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Many businesses invest in SEO, but often struggle to understand what truly drives search rankings and online brand performance. While your website’s build and technical elements are important for the structure of your website, they’re just one part of the equation. Quality content and an enhanced user experience are crucial pillars of successful SEO. This falls under the E-E-A-T framework.
In this article, we’ll explore the concept of E-E-A-T, why it’s so important for SEO, and how businesses can leverage it to make the most of their SEO services and improve search visibility.
What Does E-E-A-T Mean?
E-E-A-T is an acronym for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. It evolved from Google’s original “E-A-T” guidelines, introduced in 2014 to assess content quality. In 2022, Google updated the guidelines to include “Experience”. This framework has progressively become one of the most important aspects of SEO, as it helps Google evaluate the user experience that a website offers through its content. Here, we will break down each of the requirements so you can understand how they work.
| Google’s E-E-A-T | What does it mean? | What does it look like? |
|---|---|---|
Experience | Content that demonstrates the author’s first-hand or life experience in a particular topic. Content authored by experts with strong personal brands or profiles in their industry. | For e-commerce websites, this can look like a blog post that reviews a product or a product developer talking about specific features. For lead generation businesses, this could be a blog by an expert explaining essential processes in the industry. |
Expertise | Content created by experts. Or well-researched content that is backed up by highly credible sources. | For example, a local real estate agent in Canberra gives advice on how to go about purchasing property in different suburbs. |
Authoritativeness | The extent to which this content, author or website is a well-established and respected source in the field. You’ll notice these sites have:
| An e-commerce website writing original content about the uses and benefits of their products, showing customers their level of industry knowledge, and including links to credible websites. |
Trustworthiness | Trustworthiness is at the heart of E-E-A-T, as mentioned in the Search Quality Rater Guidelines. This element means looking for transparency, accuracy and honesty. The website (and content) can be deemed untrustworthy if it doesn’t appear safe and honest to the user. You’ll notice the following in websites prioritising truthworthiness:
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Why is E-E-A-T Important for SEO?
Google’s goal is to improve search engine results and offer users the correct information on their first search. These guidelines help ensure that content is reliable. By aligning with E-E-A-T principles, websites signal to Google (and to users) that their content is credible and trustworthy, which is essential for strong SEO.
In the context of SEO, content that demonstrates high levels of experience and expertise, sourced from authoritative and trustworthy sources, enhances the likelihood of ranking higher in search results. When users trust the content they find, they are more likely to engage with the site and return for future visits, all of which are factors that can influence rankings.
Ultimately, strong E-E-A-T signals support long-term brand reputation as website content becomes a window into who you are and why you should be trusted, both by your users and by Google.
Strong E-E-A-T signals are particularly essential for industries like finance, healthcare, and legal sectors, which fall under YMYL (Your Money Your Life), discussed a bit later in this blog. By focusing on E-E-A-T, businesses can establish themselves as an authority in their field. This can enhance their online presence and help them outperform competitors who may not offer the same reliable information to users.
Are E-E-A-T Factors Search Ranking Factors?
E-E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor, but it is an important part of search performance. Google’s algorithms and Search Quality Raters use E-E-A-T signals to assess how useful and helpful your content is. They are looking for content that is people-first, and not aimed at search engine rankings. Websites with strong E-E-A-T tend to rank higher because they provide valuable, reliable information.
What Does Google’s Helpful Content Update Mean for E-E-A-T?
Google’s Helpful Content Update aims to ensure that site owners provide an overall great page experience to users. This means creating people-first content — content that is meant for people and not to manipulate search engine rankings. The Helpful Content Update works hand-in-hand with E-E-A-T guidelines.
The Helpful Content Update prioritises content that is:
- Created for humans and not search engines: Thin, misleading content will see lower rankings.
- Accurate and comprehensive: Content that addresses user pain points and reflects the local experience will perform better in rankings and with audiences.
- Helpful to users: If someone leaves your site feeling they’ve learned enough about a topic and had a satisfying experience, you’re fulfilling Google’s requirements.
Actionable Tip: Focus on user experience by providing valuable, in-depth, and well-structured content. Highlight your business’ expertise and USP instead of generating content that is too similar to your competitors.
