What Is Google’s EEAT and How Does It Help You Rank Higher?
As a digital marketing agency, we commonly get asked by our clients “how can I rank higher on Google?”
One of the best ways you can rank higher on Google is showcase your knowledge and expertise on your specific businesses niche. Google developed an acronym called EEAT which was previously know as EAT but they added an extra E, “experience”. In this blog, we will go over the different parts of EEAT and how they influence your business’s ability to rank on Google. We will also give tips to improve your search rankings within these categories.
What does it stand for?
EEAT stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust.
Each part of EEAT is important for ranking higher on Google but Google puts Trust in the very centre with the different categories feeding into Trust.
Trust
Trust is the most important thing users can have in your website and Google ranks this accordingly. Google consider trust as the extent to which a page is accurate, honest, safe, and reliable.
Keep this in mind when creating or updating your website, take time to review your site and see if your pages match these criteria, if you feel it may be lacking then take time to update your pages. If you don’t do this, Google will penalise your site and categorise it as untrustworthy, if this happens any additional search engine optimisation you do will be worthless.
Now the type and amount of trust depends on the specific webpage, for example:
Online retailers must have safe and secure payment systems so their customers can input their personal details without worrying about potential security breaches. Online stores should also provide a reliable customer service.
If you sell products then your product reviews must be honest and written to assist potential customers to make informed purchasing decisions, instead of just trying to sell the product.
If you have webpages that provide information that are clearly on YMYL topics, they must be accurate and correct to protect individuals and society from harm.
YMYL
YMYL stands for “Your Money or Your Life” it refers to pages that have information that has real world effects on readers of this information. It is a classification Google puts on content, it can be defined as “pages or topics that could potentially impact a person’s future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety.”
Social Media Posts on non YMYL topics may not need to have a high level of trust as YMYL content if the purpose of the posts is to entertain their audience and the content itself does not risk causing harm to individuals or society.
Experience
Google considers the extent in which the creator of the content has the essential first hand or life experience in the topic or industry the content is about. Many webpages create a high level of trust and achieve their purpose when the pages content is written by those who have a wealth of personal experience. If you have a website or blog, it is always worth adding in your experience and proving to readers why what you say is accurate and coming from a reliable source. Users of your site will relate to your experience and develop more trust in the site if the information is coming from a reliable source.
Expertise
This is the extent in which the creator of the content has the essential knowledge or specific skills that is relevant to the content. Different topics and content require varying levels of expertise to be trustworthy. Examples of this would be plumbers, the average person would much rather trust a professional plumber that has the essential knowledge and is educated to the correct standard, rather than someone who is an amateur who has fitted 1 sink in their home. Think of expertise as the way you can prove to potential customers that you possess the essential knowledge involved in the topic you are discussing.
Authoritativeness
Authoritativeness is the degree in which the content creator or the website is known in its industry as the go-to-source for information within the industry. While most industries do not have one singular official source of information, when they do, that website or content creator is one of the most reliable and trustworthy sources. For example, a small businesses Facebook or Instagram page on social media may be the authoritative and trusted source on different sales and changes in store opening times. The official government webpage for passport renewal is the unique, official, and authoritative source for passport renewal, this gives the government webpage the most amount of authority on this topic
EEAT
Experience, Expertise, and Authoritativeness can overlap with different pages and topics, it is not a one size fits all rule. For example, an individual may develop a high level of expertise on a topic through lots of firsthand experience over a long period. There are different combinations and splits of EEA involved in deciding if a page is trustworthy or not. When deciding how to make your content as trustworthy as possible you should consider the purpose, type, and topic of the page, research other highly trusted content in your niche to see how you compare.
When considering the rating of Page Quality, your evaluation of E-E-A-T should consider one or more of the subsequent factors:
- Self-representation by the website or content creators: Begin by examining the “About Us” page on the website or the profile page of the content creator. Does the information presented make the website or content creator seem reliable?
- External opinions about the website or content creators: Seek out independent reviews, references, news articles, and other trustworthy sources of information regarding the website or content creators. Are there credible indications that the website or content creator possesses expertise, experience, authority, or overall trustworthiness? Conversely, is there evidence indicating that the website or creator lacks credibility?
- Visible content on the page, Main Content, and reviews/comments: In certain instances, the level of expertise and experience can be discerned directly from the Main Content. What evidence can be gathered by analysing the Main Content or experimenting with the page? For instance, by watching a video of someone in action (such as styling hair), or by reviewing comments from others (as comments often highlight proficiency or the lack thereof), it might be possible to deduce that someone is an expert in hair styling.
Conclusion
Increasing the trust users have in your website and pages is an invaluable technique to rank higher on Google and increase the traffic to your site. If a small business can develop the different categories of EEA, it will increase the overall Trust users have in their site and the business.
Now this is not a quick fix, much like improving Search Engine Optimisation, increasing EEAT can take months of consistent work to grow each category. At Overlook Digital, we would recommend that when small businesses are creating written content for their website, they should have EEAT in the back of their mind and write the content to suit the different categories.