The Concept of Google E-A-T Demystified: What It Is and How to Make The Most Out of It

Intro

Google is committed to bringing high-value content to the top of its search results. In an attempt to counter SEO techniques that try to fool the algorithm, Google has designed the E-A-T concept to improve the search experience and rank websites with expertise, authority, and trustworthiness better than those that don’t.

To ensure that only the highest quality content makes it to the top of the search results, Google has set a high bar, and they are now looking at everything. You cannot get away with just plugging in the right keywords and perfect meta descriptions. Average content will just not cut it.

What is E-A-T?

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E-A-T is an acronym that stands for “expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness.” This term comes from Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines and reflects the three qualities Google looks for when determining the quality of a web page.

It isn’t an algorithm but rather a framework used by Search Quality Raters to provide feedback to Google to improve the search experience. It’s documented in the Google Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (QRG) and ensures the effectiveness of Google's ranking algorithm.

For any websites that sell products or provide information that can impact users' happiness, health, financial stability, or safety, Google wants to make sure that they deliver correct and relevant information. These are usually B2B or YMYL (your money, your life) websites that can impact a person’s wellbeing. The onus is on the search engine to guarantee that the information you get via Google is helpful, diverse, credible, accurate, and not misleading.

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Why is it important?

If you’re no stranger to Google search algorithms, then you’ll know that Google prioritizes one thing: to provide an optimized customer journey and experience. Google has changed the SEO game, and now, the way to domain authority is to ensure your site can offer what it promises. Your SEO strategy cannot just be a way to increase traffic to your website. You need to have high-quality content written by an expert, and your site should provide a great search experience.

You need to convince Google that your outfit is legit and that no content is potentially detrimental to a searcher.

If anyone wants their content to hit the first page of search results, they need to work exhaustively on gaining expertise and building authoritativeness and trustworthiness. To have expertise means knowing what you’re doing and having the right credentials. To be authoritative, others in your niche and beyond need to recognize and respect you. Being trustworthy requires you to have accepted security protocols and standards implemented.

The higher your E-A-T, the higher you can expect your domain to be in search rankings. It signifies your website is up to scratch. You’re not bypassing Google’s standards of quality and slyly using SEO to force yourself to the top. E-A-T can boost your SEO and keep you on top of digital customer experience trends in the following ways:

1. Quality information means users spend more time on your website, which is an important metric for search engine rankings.
2. Users recognize websites that offer value in terms of content, which boosts brand visibility and increases traffic.
3. Users share your content across the internet, increasing backlinks, visibility, traffic, and mentions.

How is E-A-T evaluated?

There is no E-A-T score or algorithm. The framework helps inform and provide human feedback for Google’s ranking algorithm. The 10,000.) quality raters keep the system in check and ensure it prioritizes high-quality content. A quality rater doesn’t need to evaluate your website’s E-A-T. That's not how websites are ranked.

What is important is that, in the grand scheme of search engine rankings, E-A-T plays a vital role because the algorithm is being continuously improved to recognize sites with better E-A-T.

There are many signals related to expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness that Google measures. These ranking factors include:

• Author reputation
• Backlinks from trustworthy websites
• An SSL certificate
• A professional web design
• Few typos
• Content relevant to the niche
• Some relevant old content
• A real domain name
• Social media presence

Website domain names are of particular importance, especially for search engine visibility. .com works for almost everyone, but if you’re in academia, .edu would be more appropriate. If you’re in artificial intelligence, .ai would be more suitable as per the ai domain definition.

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How to improve E-A-T SEO

​​Now that we have underlined the implications of ignoring Google E-A-T, let’s delve ‌deeper into a few ways you can improve and demonstrate E-A-T with your website.

Hire experts

If you want to have expertise in any subject you publish information on, you need to hire an expert. Let’s say you're writing about virtual law or maybe a paperless law office, it’s best to have a lawyer share their knowledge. When articles are attributed to people who know the subject, people and Google favor it.

Once you have the expert on board, focus on your niche. Don’t write content just for SEO to take advantage of high-volume keywords and gain traffic. This traffic will be useless for you, so stay in your lane. Focusing on a niche helps you develop a personal brand that will soon become your identity. It creates an authority-based image and makes people want to share your content.

A few best practices to follow when you publish content written by experts are:

1. Include the author's bio, detailing their qualifications. Add an image along with their proof of knowledge and links to their social media profile.
2. Cite author certifications and memberships. Those badges were meant to be bragged about and are true indicators of authority.
3. Have a page on your website that has bios of all authors and your leadership team. It helps build trust in your website by informing people that it’s run by people who know their stuff.
4. Acquire a Wikipedia page. While this is a difficult task, the QRG guidelines request the raters to look at Wikipedia to establish authority. Having the author on Wikipedia or even gaining a Wikipedia mention can go a long way.

Get backlinks

Backlinks are at the very foundation of great SEO. Links mean people are talking about you. They also indicate that people find your information valuable enough to share, and, therefore, they’re indicators of authority. A natural backlink portfolio can do wonders for your E-A-T.

Backlinks are the internet equivalent of academic citations. You aren’t an expert unless people recognize you as one, and backlinks are the way to do it. Backlinks show ‌that other websites recognize your expertise. Create an SEO strategy focused on garnering off-site mentions from noteworthy websites in your niche.

You can publish guest posts on other authoritative websites and include backlinks to your web pages, or you can get featured in the news. Your goal should be to be in the public eye on the internet so you can boost your relevancy to Google by acquiring powerful and relevant backlinks.

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High quality content

Quality content is the best way to optimize your page to rank better. Your page needs to provide value to readers and also be visually attractive. Research your content, don’t plagiarize, and write to the point. You need to publish content regularly and ensure scientific and factual accuracy. Digital content creation is a complex yet rewarding strategy to gain and engage customers.

With the myriad of tools available, you can use images and videos to create attention-grabbing content. Content with images ranks better on Google and increases customer engagement opportunities.

Your content needs to provide insightful analysis or interesting information, not state the obvious. Create content that a reader would like to share with a friend because it provides substantial value. Your content should create trust in your brand and should be genuinely focused on serving the interests of your website visitors.

Final thoughts

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​​Google E-A-T is the key to great SEO. If you want better rankings and more inbound vs outbound leads, you need to adopt the E-A-T way of thinking. Focusing on E-A-T will lead to better rankings as you will inevitably apply SEO best practices.

You don’t need to just build expertise and authority. You need to flaunt it. It’s the only way Google will find you. E-A-T can help your business succeed if you promise that your content is trustworthy and reliable. This promise must extend to every aspect of your website.

Use the Ranktracker Web Audit tool to get an in-depth health check of your SEO. It will check every page on your website and give you an analysis with actionable insights on the SEO factors. Use the QRG as a compass and correlate the over 100 data points in the report to the metrics essential for a successful E-A-T strategy. This way, you can identify low E-A-T content and eliminate it.

Build content and a website that demands respect by virtue of its E-A-T. Customers should be willing to put their money on the line for you. Bolster your E-A-T to have the best possible site in your niche so you can achieve and sustain high rankings on Google.

About Author

Jenna Bunnell - Senior Manager, Content Marketing, Dialpad

Jenna Bunnell is the Senior Manager for Content Marketing at Dialpad, an AI-incorporated cloud-hosted unified communications system that provides valuable call details for business owners and sales representatives. She is driven and passionate about communicating a brand’s design sensibility and visualizing how content can be presented in creative and comprehensive ways. Jenna has written for domains such as Mac Security and AgilityPR. Check out her LinkedIn profile.