Evaluating E-E-A-T
Google assesses where websites sit in the SERPs based on a set of guidelines called Search Quality Rating Guidelines. These guidelines are based on how helpful the content and website experience are for people in a specific language and geographical area. Google employs real people to review websites and score them on E-E-A-T. These evaluations inform Google’s algorithm.
Some important factors of this evaluation are:
Main Content (MC) identification
MC is any part(s) of the page that directly helps the page achieve its purpose. MC can be the title tag, text, images or videos. The purpose of MC is to help users make decisions on which pages are relevant to them.
Content and website author
Every page belongs to the website and it should be clear who is responsible for the website and the particular content. Add information about the reputation of the author and the website. Adding links to the “contact us” or “about us” pages gives this information to both users and Quality Raters.
Website’s reputation
If the website has backlinks from trusted sources, it means that it’s a reputable and reliable source of information for other entities in the industry.
The website should exist for the benefit of people who visit it. Any pages that are created to benefit the organisation and not the user would be described as spam. Google negatively ranks pages which are meant to deceive search engines or mislead users.
Content Accuracy
How accurate or helpful is the content? Is it well-researched and fact-checked? Does it have the latest and most up-to-date data? Is it unique and offers something that is not available on other sites?
Website security
Trust and transparency signals like HTTPS, clear cookie and privacy policies, and author credentials, all help send signals of website security.
Demonstrating E-E-A-T
Here’s a comprehensive checklist that you can use to see if your content and website are demonstrating E-E-A-T signals:
Download the E-E-A-T checklist here.
What is YMYL (and Why Does It Matter?)
YMYL stands for “Your Money Your Life” — this is a term Google uses for content that can impact a person’s financial, legal, or physical well-being. Any industry that can possibly cause harm to a person’s health, well-being, safety or finances falls under YMYL.
Google applies stricter E-E-A-T standards to these websites because of the long-term consequences these businesses can have on users. As there are topics with high stakes, it is even more crucial to show experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness throughout the user journey. For example, a bank’s website must provide accurate financial advice backed by certified professionals, or it risks lower rankings.
By understanding which industries fall under YMYL, businesses can align with Google’s guidelines and enhance their credibility and authority in these sensitive areas.
What Industries Are Affected by YMYL?
- Health & medical goods and services (Doctors, medical services sites)
- Finance and banking (Investment, insurance, loans, super, cryptocurrency)
- Legal (Law firms, government policies)
- News & Journalism (Fact-based reporting, political content)
If your business is a part of the above industries, it will be even more important for your business to comply with E-E-A-T guidelines.
E-E-A-T Guidelines and Tips for Businesses
| How to Strengthen Experience | ✔️ Include case studies, client reviews (social proof) and any reliable/original research. ✔️ Make it clear “why” this content was created and how it is useful to visitors. |
| How to Demonstrate Expertise | ✔️ Feature expert-written or reviewed content with clear author bios (including qualifications and professional experience) to help the user understand who is providing them with information and if it is a knowledgeable and reliable source. ✔️ Is the content based on the latest and up-to-date information/research? |
| How to Increase Authoritativeness | ✔️ Acquire backlinks from reputable sites ✔️ Add examples of thought leadership with recognised experts. ✔️ Highlight positive press or awards to demonstrate your authority and presence in the industry. |
| How to Boost Trustworthiness | ✔️ Consistently producing fact-checked and error-free content helps you build trust over time. ✔️ Include user reviews, testimonials, and industry certifications |
Conclusion
By prioritising E-E-A-T principles, businesses can not only boost their SEO efforts but also establish themselves as reliable authorities in their industry. This sets businesses up for brand recognition and long-term success.
Improving your content quality according to E-E-A-T requires a strategic approach. Pixelstorm is here to help provide this strategy and support to help your website stand out. Get in touch or give us a call at (03) 9448 2348 to discuss how to improve your SEO performance.
References:
- https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/hsw-sqrg.pdf
- https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content#:~:text=While E-E-A-T itself isn’t,with good E-E-A-T is useful.
- https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content
- https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf
- https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/08/helpful-content-update
