Google has a history of giving updates for ever changing algorithm. It becomes very difficult for webmasters to adjust with new algorithm update each time.
We first heard of E-A-T in 2013 when Google issued a Search Quality Rater Guidelines.
E-E-A-T formerly known as E-A-T, is also one of those Guidelines. So let’s discuss about Google EEAT and how it somehow be crucial to your website’s ranking.
What is Google EEAT?
E-E-A-T stands for “Experience” – “Expertise” – “Authoritativeness” – “Trustworthiness”. It comes from Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines. It was introduced to help webmasters understand what factors they should keep in mind while writing content for their sites. It is often revised each year.
Guys! we need to understand that it is not a direct factor for SEO. However we can say that it may be crucial for some and not for the other chunks of websites. The webpages covering topics based on YMYL(Your Money, Your Life) are mostly affected by E-E-A-T.
Yes, now we have to understand that WHAT IS THIS YMYL?
Actually YMYL refers to topics that may affect someone’s future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety. It was first introduced by google in 2018. The examples are webpages covering news topics or website providing medical insights like Webmd. And the topics that are not YMYL are like your favorite colors for jacket collection.
This new EEAT covers four concepts inside of it lets discuss each one of them
Evaluating EEAT
These four concepts of “Experience” – “Expertise” – “Authoritativeness” – “Trustworthiness” are not a ranking factors but may contribute towards the ranking of your site. The guidelines are used by Google to understand what content is high quality and trustworthy to rank it to the higher positions in SERP. Being a content writer/marketer or a webmaster it is very important to understand the concepts given inside the guidelines.
Experience
“Experience”, was added as a newbie to the raters guidelines in December 2022. Basically it’s an evaluation of an author having experience in the niche or not. For example, a content writer is writing about cooking recipes then, their first hand experience in this niche will count. Experience is less of an importance than expertise and authority to gain trust.
Expertise
This refers to extensive experience of an author in a given niche or a topic. For example, do they have required skill sets, or qualification or self taught experience of years in a specific niche. It is often confused with experience but both are different.
We can say if someone wants to take a tax advice for their company from an accredited professional. Then this means they are looking for an expert in the field with required biography.
On the other hand “Experience” can be real life experience of people handling business and what strategies worked for them. However both of them counts for Google EEAT.
Authoritativeness
It refers to the overall experience of an author and their reputation in the industry. For example are the other experts or the influencers referring to the articles of a certain author.
Ideally authority is a link to your content by the other expert. Or they are seeing you as a guide in a certain industry or a niche so they are referring your content for pointing out a fact.
In content writing world mostly the authority is evaluated by the backlinks that we have talked about. And it is very important aspect of SEO.
Trust
Trust is evaluation by taking the experience, expertise, and authority into account for a certain content, author and a website in a specific niche or industry. Google focuses in its rates guideline that you must be clear about your content, its accuracy and citation from a trustworthy sources.
For example Google considers a page untrustworthy if the citation to that page is irrelevant in respect to the niche of both sites i.e a site of recipes referring a link to a site covering topics on medical advices.
It’s also important to provide contact information on your website, particularly for YMYL topics or online stores. So Trust is very crucial factor in Google EEAT to be assured by checking for all of the previous ones (Experience, Expertise, Authority)
Importance of Google EEAT in SEO
We keep on hearing that high quality content is the key to Good SEO of your website. However, definition of that high quality content is somehow be catered with Google EEAT. As Google specifies the quality guidelines for an excellent content are:
The content should
- Helpful for others
- Should be written by an expert with real life experience of a certain topic
- Should have the authoritative website or a have reputation in the industry
- It must be trustworthy as per guidelines
- Should be updated on a regular basis as new information keeps coming in
Marketers are using different strategies and SEO Tools to improve their website ranking. They keep on trying meta descriptions, keywords, etc. But they must keep these Google EEAT guidelines into consideration as google is now more looking for helpful and rich content.
And it is predicted that the Google EEAT is the future of SEO. So we should always be on watch with these raters guideline updates to ensure our content serves purpose of what Google requires from us.
Steps to improve your SEO with Google EEAT
As we are familiar with the importance of EEAT SEO, now we should look into the steps that marketers and content writer can take to improve their SEO with EEAT. These steps are even more important for YMYL niches to maintain high quality standard defined by Google.
