EEAT for SEO Strategy and Tactics
EEAT stands for Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, each a pillar that supports the bridge connecting your content to your audience in meaningful ways. Initially introduced in Google’s quality guidelines back in 2014, just as EAT (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness), Google introduced ‘Experience’ in 2023. The recent shift to include ‘Experience’ underscores a broader trend towards valuing real-world application and user satisfaction in content evaluation.
Table of Contents
What is E-E-A-T, and why is it important?
Grasping the nuances of EEAT means unlocking the potential to meet and exceed search engine and user expectations.
Broken down, EEAT can be defined as:
- Expertise: The demonstration of comprehensive knowledge and skill in a specific field.
- Experience: Evidence of direct, practical involvement or achievements within a topic area.
- Authoritativeness: Recognition as a reputable source of information in one’s field by peers and the broader community.
- Trustworthiness: The extent to which a source is considered reliable and credible by users and search engines.
In the ever-evolving landscape of search engine optimization, EEAT emerges as a critical factor distinguishing top-ranking websites from the rest. This concept extends beyond mere keywords and backlinks, diving deep into the essence of your content’s quality, the experience it offers, and the overall perception of your brand. Understanding and implementing EEAT in your strategy is not just an enhancement; it’s a game-changer for your online visibility and success, impacting your company’s bottom line.
As a search engine optimization consultant, having developed and implemented many SEO strategies for companies in a variety of industries, such as insurance, web3, pet health, wellness, fitness, cannabis, field service management, luxury Swiss watches, logistics, and blood cancer research, utilizing various business models such as e-commerce, B2B SaaS, B2B2C SaaS, marketplace, non-profit, consulting and MLM, I can speak first hand to the impact that a well thought out and well executed EEAT strategy can have on revenue.
See what I did there? I contextually referenced my direct experience on a topic that I’m writing about, but more on that later.
Your Money Your Life
Another critical concept concerning EEAT and SEO is “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL), a term used by Google to describe pages or topics that could potentially impact a person’s future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety. This concept is deeply intertwined with EEAT (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) and SEO because Google holds these pages to a higher standard of quality and reliability.
The stakes are higher for YMYL content, so Google expects these pages to exhibit high expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. The rationale is straightforward: inaccurate, misleading, or low-quality content in these areas could seriously affect users. As a result, when evaluating YMYL pages, the EEAT factors become even more critical in determining search rankings.
This focus ensures that users receive content that not only answers their questions but does so in a way that is accurate and reliable, especially when making important life decisions. Therefore, for websites operating within YMYL topicsâsuch as personal finance advice, medical information, legal issues, etc.âdemonstrating strong EEAT is essential for achieving and maintaining good visibility in search results.
Search Quality Rater Guidelines
Google has search quality raters, actual humans, that go through websites manually and fill out surveys on a website’s EEAT. These surveys are then sent to Google search engineers, who make iterations on the search engine algorithm with these survey results in mind. You can’t necessarily say that EEAT as a whole is a search engine ranking factor. Still, as a whole, it is one of the most important indirect ranking factors. That being said, there are direct ranking factors that can fall into the category of EEAT, like having high authority backlinks from niche relevant domains. That’s right; EEAT is about more than just on-page factors; it also encompasses off-site SEO factors. Since the algorithm does have a system for considering backlinks when ranking a website, the search quality rates don’t focus on evaluating the backlink profiles of websites but are mainly focused on content and user experience.
Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines offer a window into what makes content truly valuable and how EEAT factors into these assessments. These guidelines are a compass for navigating the complex seas of SEO, pointing directly toward content that satisfies and engages. By aligning your content and brand strategy with these principles, you’re not just chasing algorithms but creating genuinely valuable user experiences.
Creating an EEAT Driven Brand and Content Strategy
Companies must create high-quality, informative content that showcases their in-depth knowledge and skills within their industry. This involves highlighting their team’s qualifications and achievements through detailed bios and sharing success stories through case studies and customer testimonials. Such efforts demonstrate the company’s expertise and experience, proving their ability to deliver quality results and solve real-world problems for their clients or customers.
