This latest blog will be helpful to you in understanding the concept of E-A-T and the best approach to optimize your website accordingly.
Defining Google’s E-A-T
E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trust. Google mentions E-A-T in Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines (SQRG). It helps the SEO service companies to evaluate their website performance. However, the concept of E-A-T is not new. It has been around since Google’s medic Update 2018 and gained a lot of attention.
1 Defining Google’s E-A-T1.1 Expertise1.2 Authoritativeness1.3 Trustworthiness2 Why Is Google’s E-A-T Important for SEO?3 Concept of – Your Money Your Life (YMYL) Content4 Tips and Tricks to Improve Your E-A-T4.1 1. Build High-Quality Backlinks4.2 2. Review and Update Content4.3 3. Showcase Positive User Reviews & Testimonials4.4 4. Collaborate with Experts4.5 5. Include Author & Business Credentials4.6 6. Show Support & Contact Information4.7 7. Monitor Your Businesses Reputation4.8 8. Avoid Clickbait Content5 Conclusion
Let’s understand this acronym in detail:
Expertise
Expertise targets the knowledge and experience that an author of the website holds on that particular topic. Professional accreditations, degrees, or work experiences are ways to showcase expertise in a niche.
Authoritativeness
We can measure the authoritativeness by checking out the reputation of that website or article. Authoritativeness comes when respective industries often mention them. If the audience considers a website or the article as a thought leader then it possesses high authoritativeness.
Trustworthiness
Trust is built by security, engagement, and support. A trustworthy platform will always ensure secured transactions. New comers provide their sources, methodologies, and feedback channels to gain trust from the audience and users.
Why Is Google’s E-A-T Important for SEO?
Bygone are the days when the ranking of a website was dependent on interlinking and keyword stuffing only. Now Google focuses on and prioritizes user behavior. This algorithm makes E-A-T important. A few points you can focus on while working on the E-A-T concept are here: What the user is searching for? – A good and deep keyword research targets this concern. One needs to focus on all the related phrases from the main keyword to the LSI. Experience that users will get – Consider the interstitials, text size, and more. To introduce a great content representation and navigation. Evaluate your website content and design based on web vitals reports giving quality signals. Helpfulness of content to the users – If the content fulfills search intent then it is helpful. Make sure your content lets your audience feel confident that the information they got is accurate.
Concept of – Your Money Your Life (YMYL) Content
YMYL stands for “Your Money Your Life,” it describes the impact of content on a user’s well-being. Any type of legal, medical, or financial content can affect a person’s well-being. YMYL content requires higher E-A-T as compared to other types of content. Because such content can be damaging beyond imagination. This is the reason; websites in the YLML niche cannot easily establish guidelines on E-A-T. You’ll have to perform deep research on how a user would assess the E-A-T of your website. Then, make it easier for your audience to conclude that your site is expert, authoritative and trustworthy. This research, consideration, and implementation take lots of effort.
Tips and Tricks to Improve Your E-A-T
A high E-A-T asks for knowledge fundamentals in content strategy. Here are the top 8 methodologies to improve your E-A-T.
1. Build High-Quality Backlinks
High-quality backlinks are a signal of authoritativeness and knowledge of your business. A great link-building strategy can turn your website into a thought leader in that specific industry. When other expert websites mention your brand on their page, that time your website gains high authoritative quality.
2. Review and Update Content
Studies and the latest SERP guidelines always say that content refreshment is important for advanced SEO. content on your site becomes like trash after dropping the traffic. Keep updating the images and required parts of the text to keep traffic on that particular page. This activity also represents your activity, time, and effort on the website.
3. Showcase Positive User Reviews & Testimonials
Mention the positive testimonials, reviews, and case studies of your clients. Audiences trust real words more than quality listings. Always respond to both positive and negative reviews, and always be open to taking feedback, this will enhance your trustworthiness in the market.
4. Collaborate with Experts
You cannot directly show your expertise in any niche. First of all, update the about us page of your website. Then start collaborating with the existing experts in that field. You can mention extra information and accreditations about your author on the about us page of the website. You can see many websites mention the name of the author along with a professional description at the bottom of the blog, you can do the same for better help.
5. Include Author & Business Credentials
As mentioned before, exaggerate the author’s bio and their business. An author bio explains the reason for the author holding such a level of knowledge, this also supports the expertise and authoritativeness. Be clear always with the terms like, how long the author has been in business, what organizations they are a part of, awards they have won, and why they do what they do. Most of the time anonymity is not acceptable in the YLML content, the audience should always be aware of the organization or the person behind the content.
6. Show Support & Contact Information
In the case of eCommerce websites, specifically the service or products-based websites need to add their contact information to gain trust. Even all types of sites can improve their E-A-T by writing support articles and mentioning email support so that customers would stay assured that they can reach out if they face trouble.
7. Monitor Your Businesses Reputation
Keep monitoring your business performance and online reputation. The best way for this, you can Google your business in the search bar. You can check out several review sites like Wikipedia, Better Business Bureau, Yelp, and more. Look at what people are talking about your organization, and then propose a PR strategy to address the negative concerns to regain a positive reputation.
8. Avoid Clickbait Content
Clickbait content is popular for higher clicks. But, it is deceiving and terrible. Completely stay away from such types of practices. Because once a user will come on your site for sure, but will never come back. Content needs to be helpful, and clickbait content usage will directly hurt your online reputation. SEO experts and content creators should keep focusing on content optimization from the user’s perspective. If the creators will work in such a manner, they will themselves work nearly the E-A-T guidelines. This investment of time and effort in content creation is worth it. As we have been seeing for a long time, Google always focuses on the user experience for its audience in every new algorithm.
Conclusion
If your organization is working according to the user perspective, then you do not need to worry about the new updates in the Google algorithm. You will see E-A-T mentioned in more upcoming algorithms ahead. Keep in touch with a leading digital marketing agency for the latest updates and tactics to succeed in SEO with better outcomes.