We have manifested some of the best practices for Google EEAT SEO:
1. Create High Quality and Rich Content
While writing your content, you should be very clear and concise to your audience. It should serve their purpose of reading. According to the guidelines your content should be;
- Original
- Helpful to others
- Written in a very humanly manner considering readers are people
And always keep on auditing your content. If the information written in it has become irrelevant, then do make changes accordingly. Create easy to read content that doesn’t cause any confusion. The high quality content that serves its purpose usually makes its reader to stay there. This helps in sending a good signal to Google that readers are satisfied by the content.
2. Build Authoritative Backlinks
Relevant backlinks with having sufficient authority are the backbone of the SEO and helps much in ranking your website. Its like a recommendation made by someone close to you would be of high consideration for you.
For example, if your friends recommends you to buy shoes from a certain brand. This is enhancing your trust in that particular brand. Or you can say Its like spreading word of mouth.
However you would get a recommendation for shoes from a friend who has a good taste in shoes and familiar with different style, types and collection. Likewise the backlinks must be authoritative and from a relevant site e.g. if your niche is in medicine then a backlink from a site advising medicine shall be relevant.
Irrelevant backlink will result in sending bad signals to the Google. And this practice of getting low authority and irrelevant backlinks will do more harm than good ultimately de-ranking your site
7. Develop your Online Reputation (More Reviews)
Always work on your brand’s reputation online. Brand reputation has a huge influence over trustworthiness of a site. So it is considered very crucial to Google EEAT SEO.
Always keep in mind to claim all of your social media existences online and getting reviews from customers. Quickly respond to the customer reviews whether they are good or bad, as it will increase trustworthiness of your site.
Setting up a Google business profile for your brand also plays a major role in brand’s identity and existence ultimately improving Local SEO (Look for Local SEO Tools). You should even encourage people to review your brand to improve your brand reputation.
4. Provide Author’s Biography
Never forget to mention about your author’s details on your site. This could be ‘About us’ or ‘Team’ section in your website. You can also provide the background details of your content author background on webpage. This help Google understand that the content is written by an expert.
Author details can be their degree, qualification, certifications, acknowledgments, accreditation, etc. It is recommended to hire an expert for content writing. However if you don’t have that much budget then you can look for a good content writer.
If there is no other option, then you can also become a contributor to authoritative sites in your niche to have a substitute for expertise. Guest posting is a great example for this scenario, as it will help you develop a transparency and expertise in particular niche.
You can also get an expert audit of your content to improve its quality and avoid delivering misinformation.
5. Always use Credible Source Linking
You should look for credible sources while writing a content. Mention a source link from an authentic research paper, or reputable website or a journal. As it helps in improving your credibility.
This is even more important for YMYL niches like news publisher sites, medical advising sites. Linking to most authentic sources also represents you as an expert and help you back your content with real data. So make a habit to always use links from most reliable sources.
6. Update the Content Consistently
Never leave your content unseen for long after being published…
The information is changing every minute in this real world. New innovations, inventions, discoveries, theories are being introduced with passing time. Unless you have written something about a topic that will not change with time, there is always a chance that your content will become outdated after 2 years.
So practicing regular updates and content audits is very important to keep your content authentic and credible. You should also keep a check on the backlinks authority from time to time and remove the dead links from your content.
Some of the examples of niches with ever changing information are again about news and medical info.
7. Hire the Experts for Content Writing
Google always values a content written by an expert with required qualifications and real world experiences to back their expertise. So it is always advised to hire an expert of a specific field or niche rather than hiring a copywriter who can just write content for you.
And as we have studied so far an expert content writer is also very crucial to YMYL space. A thoroughly researched and well written topic or a review by an expert is loved by Google. And it eventually result into improving your Google EEAT. You can also contribute with other experts in a specific niche to write an amazing content full of information.
8. Get Mentions from Trusted Sources
Backlinks play a significant role in ranking your site and they are referred as a link to your site from the other site. In addition to the backlinks, getting mentions in high authority websites or blogs can play a vital role in ranking your site as well. And they are also considered as a type of backlinks as defined in Google Patent.
However these mentions are plain text of your brand name. Such types of links are also known as “implied links” while the links to your site are called “express links”. So we can conclude that implied links will also help you in improving Google EEAT SEO.
So as the Google algorithm becoming more sophisticated, its way of evaluating authority is also updating.
Round it up
Google EEAT is an important guideline for every marketer, webmaster or a content writer as it helps them understand the standards for a quality content , set by Google itself. So you must have a knowledge of ensuring “Experience”, “Expertise”, “Authoritativeness” and “Trust” from Google EEAT for your content and website.
So try to follow these guidelines by showing your brand’s credibility, validity, and overall reputation in a certain niche.
