E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. E-A-T is a critical aspect of search engine optimisation (SEO) that can have a major effect on your website’s ranking in organic search results.
In this blog post, we’ll go over what it means to have good E-A-T in SEO and how you can improve your site’s rankings by improving these three things.
Contents
What is E-A-T?
E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It is a critical aspect of search engine optimisation (SEO) that can have a major effect on your website’s ranking in organic search results.
Expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness are all factors that Google takes into account when ranking websites in its search results. Sites with high levels of E-A-T are more likely to rank higher than those without.
E-A-T is a core concept in Google’s Search Quality Raters guide, which is a document that provides guidelines for how Google’s search engine algorithms should rank websites. The guide lays out several factors that contribute to E-A-T, including the following:
- Expertise of the website’s author or authors
- Authority of the website or its sources
- Trustworthiness of the website or its sources
What are Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines?
Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines are a guide on how Google should rank websites. It includes information on what factors affect E-A-T, including the expertise of the web site’s author and authority of its sources.
What is a Google Quality Rater?
A Google Quality Rater is a person who evaluates the quality of websites by rating them on their adherence to Google’s Search Quality Guidelines.
Quality raters are used by Google to help it improve its search results. By evaluating websites and providing feedback, quality raters help Google understand how well it is meeting users’ needs when they search for information online.
What is Expertise in E-A-T?
Expertise is the level of knowledge and experience an author has in their field. It is a combination of the author’s education and experience.
For example, if you write about finance, but have never worked in this field, your expertise level will be low. If you are an investment banker with 20 years of experience with qualifications writing financial articles for business magazines or newspapers — then your E-A-T score should be high.
What is Authoritativeness in E-A-T?
Authoritativeness is how much an author’s opinion is trusted. It comes from the level of trust that people have in the author and their content. Google takes the author, the content, and the website itself into account to calculate authoritativeness.
An example would be if you wrote about personal finance and had a blog with 50,000 subscribers and hundreds of backlinks to your articles from authoritative finance-related websites. In this case, your authoritativeness score would be high. If you wrote about personal finance, but only had a blog with five subscribers and no authoritative and relevant links, your authoritativeness score would be lower.
What is Trustworthiness in E-A-T?
Trustworthiness is how much an author can be trusted in their content. It comes from signals like positive feedback and reviews and technical signals such as using SSL on the website.
Why is E-A-T important for your business?
Having high E-A-T can have a positive impact on your website’s search engine ranking, and proving you are an expert, authority, and trustworthy can only be a good thing for your existing and future customers.
What are YMYL sites?
E-A-T is also important for so-called YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) sites. These are websites that deal with topics that could have a serious impact on people’s lives, such as finance, healthcare, and law.
Google takes the trustworthiness of these websites very seriously and gives them extra weight in its search results. This is because it wants to ensure that users who are looking for information on these subjects can do so safely and without being scammed or taken advantage of.
So if you run a website that falls into one of the YMYL categories, you must make sure your E-A-T score is as high as possible.
Is E-A-T a ranking factor?
E-A-T and EAT have been mentioned by Google in various presentations or articles, but they are not official ranking factors. That doesn’t mean they don’t affect your rankings though!
It might not be an official ranking factor, but the techniques that go into improving your E-A-T factors cross over into what you need to implement for a successful SEO strategy.
While improving your E-A-T, you improve your SEO, resulting in higher rankings and traffic.
How to improve your E-A-T
Improving expertise
To improve your expertise, make sure you have a strong educational foundation in the topic you are writing about. You can also increase your expertise by writing articles for authoritative websites in your field and by being active on social media. Include your credentials on your about site or in your author bio and add this information to your social media profiles.
Make sure the content on your website is of high quality and you cover all topics on a subject comprehensively and that it is updated regularly.
Be sure to cite other experts in your field and link to their articles from yours. This will help show Google that you are not just making things up as you go along, but that you have a well-researched and well-informed opinion.
To improve your authoritativeness, start by building a strong social media presence. Have a large following and be active on Twitter, LinkedIn, and other platforms. Write articles for authoritative websites in your field and include your name, bio, and contact information with each article.
Make sure websites you are posting on are reputable and have a high E-A-T score itself.
If you are writing high-quality articles as mentioned in improving your expertise, this can attract links from high-quality websites.
Improving trustworthiness
To improve your trustworthiness, make sure all of the content on your website is original and high quality. Have a strong privacy policy and terms of service page and refund/return policies. Use SSL encryption on your website.
Make sure you have contact information and an about me or bio page on your website. Add this information to your social media profiles as well.
Have positive reviews and testimonials from customers on your website (and if possible, third-party sites like Google My Business) to show that people are happy with the services you provide. Ensure you reply to your reviews.
Include badges from accreditation organisations on your site. This help show that you adhere to certain standards of customer service and online security which builds trustworthiness in the eyes
Building citations to your website from high-quality websites to improve your trustworthiness. Make sure your include your name, address, and phone number (NAP).
E-A-T FAQ
What is E-A-T?
E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It is a term used by Google to describe the factors that go into determining the quality of a website.
Why is E-A-T important?
Google takes the trustworthiness of these websites very seriously and will rank them higher if they are considered to be a high-quality source.
How can I improve my E-A-T score?
There is no one answer to this question as it depends on the individual website. However, some ways you can improve your score include having a strong social media presence, writing articles for authoritative websites, having a high-quality website, and getting positive reviews from customers.
What are some of the benefits of having a high E-A-T score?
Some benefits of having a high E-A-T score include higher rankings in Google search results, increased traffic, and more trust from customers.
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Wrap Up
So, what is E-A-T? In a nutshell, it’s the trustworthiness of your website. Google takes this trustworthiness very seriously and gives extra weight to websites that have a high E-A-T score in their search results.
While there is no official ranking factor for EAT, improving your E-A-T factors will help with your SEO strategy overall and result in higher rankings and traffic.
There are many things you can do to improve your E-A-T score, but some of the most important are building a strong social media presence, writing articles for authoritative websites, and having positive reviews from customers. By following these tips, you can ensure that your website has a high E-A-T score and will be rewarded by Google with higher rankings.