Implementing SEO E-A-T can be an effective strategy to enhance your website’s credibility and value. Although E-A-T does not directly impact search rankings, it can exert an indirect influence over time. The abundance of information on SEO E-A-T makes it easy to feel overwhelmed, but following a clear set of guidelines can guarantee positive outcomes.
While Google’s exact ranking criteria remain ambiguous, certain elements can boost your rankings, including E-A-T SEO.
So, what exactly is E-A-T? E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Rather than being an algorithm or a Google update, it represents a standard.
These three factors, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, are critical in determining the quality of a page, as outlined in the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines initially published in 2014.
However, it wasn’t until 2019, with the release of Google’s update, that the SEO industry recognized the significance of page quality and its correlation with E-A-T.
The primary purpose behind developing E-A-T was to tackle the issue of low-quality content surfacing in search results due to keyword manipulation. As ranking algorithms evolved, they focused more on the publisher’s reputation, the intent behind the content, and its overall reliability.
Now, let’s delve deeper into E-A-T SEO and address the question: What exactly is Google E-A-T? Throughout this exploration, we will provide valuable tips on optimizing your website to align with these crucial ranking factors. Let’s begin!
Table of Contents
What is E-A-T?
Google openly acknowledges that its algorithms assess “Expertise and Authoritativeness” and “Trustworthiness.” Here’s a closer look at the meaning of each:
- Expertise – This refers to a high level of knowledge and proficiency in a specific field. When a publisher provides expert information, it demonstrates their expertise in the subject matter.
- Authoritativeness – This aspect emphasizes the authority and reputation of the publisher and the website. It takes into account the expertise and credentials of the publisher, as well as genuine user reviews, all of which contribute to the perceived authority of the website.
- Trustworthiness – This component indicates that the content presented on the website relies on trustworthy sources of information. One way to establish trustworthiness is through using an SSL certificate, which verifies the website’s validity and ensures user protection.
By incorporating E-A-T into their assessment, Quality Raters can analyze and quantify the value of a website’s main content.
These Quality Raters are responsible for evaluating the quality of search engine results. Their feedback is vital as it helps Google assess the effectiveness of its search engine algorithm, enabling the company to make improvements that enhance the overall user experience (UX).
What Is the Importance of E-A-T SEO?
SEO revolves around the creation of top-notch content. E-A-T guidelines play a vital role in achieving this objective, offering valuable tips for actionable SEO strategies.
Link building is another critical factor that significantly impacts SEO with E-A-T. Prioritizing high-quality links is crucial. Incorporating more links from authoritative sites can enhance your SEO performance, effectively bolstering your authority aspect of E-A-T.
Linking to authoritative sites increases the likelihood of receiving backlinks in return, further enhancing your website’s credibility.
A practical technique to boost your domain authority is to reference high-authority domains, a fundamental practice for SEO E-A-T.
In the pursuit of improving SEO with E-A-T, quality surpasses quantity. Avoid falling into the trap of using link farms, as this negative SEO tactic can detrimentally impact all your SEO endeavors.
What Is Google E-A-T?
When assessing the credibility of online sources, including publishers, content, and websites, Google places significant importance on E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). This evaluation process enables Google to differentiate between high effectively-quality websites and those that may lack reliability.
A high E-A-T score indicates that your website aligns with Google’s search quality guidelines, signifying a mark of superior quality. Such a score instills trust in the information you share, reassuring Quality Raters about the reliability of your content.
E-A-T is significant for all websites, particularly on YMYL sites (Your Money or Your Life). YMYL refers to websites that have the potential to influence crucial life decisions related to safety, health, and finances. As a result, these websites are held to higher quality standards due to their significant impact.
For instance, if we consider a blog about food and a site about medicine, the latter should demonstrate greater E-A-T as its content directly affects a person’s daily life. Google also assesses the level of knowledge presented on the website based on its content and relevance.
E-A-T plays a vital role in Google’s evaluation process, enabling the differentiation between credible and less reliable online sources. It is crucial for all websites, especially those with YMYL content, to emphasize the importance of delivering accurate and trustworthy information to users making significant life decisions.
E-A-T Guidelines You Need to Know
Implementing various measures enhances SEO with E-A-T, bolstering the credibility of your website’s content and providing the trust signals that Google and users seek. Remember that if your website falls within the YMYL classification, you can anticipate it being held to a higher standard due to its potential impact on critical life decisions.
