An introduction to Google E-A-T
Google E-A-T, which stands for Expertise, Authenticity, and Trustworthiness, is an acronym that defines how important these factors are when it comes to ranking well on Google.
What’s new?
Although Google E-A-T is a term that has been in circulation since Google’s algorithm update in August 2018, it seems to have been more widely discussed and considered by those working in SEO over the past few months.
The acronym has made its way into existence because Google doesn’t want to serve people pages that could contain incorrect information, especially those which could impact on people’s happiness, health, or wealth. This meant that certain industries, such as the medical and financial sectors, suffered the most when the new algorithm was put into place, but all industries will benefit from taking the acronym into consideration when producing content.
What does Google E-A-T mean for marketers?
As a marketer, Google E-A-T provides you with new guidelines to consider when producing any content for your website. Not only does it need to be engaging, informative, and relevant to chosen search terms, but it also need to show expertise, authority, and be seen as being from a trustworthy source too.
How can marketers implement Google E-A-T?
Although Google E-A-T sounds complicated, there are steps that you can take to ensure the content follows these important factors.
Expertise
The best way to show expertise is to go above and beyond to cover the topic in a detailed way. To do this, think about why the individual may have searched for that particular term, and then build your content around all of the possible scenarios. People should leave your site feeling that their queries have been answered, and this may even include questions that they didn’t know they had.
Being an expert on a particular topic isn’t necessarily enough to get you that all-important organic traffic though. The content that you produce also needs to be engaging, easy to digest, and created in a way that will resonate with your target audience. This might mean adding visuals to text, including videos, images, and audio, especially if it’s a topic that can be a bit dry or difficult to understand. You should also include links to other relevant pages, as this shows you have expertise across related areas too.
Authority
Authority can be a little harder to achieve, as much of it relies on others. An authoritative website is one that people know, share, and link to, either from their own site or via their social media channels. This is essentially the next step up from being an expert, as it means that others recognise your brand as being the one to turn to when they have questions on the topics that you cover.
In order to gain authority in your industry, you need to research and produce content that is very accurate and includes information that people won’t be able to get elsewhere. For example, if you can include first-hand quotes from industry experts in your content, this makes your offering to readers unique, and people will be far more likely to link to it and share it across other media types too.
Trustworthiness
Even the top experts with the most authoritative websites will struggle to rank on Google if they are missing trustworthiness, so this could be seen as being the most important factor in the E-A-T acronym. Negative comments about your brand can really impact your position in search results, so building trust among customers and others in your industry is really important.
The most effective way of doing this is to encourage people to leave reviews about your company, as this shows that you’re being transparent. It also suggests that you’re confident that people will have positive things to say about your brand. There’s lots of options for collecting reviews that you can choose from, including TripAdvisor, Trustpilot, and Facebook. You should also ensure that you make contact details and terms and conditions clear to customers, and include author bios on any inspirational content, news items, or pages offering general advice or opinions.
If you’re sharing content on a topic that you’re genuinely knowledgeable in, it’s very likely that you’re already complying with Google E-A-T. However, by providing unique research, producing content that’s detailed and shareable, and collecting reviews, you can ensure that your pages will continue to succeed in Google’s search rankings.
