Are you looking to improve your search engine results? Enter: E-A-T. This is one of Google’s latest updates focusing on the invaluable use of ‘great’ content. We’re delving into what E-A-T is, the benefits of implementing it within your SEO strategy and how to do it successfully.
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What is E-A-T?
E-A-T stands for expertise, authority and trustworthiness, and is embedded into Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. Luckily, you don’t need to read the full guide as we’re going to break down exactly how Google uses E-A-T and what it means for you.
In simple terms, E-A-T is a tool that Google uses to distinguish the valuable pieces of online content from the not-so-valuable, in order to decide which pages should rank well in search engine results.
Google scours the webpage for quality content, focusing specifically on those three little words – expertise, authority and trustworthiness. And this is where the classic, ‘Content is King’, rears its head. In the past that was quite an ambiguous phrase, but now, Google has set out some key guidelines on what it deems ‘great content’, which we’ll delve into a bit later.
Expertise
Expertise means to have a high level of knowledge or skill in a particular field. In Google’s terms, it’s not just what gets written, but who has written it. It is searching for quality content created by an expert in that subject matter. Think about adding the author’s full name, job title and any relevant qualifications to the piece of content to demonstrate the expertise to Google.
It’s especially important in the context of health, financial and legal matters, which Google refers to as YMYL (Your Money or Your Life). These are identified as ‘topics [that] could potentially impact a person’s future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety’ (Google).
But it also applies to subject areas of a less formal nature, including everything from cooking and shopping, through to football and interior design. These topics don’t necessarily need a qualified ‘expert’, Google commends a person with ‘everyday expertise’ from people with real-life experience just as much.
Authority
An authority figure is defined as something that should be respected and knelt on for its expert knowledge. And that’s exactly what your content, and your website, needs to be.
A huge part of this is external, like being endorsed by well-known figures and influencers who are equally respected. Essentially, you should appear to be the Nike of your industry – strongly acknowledged, a powerhouse and a ‘first choice’ for your target audience.
Trustworthiness
Your content and website should be reliable, accurate and authentic in order to tell Google you’re trustworthy. And you know, it’s really just the right thing to do.
You could say that trustworthiness works in correlation with expertise. You know that professional expert who’s written a piece of content for your website? Shout about it. This can be in the form of a sign-off or a simple author bio at the top of the page. Either way, Google will love you for it.
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How you can demonstrate E-A-T on your website
Google is consistently trying to improve the user experience and improve its search results. And E-A-T seems to be highly regarded in its process.
It favours those of us who create quality, valuable content for its readers. According to Google itself, our content should:
- Help users
- Be created by an expert
- Contain accurate information
- Be regularly updated
- Be posted on a respected website
And the beauty of it is, you don’t need to change your whole SEO strategy. We can help you to weave it into your existing plan.
Whether you’ve already started to demonstrate E-A-T in your website content, or you’ve been thinking about what you’re having for lunch this whole time, our digital and content experts are here to improve your on-site SEO.
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