Improving the website's ranking is one of the critical parts of digital marketing that every company desires when promoting its products or services online. The reach of the internet and the availability of numerous users provide the scope of enlarged opportunity for the digital marketers to use the internet for their benefit and keep on working and updating themselves on SEO ranking factors that change with time. One such update by Google is E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness), introduced in 2014 and mentioned in Google’s search quality evaluator guidelines. It has been in discussion and has raised frequent questions about how it works and on what basis Google determines to rank websites on E-A-T SEO, can it be measured, do we get a Google score for E-A-T and much more.
With timely updates, Google has made it very clear that it ranks the quality of content that provides a good user experience and satisfaction much higher than other ranking metrics. Now, website optimization will only be achieved by following a collective approach in the overall online marketing strategy, and more efforts are required to sustain the constantly evolving digital market.
What is Google E-A-T in SEO?
Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness are the official guidelines by Google. It focuses on increasing the credibility and effectiveness of the website and ranking it higher or lower by emphasizing the author of the content, the main content and the website to make sure that the users interact with knowledgeable information and their time on the website is justified.
Google is one of the most reputed companies in the world and has always worked on delivering the best results to the user's concerns and desires. It is why it keeps on updating its guidelines on the key points to focus on when marketing through SEO and PPC and other essential marketing concepts.
• Expertise - The content on your website is what you offer to your target audience or the random users that visit your website to get a solution to their concerns & queries and boost the on-page SEO. The expertise part of the E-A-T SEO concept of the Google algorithm demands that the website's author is responsible for the credibility of the content, i.e., it should be backed by research and facts. The website owner and the content developer need to produce and exhibit content in which the required expertise has been achieved.
There is a misconception that expertise is only required for the YMYL website content and not for the general concept. For enhancing the Google website ranking, the content creator should have the relevant and required expertise in the SEO content that passes through their website. Be it a general concept or a YMYL content, though, in YMYL, expertise holds some extra weightage.
Before moving on to authoritativeness, we should know exactly what a YMYL is, why Google focuses on passing the most relevant, research-based information, and why it is one of the critical SEO ranking factors.
Your money or your life (YMYL)
These are high-standard topics that Google keeps on its top priority content. YMYL content is related to the topic that can affect a person's health, finance, political awareness, safety, etc. These are the topics that can only be shared with the target audience if the author has an in-depth knowledge base and the required skill. These are highly sensitive topics and can only acquire a good Google page rank or a high Google ranking if the information has the insight of an expert who has formal expertise or everyday expertise.
Formal expertise is when the author has taken the formal education in the field of the YMYL content and then only they are qualified enough to share their views or answer the online audience’s concern. E.g., if someone’s search term is 'what is digital marketing' with a full explanation, then a person who has done a course on online marketing is qualified to share their views on the given topic as they have the formal expertise.
Everyday expertise is when the author hasn’t acquired formal education in the related YMYL topic but has the required experience in its field to be writing something about it and sharing it with the website visitor. E.g. someone who has only read lots of blogs and articles about social media marketing has the formal expertise to write on social media marketing but someone who has not studied digital marketing in their college years and still working in a digital marketing agency for 5 years, doing social media marketing projects, content marketing, email marketing, SEO and PPC, etc., for clients to provide them the overall website optimization and their desired online marketing goals has the rightful experience to share their thoughts on it.
Although expertise is required on any given topic that may pass through a company's website and for YMYL topics, it holds additional importance.
• Authoritativeness - Authoritativeness comes when users, other websites, and authors of the same content see you as a reputed website for their concerns and queries. Authority comes from expertise as, initially, it is the factor that creates the space for building a reputation for a website. A part of the on-page SEO job gets done when a relevant topic expert produces the content; expertise opens the door to authoritativeness. There is no Google score or measurement for authoritativeness. Still, Google will find your website authoritative when it finds out that users are recommending your website, content is getting inbound links, and it determines that the content is credible and has the expert touch. This helps in creating an atmosphere of authoritativeness and your website gets an edge over its competitors by complying with the E-A-T SEO guidelines, gradually improving the Google website ranking.
• Trust - Transparency in the website content, accuracy, relevancy, etc., assures the users that the content information is correct and comes from a trusted source. Trust is a long-term process that becomes evident when users start to get reliable on your content, which, with time, improves the E-A-T in SEO, which is a non-measurable metric. Apart from giving expert knowledge to enhance the on-page SEO, trust can be built in E-A-T SEO by -
i. Mentioning the publisher of the content.
ii. Links of the reference sites that are navigated to seek help. iii. Publishing correct feedback and not showing any fake or manipulative reviews.
