E-E-A-T stands for ‘experience’, ‘expertise’, ‘authoritativeness’, and ‘trustworthiness’, which are the quality standards applied to Google search results.
In the often misleading online world of catfishing, fraud, and fake news, it’s no surprise that Google implements trust-based criteria into its search ratings.
It’s even less surprising, given the rise of AI-generated content and the launch of ChatGPT, that ‘experience’ was added to Google’s quality rater guidelines in late 2022.
Arguably, experience is the main difference separating humans and AI. Here, we explore the purpose of E-E-A-T and how you can use SEO to meet these search quality standards.
What’s the Point of E-E-A-T?
No matter what it is you’re looking for online, it’s fair to say you want to trust your source.
Whether you’re reading the news, applying for a mortgage, researching the side effects of a medicine, or ordering a pizza for delivery, you want to know that there’s a real person behind the information, service, or product and that they know what they’re doing.
You wouldn’t hire a dog groomer to give you legal advice in the real world, so why would you take advice from a legal blog written by someone with no legal training or background?
Assessing a website’s experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness can help Google to understand where that site should rank in SERPs to best meet the user’s query.
It’s worth noting that E-E-A-T is used to evaluate Google’s ranking system, rather than form part of its algorithm. In their own words, Google explains, “these guidelines are what are used by our search raters to help evaluate the performance of our various search ranking systems, and they don’t directly influence ranking. They can also be useful to creators seeking to understand how to self-assess their own content to be successful in Google Search.”
Although E-E-A-T is not directly used as a signal to boost rankings, it can reward websites that meet these criteria. That means, as a website owner or developer, your site should be aiming to meet the standards to feature more prominently in Google search results, and ultimately increase traffic, and conversion rates.
What Is YMYL?
YMYL stands for ‘Your Money or Your Life’. Google uses this term for topics that could significantly affect a person’s health, financial stability, safety, or the welfare and wellbeing of society.
Examples of YMYL content include medical information, financial guidance, legal advice, public safety information, and important news. Incorrect or misleading information in these areas has the potential to cause real-world harm.
Strong E-E-A-T is particularly important for YMYL topics. Google’s systems give greater weight to content that demonstrates strong experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness when the subject could have a serious impact on someone’s life.
If your website publishes YMYL content, clearly identify who created or reviewed it, explain their relevant qualifications or experience, and support important claims with reliable sources. Content should also be reviewed regularly to ensure that it remains accurate and up to date.
Who, How, and Why
Google recommends considering ‘Who, How, and Why’ when evaluating whether content is helpful, reliable, and aligned with E-E-A-T.
Who created the content?
Make it clear who is responsible for the content. Include an author’s name where readers would expect one and link to further information about their background, experience, and relevant qualifications.
How was the content created?
Explain how the information was produced when this would be useful to readers. This might include details about research, testing, professional experience, sources, or the use of automation and AI. Showing the process behind the content can help readers understand why they should trust it.
Why was the content created?
The primary purpose should be to help people. Content created to answer genuine questions or provide useful information is more closely aligned with E-E-A-T than content produced mainly to attract search engine traffic.
Together, Who, How, and Why provide a practical way to assess your content and demonstrate that there are knowledgeable, accountable people behind it. You can learn more in Google’s guide to creating helpful, reliable, people-first content.
Displaying Your E-E-A-T
For most reputable websites, fulfilling the this criteria is something that happens organically, but it’s worth being aware of what factors can contribute to your E-E-A-T rating to give your website a boost.
Experience
Experience is something that holds plenty of value in the real world and the online world.
If you’re having a major operation, do you want a surgeon with one year of experience or ten years of experience? If you have experience in your field, don’t be shy about it. Nobody is going to blow your trumpet for you. List your relevant experience on your ‘About Us’ page or your ‘Meet the Team’ page, including industry accolades or awards your business has received. Be sure to include appropriate photos of yourself and your team to further demonstrate trust and authenticity, as well as contact details.
Experience is also what sets you apart from AI-generated content since AI can’t have any real-life experience. Use this to your advantage and be sure to showcase the real people behind your product or services.
Expertise
Expertise can be showcased in several ways using SEO, and you can implement one or all of these tactics.
It relates to the wealth of knowledge exhibited on your website or the knowledge of the author behind the content.
You can signal to Google that your website has expertise in a certain area by featuring authors or guest bloggers who hold authority in that area.
For example, if you have a dog training website you could demonstrate expertise by featuring articles written by a renowned dog trainer. Alternatively, you could demonstrate expertise by building a blog that covers all aspects of dog training, including loose-leash walking recall, crate training, and sit-stay commands. This wealth of information will signal to Google that your website knows what it’s talking about more than a dog training website that only features articles about house-training puppies.
Expertise can also be displayed to build trust with readers, which is another important factor for ranking well in SERPs.
Build reader trust by including the author’s name and relevant background information alongside their content, with links to their social media profiles to back up the fact that they are a real, reputable person within the industry.
Authoritativeness
The extent to which your brand or business is deemed as an authority on a particular topic is used to determine the authoritativeness of your website, and this has an indirect impact on your Google ranking.
To show that you are an authority in your field, you can display your extensive knowledge in a series of articles on your website, covering as much information as possible.
Alongside positioning yourself as an expert in your field, you can also feature guest posts from reputable members of your industry to boost the authoritativeness of your website.
Earning backlinks from trusted websites is another way you can build authority, as this indicates that other respected sources value your information and insight.
For a related look at brand mentions that do not contain a clickable link, read our guide to implied links.
Trustworthiness
Displaying experience, expertise, and authority all result in ultimately presenting yourself as a source that can be trusted, and trust is essentially what it all comes down to.
If a potential customer believes they can trust you, they are significantly more likely to use your service compared with a competitor who lacks trust. You can demonstrate your trustworthiness by making yourself easy to contact, and featuring contact details on your website.
The background information of your staff members, along with a photo, further goes to establish trust and authenticity.
Google aims to bring the most accurate and relevant sources to a user following a search query, so fulfilling their E-E-A-T quality standards should be a top priority to increase organic traffic to your website.
Final Words
Demonstrating your experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness will help your web pages rank higher in relevant search engine results.
E-E-A-T should always be in the back of your mind when creating new online content, however, it shouldn’t be what your content is based around.
Writing to impress search engines, or trying to cheat the system, is exactly the opposite of what it’s about.
Content that targets search engines in a bid to get to the top of search results reeks of deception, and that’s exactly what Google is trying to avoid.
Instead, focus on being an authentic voice and an expert in your field, and your content will naturally meet the E-E-A-T criteria.
For help with SEO best practices, including E-E-A-T, get in touch today.
