Initially revealed in the 2014 edition of Google’s Search Quality Guidelines, E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.
Since Google wants to deliver the best possible experience to its users, it needs to determine which websites are providing the most value and the highest quality information when its algorithm is organising search engine results pages (SERPs). To do this accurately, Google needs to consider a variety of different factors and this is precisely where E-A-T comes into play.
Let’s look at each in turn element of E-A-T in turn before going on to explore some tactics and rules of thumb for ensuring that your content is jumping through the necessary hoops.
Expertise
Demonstrating expertise involves showing the world that you understand the nuances of your field and that your content is valuable, useful and well informed. Additionally, if you can demonstrate that your knowledge at least matches and, ideally, exceeds that of your closest competitors, you may find it possible to outrank them and benefit from the additional traffic this will help you to secure.
Authoritativeness
If expertise is used as a way to measure the extent of your knowledge, your authority determines how you stand up against your competition. Let’s take an everyday scenario to illustrate this point:
If you wanted a recommendation for a new kitchen gadget, you would be more likely to seek the opinion of a friend who enjoys cooking over another friend who prefers doing DIY in their spare time. Similarly, when organising SERPs, Google wants to know that it is sending its users to the best website for every search query it handles.
Trustworthiness
Every business needs its audience to trust that what it is saying is accurate and true. The Internet contains a lot of information, but audiences know that not all of it can be trusted. Importantly there is also another layer to this point. Users want to know that any information they choose to share with a website will not be shared with third parties and won’t be vulnerable should a security breach or cyber-attack occur.
Why Was E-A-T Established?
Google has published a set of search quality guidelines for its quality assurance team, which is often referred to as its Search Quality Raters team.
It might be helpful to think of this team as performing a similar role to that of any organisation’s quality assurance team. Following any alterations to the algorithm and/or search engine as a whole, Search Quality Raters will evaluate the quality of the search results to ensure that the best sites are being promoted in SERPs.
The Importance of E-A-T
Although first introduced back in 2014, E-A-T was further emphasised in 2018 which many professionals took as an indication that it now plays an even more integral role within search engine optimisation (SEO).
If your website lacks demonstrable expertise, authority and trustworthiness, visitors are going to look elsewhere for the information they are seeking. With marketplaces only increasing in competitiveness, it won’t be long until they find what they are looking for elsewhere and they certainly won’t be returning to your website anytime soon.
Each of the three E-A-T terms represents a key factor used by Google to evaluate how must trust it should allocate to a brand or website. Quality raters use these metrics when determining the quality of a site and whether pages provide the information they are looking for. If raters think that a user would want to read, recommend and share a piece of content, that website will be awarded with a high E-A-T score.
Businesses with an inherent understanding of how to display their expertise, authority and trustworthiness will, therefore, see their website promoted by Google in SERPs, which will likely result in higher ranking positions and the myriad benefits that will bring.
Key Takeaways for Enhancing your E-A-T Score
Although this may initially appear to be a lot of information to absorb, particularly if you are encountering E-A-T for the first time, breaking down the guidelines into clear steps should make the process easier to follow. Here are a few ways in which you could choose to apply E-A-T to some of your existing pages:
- Expertise: Sharing a blog post written by a verified professional.
- Authoritativeness: Clearly displaying the credentials of the author, including job title, biography and any pertinent experience.
- Trustworthiness: An up-to-date SSL certificate, use of HTTPs, visible contact information, demonstrating a general level of overall professionalism.
A comprehensive SEO strategy is essential for every business looking to make an impact online. SEO can be complex but it doesn’t have to be an impossible task. So, with that in mind, here are five practical ways to enhance your E-A-T score and boost your chances of securing a more prominent ranking position in the search engine results pages.
Personal Branding
The guidelines explain to quality raters that information pertaining to the reputation of large businesses and prominent content creators should be easy to find. Although Google clarifies that this type of information may not be as readily available for smaller businesses, investing in a personal brand will ultimately serve you well in the long term.
There are several proactive steps you can take to do this including:
- Utilising social media platforms
- Sharing your brand story with the intention of connecting with your audience
- Placing content on trusted platforms to establish a positive reputation within your field
Don’t Forget Author Names and Biographies
A core component of E-A-T assessment is gaining an understanding as to who is responsible for a website. On product pages and landing pages, displaying contact information and easy access to customer support is essential.
Conversely, on editorial content including blog posts, authorial information should be included to ensure that quality raters can determine the content was written by someone qualified to discuss the topic at hand.
If this type of information is deliberately obscured, your E-A-T score will likely suffer the consequences.
Address Content with Poor E-A-T
Although having poor E-A-T content on a single page won’t impact other web pages directly, it might have a negative impact on the reputation of your website as a whole. This is why most professionals will advise removing pages with minimal traffic and poor E-A-T pages.
Any pages with high levels of traffic but poor E-A-T should be given additional care and attention. Removing them completely could result in your site losing a prominent ranking position that you might find hard to reclaim. However, leaving these pages in their current state might impact your reputation in the future. Reworking these pages in accordance with E-A-T guidelines will help you to improve your content and benefit your SEO.
Carefully Monitor User-Generated Content
It is important to note here that user-generated content doesn’t always equate to low E-A-T. In fact, the guidelines state that this type of content can be the most appropriate form of content in a variety of different circumstances.
Key user-generated content pages should be modified to include expert contributions or edited to include links to external reputable sources. Effective community management will ensure that you are best placed to utilise the power of user-generated content without any of the potential risk factors that might lower your E-A-T score.
Invest in Quality Website Security
As we mentioned earlier, security plays a significant role in the overall trustworthiness of your business. With browsers including Google Chrome now marking HTTP pages as ‘not secure’, it is more important than ever before to utilise HTTPS and to maintain an up-to-date SSL certificate.
