Why is E-A-T Important for SEO?

E-A-T- stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. It comes from Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines—a 168-page document used by human quality raters to assess the quality of Google’s search results.

Google published this document online in 2013 to “help webmasters understand what Google looks for in a web page.”

To help you understand E-A-T better, let’s look at the meaning behind each of these terms:

• Expertise–a high level of knowledge in a particular field. It shows that the publisher has shared expert information.

• Authoritativeness–emphasizes the authority and reputation of the publisher and the marketing website itself. Expertise in a particular field, credentials, and reviews from legitimate users impact it.

• Trustworthiness–shows that the content includes trustful sources of information. For example, implementing an SSL certificate on your website helps to prove the validity and assures users that their data is safe.

Why is E-A-T So Important for Your Web Pages?

So why is having expertise, authority, and trust so significant? After all, the Google quality rater guidelines don’t determine a page’s rankings.

Essentially, E-A-T determines a website’s value. Quality raters keep E-A-T in mind when judging how well a site or page provides what they need. They look to see if they’re getting a good online experience and if the content meets their standards. If the raters feel like a user would feel comfortable reading, sharing, and recommending the content, that earns the site a high level of E-A-T.

Think of E-A-T as the reason why users would choose your site over your competition’s. As a result, E-A-T could directly impact how Google receives — and ultimately ranks —  your marketing website.

Ways to Improve Google E-A-T SEO

Keep Content Fresh

To achieve a high-quality ranking, your website digital content needs to be comprehensive and relevant. Outdated content will rarely rank highly on any search engine.

So, you should regularly review your content and refresh where necessary to ensure all your digital content is up to date.

Showcase Your Authors

If your content, like a blog, for example, has been written by an employee, name them!

You can even go one step further and add information like a short description of the author and links to their LinkedIn profiles as this will further the author’s and website’s expert status.

Content Needs to Be Topical

This is especially important for those of you creating content around YMYL topics.

Instead of trying to cover every single area of interest in your chosen sector, precisely define the key areas you want to focus on and start creating a strong index of rich content.

Create a Trustworthy Website Design

If your website looks like a scam, then users are not going to stay on your site and your search ranking will falter. But you can make your website look safe with a few simple inclusions.

Adding logos of your respected clients or advertising partners, as well as reviews from third-party sites will increase a user’s trust in your site.