Creating content that withstands the scrutiny of EEAT criteria means delving deep into your expertise, making every piece a showcase of your knowledge and experience. It’s about building a narrative that informs and connects on a personal level, establishing your brand as authoritative and trustworthy. This approach turns your website into a beacon for those seeking answers, insights, and reliability. As previously mentioned, more than author bios are needed to demonstrate your EEAT. Displaying author bios is important, but the writers need to contextually reference their direct experience with a topic in their written content as well.
For example, if you are a financial consulting firm creating a blog post about BTC ETFs’ impact on investment portfolios, you should have a Chartered Financial Analyst write this post. They should talk about how this impacts their clients’ investment strategies. This type of direct experience is the content that users will find valuable rather than something written by a non-credentialed general content writer who has never managed an investment portfolio.
Building a Transparent Website to Establish Trust
Transparency is the cornerstone of trustworthiness online, and your website’s design and
structure should reflect this principle at every turn. From clear, accessible contact information to detailed pages and privacy policies, every element should convey openness and honesty. Such transparency fosters trust and solidifies your reputation as a reliable and user-focused entity in the digital space.
One of my clients in the pet health space falls into the YMYL category, so we’ve spent a lot of time figuring out the nuances of EEAT and how to be transparent with customers. We’ve implemented a variety of tactics to enhance our EEAT strategy. Several are directly related to being transparent with our customers. Some tactics that we executed in 2022 and 2023:
- Created a page on the website to highlight the company’s editorial and product advisory board
- Created a page on the website that outlines the company’s editorial review process
- Created author bio pages
- Ensured that the majority of content was written by credentialed experts and highlighted this on all content
- Had our credentialed expert authors contextually reference their direct experience on the topics they write about
- Always cite a high authority source when making claims in content marketing efforts
The credentialed authors are a part of the editorial and product advisory board. The editorial and product advisory board page links to the author bio and editorial policy pages. The authors adhere to the editorial policy weâve made public on the site, and their information is displayed in their written content. With these tactics, we have created an “EEAT web,” a transparent trail of breadcrumbs, for users and search engines to follow and understand why the company has expertise, experience, and authority in our niche; these efforts are the foundation to establishing trust. This client’s EEAT strategy and tactics have led to some rather impressive SEO and revenue results; see below:
903% increase in organic keyword rankings since SEO consulting started two years ago and a 130% year-over-year increase in monthly revenue, making the company a million-dollar operation.
Off-Site SEO EEAT Factors
Reputation management, backlink building, and social media are three of the most important off-site SEO EEAT factors that any well-thought-out EEAT strategy needs to consider.
In the world of EEAT, your reputation precedes you, shaping perceptions and influencing decisions long before people become customers. Managing your online reputation through positive reviews, testimonials, and user engagement can amplify your EEAT profile significantly. This proactive approach to reputation management boosts your SEO and reinforces the trust and authority you’ve worked hard to establish.
When done right, backlink building is a testament to your site’s authority, drawing connections between your content and the wider web of reputable sources. Securing links from high-authority niche relevant sites isn’t just about improving your SEO; it’s about positioning your content within a network of trust and expertise. These authoritative backlinks signal to search engines and users alike that your site is a credible source worth referencing.
Reviews and social proof are the currencies of trust online, providing tangible evidence of your site’s value and reliability. By actively gathering and showcasing positive reviews, you’re enhancing your site’s appeal and leveraging user experiences to build confidence in your brand. This strategy elevates your trustworthiness and encourages a positive cycle of engagement and feedback from your audience.
Evaluating and Evolving Your EEAT Strategy and Tactics
In the fast-paced world of SEO, what worked yesterday might not hold the same weight tomorrow, so regular evaluation of your EEAT strategy is essential. Utilizing analytics and feedback to refine your approach ensures your brand and content align with search engine algorithms and user expectations. Continuous improvement is the hallmark of a dynamic, responsive SEO strategy that grows with your audience and the digital landscape.
As long as you commit to running tests, being transparent with users, and creating experience-driven content that conveys expertise and authority, you will build trust for your brand and create an algorithm update-proof EEAT strategy that will pay dividends for years.
