Google’s E-E-A-T Signals Push Brands Toward Transparent Content Standards

There are billions of websites available today that vie to rank on the first page of Google. But how does Google decide which website to trust and rank first? Well, it looks for more than keyword relevance.

Google prefers sites that post credible and trustworthy content. And that’s where E-E-A-T comes in. It represents the key principles of Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. When you use these principles on your website, your SEO performance will improve.

E-E-A-T will help you enhance your online reputation, attract more links, and ultimately drive more traffic to your site. Let’s learn more about how E-E-A-T and SEO can help you build credibility below.

Decoding Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines for SEO

As mentioned earlier, the E-E-A-T guidelines for SEO include Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These principles play an essential role in how Google assesses online information. Below, we’ll look at each principle:

Experience

This refers to your first-hand or life experience with the subject matter. For example, a product review that shares your personal experiences can be more engaging and trustworthy than a generic review. This is because your experiences enable you to offer the following:

• Unique opinions
• Authentic insights
• Tried and tested advice

If you don’t know how to implement this strategy well, you can always partner with the best SEO agency, like SEO Agency Portugal. They will guide you on how best to optimize your website’s content based on experience.

Expertise

Expertise is all about credentials, skills, and knowledge. So, as a content creator, you must have sufficient knowledge or qualifications to discuss a specific topic.

For example, a health article reviewed by a qualified medical doctor facilitates user trust. And that user trust makes Google highly likely and confident to rank your content higher.

Authoritativeness

For authoritativeness, you have to be recognized as a reliable source of information within your industry. For example, you’ll find that Government websites are often considered authoritative sources for official information.

So, how does Google decide whether you are authoritative? Well, Google will look into your backlinks. The higher the relevance, quality, and quantity of backlinks you have, the more authoritative Google will perceive your website to be.

For instance, you’ll find that a medical site like WebMD has over 616K backlinks from reputable sites like bbc.com and apple.com. That site ranks high on Google and is credible.

Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness comes about through the combination of the above three principles. This means that a trustworthy site should be able to demonstrate experience, expertise, and authoritativeness.

Also, trustworthiness is about giving your site visitors confidence in your content or website and protecting them from harm. Therefore, you should ensure that:

• You have relevant certifications, credentials, etc.
• Users can get help whenever they need it.
• Your content is truthful, up-to-date, and accurate.
• Your website is secure.

Establishing expertise through authoritative content

Your business, whether small or large, depends on relationships in order to succeed. And you probably want your customers to come back for more and trust that they will get the best from you.

A reputable SEO agency like Seeders will tell you that the best way to do that is to create authoritative content and establish expertise while doing that. This is because Google favors content written by knowledgeable professionals.

So, how can you establish expertise through authoritative content?

• Back your claims with data, case studies, and real-world examples.
• Highlight your qualifications, industry experience, or certifications to build trust with both users and search engines.
• Regularly refresh articles to reflect the latest trends and research.
• Quote industry leaders in your content.
• Use images wisely
• Offer actionable tips
• Answer questions, respond to comments, and participate in industry discussions to establish yourself as a thought leader.

Showcasing authoritativeness with quality backlinks

Backlinks can act as a vote of confidence from other websites to your website. They inform Google that your website content is valuable, credible, and reliable. What’s more, when you have high-quality backlinks from reputable sources, you showcase your site’s authoritativeness.

This means that you’ll rank higher in search engine results pages as the high-quality links act as a vote of confidence in your content. So, how can you acquire these quality backlinks to showcase your authoritativeness? Below is how:

• Write guest posts for authoritative websites in your niche. This will allow you to earn valuable backlinks and establish yourself as an industry expert.
• Partner with influencers and industry experts for backlinks from their social media platforms or websites
• Respond to queries on HARO to earn backlinks from media outlets and enhance your brand’s visibility.
• Create link-worthy content that others will want to reference.

Maintaining trustworthiness: transparency in SEO practices

As mentioned earlier, trustworthiness is one key principle of E-E-A-T. And Google prioritizes sites that are trustworthy. That means those that demonstrate honesty, accuracy, and user safety. The best way to be trustworthy is to be transparent in your SEO practices.

Transparency ensures that search engines have a clear understanding of the strategies you used to improve your website rankings. What’s more, with algorithms now sophisticated than ever before, maintaining transparency is essential for long-term success and credibility.

Below are some ways through which you can be transparent in your SEO practices:

• Avoid black hat tactics that can lead to penalties from search engines and hurt your SEO performance.
• Avoid misleading headlines, exaggerated claims, or click baits. Instead, provide accurate and well-researched information.
• Create high-quality, relevant, and user-friendly content.
• Acquire backlinks through natural and ethical means only.
• Display author bios, company details, and contact information to show legitimacy.

Evaluating E-E-A-T: tools and metrics for SEO success

When you evaluate the E-E-A-T of your site, you check whether your content meets Google’s quality standards. This is very essential, especially when it comes to SEO success. Some of the tools and metrics that you can use to evaluate E-E-A-T for SEO success include the following:

• Google Search Console. It will help you monitor search performance, site security, and backlinks to ensure trustworthiness.
• Content quality scorer, such as Surfer SEO. This tool helps to evaluate content relevance, accuracy, and credibility. Therefore, when you use it, you can get insights into how well your content aligns with Google’s standards.
• Ahrefs and Moz. They’ll help you evaluate domain authority, backlink quality, and competitor comparisons. These tools can help you gauge the authoritativeness of your site.