- Off-page SEO Is A Great Way To Build The Right Backlinks.
Receiving backlinks from relevant domains with high authority forms the foundation of an effective SEO strategy. These backlinks enhance SEO with E-A-T and establish your credibility as an esteemed authority in your industry.
Recognizing that a backlink from a teenage fashion website would not be beneficial if you operate in the IT consulting field is essential. Employing such tactics could lead to a manual penalty. A notable example is an insurance lead generation website that obtained thousands of low-quality links from unrelated websites, causing its page one ranking to vanish, with many of these links dropping to page 15.
To acquire valuable backlinks, you must create high-quality and compelling content that naturally attracts links from others—simply posting short, unremarkable content once a month won’t yield significant results. Instead, invest time and resources into becoming an authoritative source in your field. Building relationships with influential individuals and publishers will naturally lead to valuable backlinks.
- Aim For More Trusted Sources To Give You More Mentions.
A Denver SEO company mentioned that gaining backlinks and mentions from reputable sources can significantly enhance your E-A-T credentials. When your brand or name appears in authoritative sources, Google trusts your website more.
According to a Google Patent, “implied” links, which are plain text mentions of your brand name, can be regarded as a type of backlink. The patent further clarifies that incoming links can be hyperlinks or plain text mentions. All links, whether explicit or implied, from credible websites contribute to determining the overall quality of a page.
Google has officially confirmed that mentions on high-authority websites are considered and play a role in ranking decisions. Therefore, securing mentions and backlinks from respected sources can positively impact your website’s credibility and improve its ranking in search results.
- Make Sure Your Content Is Accurate And Current.
If your website’s content focuses on topics that do not frequently change, there is a higher probability of having outdated information on your pages.
To enhance SEO with E-A-T, it is imperative to maintain your content’s current and accurate nature, mainly when dealing with news or time-sensitive information. Medical information is an illustrative example of the significance of regularly updating content based on discoveries and knowledge.
By consistently keeping your content up-to-date, you bolster your website’s credibility and ensure that users can rely on your information for its accuracy and relevance. This approach is instrumental in demonstrating expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, vital aspects of SEO E-A-T.
- Encourage Reviews And Respond To Them.
Incorporating online reviews to promote your products and services is a highly effective business strategy. These reviews are crucial in building your website’s E-A-T, enhancing its credibility in Google’s eyes. Positive reviews across multiple review platforms, such as Facebook and Yelp, serve as a strong indication of your company’s trustworthiness and the level of consumer confidence in your offerings.
Engaging with all reviews, even the negative ones, is essential. Responding to customer feedback can significantly increase your brand’s trustworthiness and improve SEO with E-A-T in the long run.
Additionally, Google has introduced updates concerning product reviews. These updates encourage review content beyond the standard templated information commonly found online today. As a result, Google will give greater visibility to these enhanced product reviews in its search results.
- Show Your Credentials.
Before labeling your authors as experts, verifying their expertise is essential. Ensure that you confirm their credentials and provide links to their websites and social media profiles alongside the content they have created. This linking approach will help Google understand the expertise of your authors and their association with the content.
Feel confident in showcasing the achievements of your writers. List your experts on pages that introduce the people behind your website, such as an “About” or “Team” page.
Your brand can proudly showcase your writers with credentials, accreditations, degrees, or the experience necessary to be recognized as authorities in their respective fields. By transparently presenting this information to both users and Google, you enhance the credibility and expertise of your website’s content.
- Do A Content Audit.
With a considerable amount of content on your website, it’s essential to conduct a content audit to ensure that all your published content adheres to E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) standards.
For each page, you have three options:
- Update the content. If you come across outdated or no longer relevant content, consider updating the information to make it current and valuable.
- Delete the content. If a page is deemed irrelevant, outdated, or not worth updating, you may delete it altogether.
- Combine content with related pages. Another option is to merge the content from a specific page with related posts or pages, creating a more comprehensive and valuable piece.
When deleting or combining pages, it’s crucial to utilize appropriate 301 redirects. This ensures that any incoming traffic or search engine rankings for the deleted or combined pages are correctly redirected to the new, relevant content, preserving the user experience and SEO rankings.
