If you are involved in search engine optimization and website promotion, you have probably heard at least vaguely about the E-A-T concept and its updated version, E-E-A-T. From this article, you will learn what E-E-A-T is, what components it consists of, and how to use it to improve your website ranking.
Understanding the E-E-A-T Landscape
The E-E-A-T meaning is embedded in the abbreviation itself. Each letter stands for a characteristic that quality web content must meet according to Google's Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (SQEG):
- E — Experience.
- E — Expertise.
- A — Authoritativeness.
- T — Trustworthiness.
These are the criteria that Google's so-called quality raters rely on first and foremost when analyzing the content of search results.
The E-E-A-T model, while not explicitly listed among ranking factors, significantly influences how Google evaluates website quality, which in turn affects rankings. According to Google's recommendations, following these principles improves the quality of content, making it more useful for readers and relevant from the point of view of search robots.
The corporation first introduced the E-A-T (Expertise — Authoritativeness — Trustworthiness) algorithm on August 1, 2018. After the presentation, it began using it as an accompanying ranking criterion on an ongoing basis. In 2022, another letter “E” (Experience) was added to the abbreviation, demonstrating the importance of the author’s personal experience in assessing the quality of the content they create.
The announced Google content quality guidelines affected the rankings of many websites on the Internet, including the online presence of several well-known brands. Some time after the implementation of these principles, optimizers and webmasters noticed an improvement in the ranking of websites with content that matched them.
Experience: Bringing Authentic Insights to Content
Now that you know what E-E-A-T stands for, let's look at each component of this concept. Let's start with the first one – Experience. When analyzing this criterion, Google employees pay attention to whether the author has real experience interacting with the subject of the article.
Content based on personal experience is considered more reliable, credible, and worthy of attention compared to materials from authors who lack hands-on experience with their topic. Personal experience is especially important for certain types and formats of content: for example, reviews of products and services, reviews of places and events.
When assessing the quality of content according to the first criterion, Google pays attention to whether the author has personally used the products recommended by them or not. Given this, when preparing E-E-A-T content, it would be a good idea to emphasize to the reader that the author has real experience interacting with the described subject. For greater authenticity, you can add photographs taken by the author. They enhance the credibility and authority of their opinion.
Expertise: Establishing Credible Subject Matter Authority
Expert content is content created by competent authors with the necessary knowledge and skills in the relevant field. According to Google Content Evaluator Guidelines, expertise includes both the author's professional training and personal experience. Thus, both "E"s in the E-E-A-T concept are closely interconnected.
The level of expertise required to create quality content largely depends on the subject matter and purpose of a particular website. E-E-A-T Google recommendations are especially important for YMYL (Your Money, Your Life) category websites dedicated to medicine, finance, law, and security. To confirm the expertise behind the published content, website administrators often need to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in the form of licenses, certificates, and other official documents. For example, websites of family doctors and other health workers must indicate their license numbers.
Expertise of web content is one of the key indicators of its quality. Sites that host materials created by recognized experts appear in higher positions in search results, since such content has greater value for users and meets the E-E-A-T criteria.
Building Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness
The authority of a resource is a significant factor for SEO content optimization, which is taken into account by Google. The site's compliance with this criterion primarily depends not on the author's expertise but on the skills of the optimizer or webmaster. This indicator is based on the site's reputation as a reliable source of information.
According to E-E-A-T guidelines, trust in the link profile plays a key role in assessing authority. The higher this value, the more trustworthy the resource and its content are. Google analyzes external links, assessing their quantity, quality, and relevance to sources.
In addition to links, the authority of a site is significantly affected by filters or sanctions imposed on it. Google's recommendations emphasize the importance of the reliability of published information and compliance with ethical standards. The resource's trustworthiness is directly influenced by these factors.
Finally, the last criterion of Google E-E-A-T is the reliability of the information posted on the site, determined by the knowledge, experience, and authority of the author. It is closely related to other criteria and reflects the factual reliability of the content: accuracy, truthfulness, and relevance, the absence of errors and unfounded statements.
Trust in published information can be supported by certificates, licenses, customer reviews, and expert opinions. A site that meets this requirement must be safe for visitors, securely store their personal data, have up-to-date contact information, as well as a user agreement, information about delivery, return options, guarantees etc.
Practical Implementation and Continuous Improvement
The practical implementation and continuous improvement of E-E-A-T require a comprehensive approach. In order for a site to comply with Google's recommendations, it is necessary to strive to achieve high indicators in several key aspects at once: content quality, author expertise, company reliability, and technical optimization.
Key steps:
- Content quality. Firstly, you will need professional content writing to fill the site with high-quality materials. Content quality is fundamental for YMYL sites and is crucial for other types of web resources. Carefully evaluate the informativeness, accuracy, and reliability of the published texts; consider their relevance, fascination, and benefit to the target audience.
- Author experience and expertise. Create more expert content based on the author’s real experience, especially when it comes to reviews of products, services, or places and recommendations. Pay attention to the authors’ biographies. Include information about their education, skills, licenses, certificates, and awards.
- Website authority. Increasing trust in the website's link mass is one of the important components of the E-E-A-T checklist. To increase this indicator, you should actively interact with partners, publish guest posts and articles on authoritative websites, and post content with links to your resource on social networks and various platforms.
- Company reliability. Make sure your business is reliable and transparent on your website. Provide visitors with detailed contact information, include real customer reviews (including external resources such as Trustpilot, Yelp, and the like), and add information about well-known partner companies.
- User experience. Both content quality and site usability are highly important for SEO. It should have a clear and understandable structure that allows users to easily and quickly find the information they are interested in. Pay attention to the design, navigation, visual appeal, and other aspects of usability to improve the user experience and strengthen your position in search results.
- Technical parameters. The perception of a website by users and Google algorithms largely depends on its technical condition. Assess the speed of loading web pages and eliminate factors that slow down this process. Check the accuracy and relevance of meta tags, install an SSL certificate to implement a secure HTTPS protocol, and analyze the quality of mobile optimization of the site.
Summary
Google strives to provide its users with the highest quality, relevant, and useful content. To achieve this, it has prepared a set of recommendations. They reflect the main criteria of well-ranked sites: experience (E), expertise (E), authority (A), and trustworthiness (T). The E-E-A-T content strategy discussed in this article allows you to improve the quality of content and usability of a site, making it more informative, convenient, and trustworthy for both visitors and search engines.
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