Introduction
E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. It is a part of Google’s algorithm and integrated into Google’s Search Quality Evaluator. Even Google admits that E-A-T is very important for a page or a website. But what exactly is E-A-T in SEO? Does it involve changing your SEO strategy? Or is it something to be not considered that seriously? E-A-T is one of the major guidelines Google uses to determine whether the content is valuable and important, and how it will be ranked on google. It basically determines the quality, credibility and innovativeness and uniqueness of the article/blog/product description.
Infographics by GO-Globe SEO
Google search quality reviewers were told to focus on:
- The content creator's experience.
- The legitimacy of the content's author, the material itself, and the website.
- The reliability of the website, the material, and the content's author.
In a nutshell, E-A-T is a trait that denotes a page is of a high standard, hence benefiting consumers.
Each component of E-A-T represents:
Expertise
This describes the knowledge, competence, and creative skill displayed by the content authors or publishers. Google evaluates if the authors of the material have the required knowledge and credentials in their respective disciplines. For websites that offer information on sensitive and professional subjects like medical, financial, or legal advice, expertise is especially important.
Authoritativeness
Authoritativeness assesses the standing and authority of the website and content writer as a whole. Websites are seen as having more authority when they have a solid reputation in their sector, win acknowledgment from other reliable sources, and gain trust from the end-user. Establishing authority is helped by elements like backlinks from reliable websites, mentions in news stories, and favorable reviews.
Trustworthiness
Trustworthiness is a measure of the website's and its content's overall trustworthiness, adaptability and dependability. Google examines variables including transparency, correctness, and the website's track record of producing credible material with the goal of presenting people with accurate information. Some examples of trust signals include clear contact information, privacy rules, secured surfing, and favorable customer comments.
It is worth noting that E-A-T is not a ranking factor on Google, but it can have a huge impact on the ranking on your overall search. Have you ever heard of the phrase “Content is King”? Or do you need to create “high-quality content” to be ranked on Google? Google considers high quality content to be created by an expert writer, help users in solving their query, be trustworthy, get updated weekly or monthly, and the content must be posted on an authoritative website.
Characteristics of a High Quality Page
The characteristics of a high quality page exist for all beneficial purposes, from providing significant information to producing content that entices a buyer to purchase a certain product to expressing yourself in a humorous or emotional way. E-A-T is a major characteristic of a high quality page. A descriptive title, along with enticing and alluring product pictures, with precise, relevant and marketable content describing all the major features of a product/content, are also some of the characteristics that a high quality page requires to rank on Google. A very high level of experience and expertise is required to produce content as per the E-A-T guidelines. Pages that cause harm, spread misinformation, biasness, or deceive users to be provoked in a wrong direction generally receive lower ratings from search evaluators. According to Google, High E-A-T news articles should be produced with professionalism and prior experience and knowledge of the journalist posting that article. The content should be factually accurate, and should not express bias towards a certain personality, region, caste or race, depending upon the topic of the article. Users should be able to develop a sense of rationalism and gain valuable information by reading the article. High E-A-T news sources typically have published policies and robust and articulate review processes.
For a website/page to be acknowledged as per E-A-T standards, the following criteria needs to be fulfilled:
Tell Visitors Who You Are
Google wants to know who creates the content, who reviews it and what is the authenticity and trustworthiness of it. Whether the posted article is relevant on the website is also a huge factor. If you don't already have one - Now is the time to create an About Us or a Team page that describes your team and your content providers. Establishing your team's knowledge, authority, and reliability is easy with author pages.
Work with Experts to Create Quality Content
Not only is providing good content necessary, but the posted content should come from an expert in that field and should have a strong grasp of knowledge in the respective subject. Working with copywriters or ghostwriters does not necessarily produce E-A-T content, but for an article related to politics, it is essential to interview a well-versed and experienced politician, for a science related article, interview a scientist, for a food blog, interview a genuine and professional chef, for the launch of a mobile, interview a person who is an expert in that field.
The Purpose of the Content must be Precise and Accurate
Titles, headings, subheadings that make the content easy to surf, access and review are extremely important. The details must be accurate, and the language should be unbiased and straightforward. Detailed, meandering content which diverts from its original subject is not required and cannot be ranked on Google.
Content should be Updated Regularly
The amount of information on google is endless. It is very difficult to filter out a certain article one week after you have read it, unless you bookmark it and review it again. This means an incredible amount of data and a plethora of information at your disposal. Depending on the topic and the sector, internet material has a two-year lifetime on average. By incorporating content updates into your SEO plan, you can keep your information correct and current. Every few years, especially for high-ranking material, you should update the metrics, implement best practices, and check for dead links, which is not generating traffic.
