Optimizing for Google E-E-A-T is more than just another trending seo topic. SEO is no longer just about keywords or link building (if you want to build long term anyway). Recently, the SEO world has been buzzing with a relatively new concept known as E-E-A-T. While it is an actual term and not just SEO speak, its meaning can be a bit nebulous.
At the end of the day, E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, which is Google’s framework for evaluating whether or not your content is trustworthy and therefore should be displayed to actual humans when they search for information. It has recently come into focus and is particularly focused on areas/topics which have the most significant impact on users when they get the “wrong” information, like health, money or safety related queries.
If your goal is to be found online, show up in front of more of your audience, earn trust with your target audience, and win over competitors for high value keywords in search, you must understand E-E-A-T.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll cover each aspect of E-E-A-T, and more importantly, we’ll discuss how to use E-E-A-T to build a content and SEO strategy that Google will respect and that your audience will appreciate.
What is E-E-A-T SEO?
You must have come across the E-E-A-T SEO if you have been keeping up with the talks about Google rankings in recent times. It sounds more like a random concept when one first encounters it; however, this is not the case. E-E-A-T is just Google asking the question, “Do we trust this content?” In the Search Quality Rater Guidelines, one of the fundamental steps of providing a helpful answer to the user query is determining if a page satisfies the user intent.
E-E-A-T started as E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) then another E was added to the beginning to form the current concept of E-E-A-T to accommodate Experience. Experience is added because if someone has experienced something in real life and has something to say about it, there is more value than someone who has not done it in real life but wrote about it in a book.
In all, here is an insight on each of the items in E-E-A-T
Experience
Did the person writing the content experience the subject matter in real life? Experience has a way of giving authority to whatever is being claimed. It can be best described as the feeling in one’s gut to try a thing someone says but after trying it, one realized that what was said might have sounded true on paper but was not so in real life. Experience makes your content more credible as it involves real-life stories, insights, and examples.
Expertise
Is the writer an expert on the subject? Expertise can be a deep knowledge of the subject matter of the person who wrote it or certification or experience over the years. Google loves content written by someone who has been in the game for a long time and has something to say because of the experience, or someone who is certified. One can even go to the extent of advice by a certified and seasoned financial expert when it comes to investments than random discussions on the internet.
Authoritativeness
Is the writer (or the website) a well-known voice on the subject? Citations, mentions or backlinks from known sites on the internet build up the authority of the website. This can be seen as one being well-known in a certain aspect on the internet as an expert in the specific field.
Trustworthiness
Is the information written one that the reader can trust? Trustworthiness involves a myriad of factors. The two most significant things are accuracy of the information provided but it also includes other things, for instance, https instead of http (if a site is not secure it is usually with http), easy to find citations, and transparent author bio. This, however, is all about the reader’s confidence in the site as an owner that can be trusted so that the information provided can be acted upon.
So what this this mean?
Google relies a lot on E-E-A-T when rating content. It is worth noting that when it comes to YMYL pages which are pages whose content can have a significant impact on the user’s health, finances, and safety, Google places a lot of weight on E-E-A-T. Having your site with a high E-E-A-T does not only mean you are complying with Google guidelines, but you also have a reason for people to trust you and, therefore, ranking well.
Why is E-E-A-T Important?
E-E-A-T is really Google’s way to understand the type of content that it can trust. Sites with a higher Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness rank higher, not because they can game the system or anything but simply because they have better and more trustworthy content.
The importance of E-E-A-T gets much higher for YMYL (your money or your life) topics or topics that involve your money, your health, or your safety. It makes sense here as any slight recommendation or even a misinformation can create real-world implications for the reader, and Google does not take chances in these cases.
The Importance of E-E-A-T in SEO
Let’s face it – Google does not optimize for keywords or traffic. It’s all about the users, and if you can present your website in a way that the search engine will understand it’s a credible place that is knowledgeable in its domain and is trustworthy, you will win in search.