Google wants to make sure that the users are navigating through good websites and that the content they are presented with justifies their navigation. Trust of users, as well as Google, is one of the critical SEO ranking factors and a compulsory part of improving EAT SEO.
Is Google E-A-T SEO a ranking factor?
E-A-T in SEO is a Google ranking factor. It is a Google algorithm that is not measurable, i.e., there are no fixed indicators that will show the progress of the website related to E-A-T SEO, unlike other SEO ranking factors like keyword analysis for suitable keyword mapping, selection of target audience, website optimization, inbound and outbound links, the impact of creative and optimized text and visuals, etc. These SEO ranking factors and their progress can be traced up to an extent but measuring the impact of E-A-T SEO on Google website ranking is an unimaginable task as Google has also not fixed any criteria to calculate it. In this new update, Google has focused much on expertise, authoritativeness, and trust but has left the digital marketers thinking about how to correctly track the path of its measurement to boost their Google website ranking. Still, there are no fixed rules to boost E-A-T. Some strategies can help your website improve its E-A-T SEO.
How to improve E-A-T SEO
E-A-T in SEO is essential as it has been mentioned several times in Google’s search quality evaluator guidelines indicating that Google is very concerned about improving user experience through one of the new SEO ranking factors. Although there is no Google score to calculate it, here are some of the vital strategies to conquer the new Google ranking factor.
• Give valuable content to the users - As the new Google page rank metric is focused on the content, making it valuable to the user gets essential. Now, the emphasis is more on the information presented to the target audience to give them maximum satisfaction. The overall website optimization through proper keywords, target audience selection, etc., will only work if the users have access to worthy and beneficial content when they visit your website or go through your content. That is why the author of the content should be an expert in their respected field; this will help boost E-A-T and improve the Google website ranking.
• Update the content within a fixed time period - The content shared on your website and the facts present in it might be relevant today but in the near future, there may be several changes in the facts and data and at that point in time, your page might be ranking high on SERPs. Therefore not updating the old content and risking the Google ranking will vanish all the efforts applied while creating the content and your content will lose all the trustworthiness it earned.
• Try to get reviews - Give space for reviews and try to get as much reviews as possible for your website’s optimization process. The expertise in your website content assures the production of good quality content and makes sure that the users will like it. Good content will automatically lead to good reviews. Extracting good reviews from the users because of the quality and relevant data provided to them rapidly builds the reputation of your website.
• Give links to reputed sites - The users that are browsing your website and going through your content might want to know about a particular element of the topic that you haven’t explained in your because it was not much related to your content explanation, but you have given a hyperlink. This hyperlink or anchor should always lead the user to a reputed site that is also taking care of producing and presenting relevant and quality data to its users. This will increase your website's authority and positively affect your Google website ranking because your website is trying to provide the users with an excellent and valuable off-site experience.
• Show credentials - The required details of the author of the content, users leaving reviews on your page, or any type of interaction of your website with the users that is necessary to be left public should be openly shown to the website visitors to maintain the mandatory transparency. Being open and transparent with the users generates a sense of trust in them and increases the website's value as there are no wrong hidden motives.
Conclusion
With the introduction of E-A-T SEO, Google has left the digital marketers to constantly speculate about how Google is managing to measure its fresh update of E-A-T in SEO and what could they do to effectively achieve a high Google ranking with these rapidly changing SEO ranking factors. Expertise, authoritativeness and trust have clearly indicated the future plans of Google and how much it is focusing on continuously improving the user experience, making it its top priority. The growing use of the internet and the enormous amount of irrelevant data shared on this platform is a signal that on-page SEO will now mostly revolve around the quality of content that is shared and the irrelevant data pages will be continuously degraded to low ranking on the search engine result pages. As you avail of white label PPC services so that the PPC consultants help you enhance the performance of PPC campaign. Similarly, you can outsource SEO service to a digital marketing company to track SEO campaign performance, build links and maintain the online reputation of your business to increase conversion rate, maximise ROI and have the best results for your SEO campaigns.
References
• Domain authority: tips & tricks to improve your website's ranking
• Ultimate guide to digital marketing strategies for top ranking on SERP’s