E-E-A-T SEO Quick Wins

Over recent years, Google has placed increased importance on expert content and trustworthy sources. This is all with the intention to have great, helpful content indexed in their search engine which they can present to users to answer their quiries. They have done this by adding and expanding their content guidelines. These guidelines can be summarised by the E-E-A-T acronym. Understanding and implementing the E-E-A-T guidelines across a website is key to having expert and trustworthy content, in turn potentially improving organic performance, visibility and traffic.

What does E-E-A-T mean in SEO?

We’ve spoken about E-E-A-T, but what does the acronym stand for? The E-E-A-T acronym was created by Google which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. These are not ranking factors. We have never had a definitive number of ranking factors, parts of a website that can impact the organic website performance. These acronym metrics are content guidelines which should be followed to highlight to Google that your content is helpful to users. Google has repeatedly stated that having unique content that is helpful to users is the key to performing well organically. E-E-A-T principles should be incorporated into all content on a website to give website owners confidence that their content strategy is meeting Google’s stated definitions of quality and relevance.

In August 2018, Google rolled out a core algorithm update that had a major impact on rankings and SERPs at the time. As rankings settled, there was a clear shift to content that demonstrated higher expertise, authority and trust being rewarded with higher rankings. At this time, the acronym was just E-A-T. The additional E was added, standing for experience. This was added in 2022 to develop the idea of ‘expertise’, including first hand experience, to create the current E-E-A-T acronym.

E-E-A-T quick wins:

Most websites have a plethora of content already existing on their website which may have been impacted as there has been a larger emphasis on E-E-A-T. With the rise in AI generated content, updating content to be inline with Google’s content guideline is very important to earning/maintaining organic visibility.

• Using real authors:

Using real, authentic authors is paramount in proving the expertise of the content being created that resonates with the audience. Blog articles should have the author attached to them, rather than having blogs with anonymous authors.

• Author bios:

Increase the credibility of your content by having detailed author bio pages. These can be linked to from the blogs they have written for your website. This page will hold their qualifications, previous work and achievements. This is another signal to both search engines and users that the content they are reading is trustworthy and from an expert. This could also include their social media potentially, as a form of social proof of their knowledge on their content topic.

• Implement schema markup:

Take advantage of schema markup language (structured data) to help search engines further understand the content on the site, and the different aspects of the articles. You have the ability to markup the authors, tables, type of blog and much more. This can help improve organic performance.

• Include time of edits:

Be transparent when editing old content. Disclose the last edit time on the article. This can help show users that you are regularly updating content to ensure they are up to date and still relevant to current times. This can help display the trustworthiness and reliability of the content to users.

Proving the credibility of the content on your website is non-negotiable in today’s internet. This can be achieved by following the E-E-A-T content guidelines provided by Google. Prioritising these principles can result in improved organic performance, and should be factored into a long term SEO content strategy to move the needle for organic visibility.

If you are concerned about your existing content or would like support in creating content with E-E-A-T in mind moving forward, please reach out to the Digital Carrera team today!