for SMEs has always been true, but it became more so when Google announced its guidelines for helpful content. Quickly experts observed the need for E-A-T and later E-E-A-T. E-E-A-T, of course, stands for Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness.

SEO expert Lily Ray explains it in more depth in this article.

She notes:

“The main goal of optimizing for E-A-T is to make the good qualities about your brand, your leadership, your experts, and the people who write for you as prominent as possible on the website. This helps to instill a sense of trust in your users (as well as search engines) that the content you provide is safe, credible, and accurate.”

The helpful content guidelines rolled out in 2022. Ann Smarty has a great outline of how the guidelines and subsequent updates happened.

Smarty gives several tips on how to implement this, including having a detailed About page and author bios.

So, the use of SMEs helps you establish credibility and authority, something being prioritized by both Google and readers!

You need to establish that credibility because, as Victor Ijidola, Co-Founder of Leaps says, you might be blowing hot hair.

“Without SMEs, you’ll most likely be blowing hot air trying to speak on most topics. You need SMEs to make your content worth reading for people.

“Plus, first-hand experience is something Google has started to take seriously in the pages they rank and drive traffic to. They keep coming up with ways to rank SME-driven content.

“So as an agency, collaborating with SMEs is only going to become even more important to your work.”
Victor Ijidola Co-founder at Leaps

Ijidola co-founded Leaps to make it easier for content marketers to use SMEs in their content.

What is an SME?

Thus far, we have already started with why SMEs are needed and my experience with being a subject Expert. Now, let’s talk about what a Subject Matter Expert is.

For that question, I turn to The Blog Smith’s Farrah Garcia in an excellent article she wrote on their blog about the subject.

“Subject experts (SMEs) are experienced individuals with a deep understanding of a particular subject. Businesses seek them out to solve specific problems and challenges and provide a unique insight into an industry.”
Farrah Garcia

Let me add to her definition by saying a superb SME is one who not only has a deep understanding but substantial experience in the matter, giving him or her an uncanny ability to draw insights and conclusions and provide experience with their expertise.

Subject Matter Experts along with studies and research (especially original) are the equivalent of footnotes you used to use in your research papers in school. SMEs help support our arguments by providing us with credible resources. When you are finished with your article, you should be able to create a bibliography from your resources.

How to use SMEs in your blog content?

Here, I am going to offer three options for using SMEs in your blog content. If you are creating other types of content, you can do a version of these there as well.

1. Guest authorship.

Having a guest author works if you the author is a well-known expert. For example, MainWP uses articles written by Donata Stroink-Skillrud, a privacy attorney and co-founder of Termageddon.

She brings her recognized expertise to bear on the articles she writes for the MainWP blog. In fact, her bio on the MainWP website explains all the various aspects of her expertise. The articles she writes on MainWP are all related to privacy.

Using Donata to write these types of articles is an excellent use of a subject Expert.

2. Expert Roundups.

Garcia from The Blog Smith does a great deal of explaining more about an Expert Roundup Post.

She explains:

“An expert roundup is a type of content piece that features multiple subject experts (SMEs) in your niche. As a host blogger or brand, you provide an interesting question or topic for discussion that makes experts want to be part of what you’re doing.

“Expert roundups are also an excellent opportunity to interview a number of experts to weigh in on a popular topic, clarify aspects of a subject you’re unclear on, or get industry insights and trends.”

Last year, I did a series of these right here at MainWP for security. I called it the Security Roundtable. You can see those articles below.

WordPress Security Roundtable: Preventing compromises for your WordPress website

WordPress Security Roundtable: Using backups and updates to keep sites secure

I gathered top security experts in the WordPress space at their representative companies, ask a few questions and ended up with a goldmine of content. The idea was to create one article, but it turned into two.

3. Use quotes from an expert to support your evidence.

One last way you can use Subject Matter Experts is likely the way most people use SMEs, quotes.

Quotes from recognized experts like Andy used for me, helps build that credibility. Remember, I said it is like having a footnote for a research paper. If you remember when you wrote those, you probably had quotes to support your evidence. You documented the quotes and where they were taken from.

Use quotes from industry experts outside your company and from inside your company. Don’t forget the experts on your own team!

These quotes can be direct quotes like the one I got from Victor (see above) or from an article like the ones from The Blog Smith. You may also find quotes from books, research studies, videos, or podcasts. Quotes can be from almost any type of content as long as it contains an authoritative SME.

Wrapping it up.

If you want to create content that stands above your competition, outshine content by the robots, and generate more credibility, SMEs are a great addition.

It takes a little work, but the results of building your credibility and authority are worth the effort. Create a database of experts in various fields, make a mental note, or take advantage of something like Leap to connect to SMEs for your content.

Have you ever been a Subject Matter Expert for someone? Let us know in the MainWP Users Facebook Group.