Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is integral to building a business online. A robust online presence is key to growing your reputation and driving sales through your website. EAT is an acronym for Expertise, Authority, and Trust, reflecting the three most important traits your content should reflect. An SEO agency can provide this acronym to all your content.
We’ll help you understand the importance of these three attributes on your website and why you should apply them to every piece of content you produce online.
What Is SEO?
Before getting into the nitty gritty of content standards, it’s worth discussing SEO basics. Search Engine Optimization is a series of practices to improve a website’s appearance and configuration to perform better in organic search results.
In other words, the higher a website ranks, the more accessible it is to consumers and web searchers alike, and every visit to a webpage improves the quality and quantity of web traffic.
Why Does It Matter?
SEO is essential in the online world to ensure that you compete properly for your niche. You could be the world’s foremost expert on a subject, but your website is bound to flop if you don’t incorporate sensible SEO strategies.
Creating relevant, engaging content and incorporating good website design is essential to position higher in search engine results. Quality of traffic is much more important than quantity of traffic.
Good quality traffic involves people genuinely interested in the products you sell or the information you offer. An effective search engine provider aims to connect information seekers and shoppers with relevant websites to meet their needs.
What Is E-A-T?
The goalposts are constantly shifting regarding SEO strategies, mainly because search engine providers continually change the weight of different factors several times a year to prevent fraudulent websites from abusing the algorithm to rank higher.
One metric that hasn’t changed since the birth of the internet is the importance of good content. Relevant, highly authoritative content always performs better than keyword-stuffed nonsense.
Over the years, SEO gurus have been able to narrow down the basics of what makes a website ‘good’ in the eyes of the almighty Google algorithm. Without fail, the information on any top website you visit demonstrates expertise, authority, and trust.
It’s important to note that Expertise-Authority-Trust is not a definable metric for a website’s performance in the algorithm; its principles are human qualities that communicate the relevance of information and are difficult to quantify. Instead, it’s more of a semantic way to encapsulate SEO techniques.
To implement E-A-T, Google engineers experiment with different algorithm changes and have website raters evaluate search results, providing feedback on these three metrics.
Based on this information, webmasters can assess whether the changes to the algorithm improved the metrics of E-A-T in search results or not. Using this method as a guideline, engineers can analyze the relative signals to discover which demonstrate E-A-T qualities on websites and adjust accordingly.
Here’s a closer look at each part of E-A-T:
Expertise
The first metric of good content relates to the quality of the content and its producer. For example, a woodworking master of 30 years is far more qualified to run a blog on DIY wood projects than your average Joe, who has watched a couple of YouTube tutorials.
Google is always looking for cherry-picked individuals who know their stuff and are experts in the subject matter they write on. Keep in mind that this metric—as far as the fancy-schmancy algorithmic lingo goes—is a measure of the content itself and not evaluated sitewide.
For the reader, it’s much more comforting to know that the advice they’re getting comes from a professional with decades of experience, not just someone who’s been scrolling through Reddit for a couple of hours. This expertise lends credence and security to the content, encouraging more readers to browse the information.
This metric is much more critical in Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) content, wherein incorrect or misleading information can harm a person’s finances or well-being. When the data can have serious consequences, people flock to the experts to ensure their best chance for success.
Of course, in non-YMYL subjects, expertise helps but isn’t necessary. Having ‘everyday knowledge and a strong familiarity with the issue is often enough to make readers trust the source. For example, you don’t need to be an expert botanist to host a blog about plant keeping, but highlighting your expert experience helps.
Authority
Reputation goes a long way, both in the physical and online worlds. Raters will look for insights into the writing to evaluate the authority of the content. For a website selling a product, for example, raters may look at the reviews the website has received, recommendations from experts, relevant news articles, or other credible sources regarding the website.
As such, if you aim to boost your business, stand out from the competition with exceptional service and expertise to garner positive reviews, articles, and other feedback forms. Choose a niche you have authority in, and don’t be afraid to build a network with other experts to verify your personal authority.
Trust
People are suspicious in the online world, and rightly so. The internet is sometimes sketchy, and website browsers always look for red flags that indicate the information is suspect.
YMYL websites demand a high level of trust—you don’t want to read an article about symptoms of a severe illness if the content creator doesn’t have M.D. in front of their name. Consequently, to build trust on your website, add relevant information about yourself to establish credibility.
Why are you positioned to answer this question? What resources can you provide to ensure readers you’re giving accurate information?
The content must be accurate and supported by other experts where applicable. To increase the trust of readers and raters, add many credible sources whenever you claim to support your content.
The Bottom Line
E-A-T is part of an SEO mindset that ensures your content demonstrates expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. Incorporating it into your website is a good practice to ensure your website performs well in the search algorithm.
Websites that demonstrate expertise, authority, and trust are well-respected and are more likely to encourage visitors, meaning that your website will rank higher. For best results, provide expert credentials and ensure your content offers credible references.
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