Link to High Quality Sources
A real expert relies on real and accurate data. The information should be linked to official sources, studies, prominent people in the field, and research papers. Trusted sources like CNN, BBC, and NCBI should be used before producing content in a certain niche. Links to tweets, reports or published articles must be mentioned and reviewed by industry professionals.
Holistic Approach to Consider Viewpoints
The content should look at a certain viewpoint/discussion from multiple angles, and examine what each aspect contributes holistically. The content might depend on every industry, but establishing trust with the audience requires presenting the opinion to avoid hurting someone’s emotions, offending someone and be real and honest with the general perspective, and make it look like the content is written by an expert.
Build Online Reputation
Online reputation is extremely critical to the ranking of a page. Brand reputation must be protected by keeping an eye for negative press, misinformation, and responding to negative news. The customers should be encouraged to post positive reviews, ratings on the page, and one negative review can deteriorate the whole authenticity and trustworthiness of your article.
Here are some of the statistics regarding SEO and its evolution and importance:
Major Trends and Statistics
- 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine.
- 0.63% of Google searches click on results from the second page.
- 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search.
- 92.96% of global traffic comes from Google Search, Google Images, and Google Maps
- Google (+ Google Images) currently holds 92.58%² of the total search engine market share, followed by bing, Yahoo!, Baidu, and YANDEX.
- SEO drives 1,000%+ more traffic than organic social media.
- 60% of marketers say that SEO, blog content are their highest quality source of leads.
- 75% of people never scroll past the first page of search engines.
- The average first-page result on Google consists of 1,447 words
- 53% of mobile website visitors will leave your site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load
- SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate.
- The top-ranking page gets the most search traffic only 49% of the time.
- 7.4% of top-ranking pages don’t have a title tag
- The average top-ranking page also ranks in the top 10 search results for nearly 1,000 other relevant keywords
- The average page in the top 10 search on google is 2+ years old
- 90.63% of pages get no organic search traffic from Google.
- The top-ranking page gets the most search traffic only 49% of the time.
- Only 5.7% of pages will rank in the top 10 search results within a year of publication.
- 7.4% of top-ranking pages don’t have a title tag.
- Google rewrites title tags 33.4% of the time.
- 28% of searches for something nearby result in a purchase
- The number of daily video views on Facebook is over 8 billion. On average, this adds up to 100 million hours of video consumed each day
- 58.99% of all website traffic worldwide comes from mobile phones
- The average cost of buying a link is $361.44.
- 43.7% of the top-ranking pages have some reciprocal links.
- 10.6% of all backlinks to the top 110,000 sites are no-follow.
- 25.02% of top-ranking pages don’t have meta descriptions.
- 94.74% of keywords get 10 monthly searches or fewer.
- 15% of all Google searches have never been searched before.
- 46.08% of clicks in Google Search Console go to hidden terms.
- 12.29% of search queries have featured snippets in their search results.
- 39% of purchasers are influenced by a relevant search.
- 61.5% of desktop searches and 34.4% of mobile searches result in no-clicks.
- There are more searches on mobile than on desktop.
- Google accounts for around 83% of the global search market.
- 30% of all mobile searches are related to location.
- 28% of searches for something nearby result in a purchase.
- 54% of smartphone users search for business hours, and 53% search for directions to local stores.
- 58.99% of all website traffic worldwide comes from mobile phones.
- 18% of local searches on smartphones lead to a purchase within a day vs. 7% of non-local searches.
- 48% of consumers are using voice for “general web searches.”
- 40.7% of all voice search answers come from a featured snippet.
- 91.45% of search volumes in Google Ads Keyword Planner are overestimates.
- In March 2023, searches including the terms “Where to buy” and “near me” have increased by 200% since 2017
- Conversion rates are 3x higher for websites that load in 1 second than websites that load in 5 seconds
Conclusion
Since Google keeps making changes to its algorithm, all writers must be well-equipped to keep themselves updated on all the tweaks and amendments taking place on the global platform. E-A-T is not a massive change or feature which can skyrocket the ranking of a page, nor can it completely damage a page’s reputation, but it's very useful in a sense that it supports Google in a way that E-A-T guidelines inform their content creation process and E-A-T can help produce content that can rank very well, and make you a lot of bucks!
