TL;DR: Google’s E-E-A-T are Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust are human judged factors that give your pages more chances to show up in search results by publishing quality content on a reputable website that can satisfy human user experience in these four areas. Trust is the most important. Here are what those factors are, Google’s guidelines, best practices and a checklist to help you understand how to establish your Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
Google’s Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust (E-E-A-T) are four factors to identify good content that demonstrates each one. Of the four, trust is the most important. Meeting the E-E-A-T factors for websites that Google labels as “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) that publish content about financial stability, health or people safety separates those sites from domains that do not establish or demonstrate E-E-A-T. Web pages that meet E-E-A-T requirements have a better chance to show up high in search results. However, all industries can leverage E-E-A-T for increased chances to show up high in traditional search results or in AI Overviews. Content that provides reliable, accurate, honest and safe information is trusted.
Google E-E-A-T Guidelines
Google’s Quality Rater guidelines has high level information about the four factors that web publishers can use as a starting point for creating high quality content. For trust, ecommerce sites need secure online payment methods and good customer service. Experience is first-hand or gained through life situations. The expertise factor is met when the author demonstrates her knowledge based on her career experiences, such as a human resource manager who has done organization realignments at a corporate level. Authoritativeness is evident when the content creator is known as a reliable source based on external social media profiles, featured in industry publications and news media.
E-E-A-T Best Practices
Creating high quality, unique, useful content establishes all four factors. Get started on your E-E-A-T with these best practices:
- Use credible sources and link to them
- Carefully consider which links you reference when creating your content
- Update your content
- If there are updates that will make your content more useful and timely, update the pages and posts to provide the most recent, relevant content.
- Be transparent
- Be honest – if you create a product and review it, write that into your content. If you are a trusted reviewer, write about the pros and cons of the product you review
- Build your brand’s reputation
- Create great content, products and services that solve problems for people and businesses. Provide great customer service by making it easy for customers to get refunds or replacements.
- Get customer reviews and testimonials
- Getting reviews and testimonials establish your brand’s trustworthiness. Satisfied clients who freely offer their genuine opinion about your products and services will boost your E-E-A-T.
- Demonstrate your experience in your content
- If you have multiple years of experience across a wide range of tasks, situations and service, write about it.
- Highlight your qualifications and achievements
- List your awards, certificates, prizes, achievements and other items that prove your accomplishments in your area of expertise
E-E-A-T Checklist
There are three main areas in Benson SEO’s E-E-A-T checklist, with some tactical items listed out, but that’s not the full list.
- Brand level E-E-A-T signals include:
- An “About Us” page
- Business certifications, accreditations, memberships
- Social media icon links
- Active social media profiles
- Organization structured data markup
- Content level E-E-A-T signal examples:
- Is the content easy to find through website links?
- Author pages that document the subject matter experts experience and credentials
- Updated, factually correct content
- Relevant, unique photos, images, videos and other visuals that support the content
- Author Level E-E-A-T elements:
- Stand alone author pages
- Author headshot or photo
- Biographical/career information that details experience
- Guest author publications and links
- Multiple content pieces on the author’s area of expertise
Final Thoughts On Google E-E-A-T
E-E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor, but establishing yours will boost your brand’s reputation, increase trust in your site and establish credibility in your business or industry.
If you need help to map out your E-E-A-T, Benson SEO has an E-E-A-T service that analyzes your current baseline, identifies the missing areas and provides you with an action plan to meet all E-E-A-T requirements.
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