It’s not theory either. The fact is, in many verticals such as finance, health, and legal, a wrong piece of content can have a negative impact on real people and Google is aware of that. Sites with good E-E-A-T signals will not only get found by users but also build more trust with them over time, and building trust is by far the most valuable currency online.
By optimizing for E-E-A-T, you can:
If you really get behind E-E-A-T, though, a few other things start to change—and not just in the eyes of Google. You also tend to see some of these signals in the responses your content gets from other people.
- Business Rankings – First, of course, is that your search rankings tend to improve. Since Google appears to like sites that feel like they have real-world expertise and are supported by reliable sources, content that is rooted in actual experience and verifiable backlinks performs better. It tends to rank up over time faster than the lower-quality content that dominates so much of the web.
- Trust and Credibility – You also end up with a lot more trust from your users. When people can see a real author is on the other side of the content, or they can read an honest customer review or bio, they tend to be a lot more likely to trust what you have to say. And once they trust you, they’re a lot more likely to keep coming back, and come back often.
- Organic Traffic – Likewise with traffic. Organic clicks tend to improve when your content appears more credible in the SERPs. Users tend to click on pages that look honest and well-sourced in the search results. This means more of that long-term, consistent traffic instead of peaks and valleys that vanish overnight.
- Converting Content – Once people are on your site, in turn, good E-E-A-T helps you hold onto them. Content that is useful and appears believable tends to keep visitors on your site longer, clicking around, and—when everything else lines up—actually converting. And here’s some data for you: According to one survey, nearly 70% of users abandon sites they don’t trust, while sites that clearly demonstrate experience and authority can expect conversion rates that are four to five times higher than sites without strong E-E-A-T. That’s a big difference.
- Business Branding – Over the long term, a lot of that adds up to something even more intangible but also extremely valuable: real brand authority. The more users repeatedly see quality content that they can trust and that is backed up by clear experience, the more likely they are to talk about your brand and to place you as an authority in your field.
- Improving Bounce Rates – A nice added bonus? Bounce rates improve. The more your content genuinely answers the questions people have clicked over to your site with, the less likely they are to bounce away immediately. Since Google appears to see that as a signal you’re on the right track, that can be helpful too.
- Backlinks – It also helps you get higher-quality backlinks over time. Guides, in-depth resources, original research, or anything else that actually appears useful to your target audience ends up getting referenced naturally in the work of others. That’s the kind of SEO growth you can’t fake.
- Local SEO – If you are counting on local visibility as well, E-E-A-T ties in here as well. For local sites, both online reviews and consistency in the details about your business you have present online can push you up in local search. Reviews are something customers are paying attention to, likely far more than most of us like to admit—and brick-and-mortar businesses that can maintain a strong flow of positive reviews tend to drive significantly more foot traffic and enquiries than those with either empty review profiles or negative reputations online.
- Amazing Content – Since E-E-A-T is also about quality content overall, that also provides you with a bit of a buffer for major algorithm changes. Pages built on real expertise, and thus real trust, don’t tend to see the kind of wild rankings swings you see when Google rolls out a new core update or makes “helpful content” a more explicit goal in its indexing.
- Social Proof – Finally, strong E-E-A-T naturally gives you a boost in terms of social proof. When people trust the content you are producing, they are much more likely to recommend it or mention it themselves—sometimes without you having to ask them to do it at all.
How to Optimize for Google E-E-A-T SEO
Google’s search algorithms prioritize content that not only informs but also connects with users through authenticity, expertise, and credibility. Here’s how to embody E-E-A-T in your content:
Put Your Experience on Display
Let’s face it: readers have some ability to sniff out an expert. They may not catch every little falsehood or exaggeration, but they know it when they read something that comes from someone who has the experience they’re writing about.
You don’t need to make a big show of it, but you should let that experience show in your writing. Maybe that’s by dropping in an anecdote about your own life. Or maybe it’s by giving readers a firsthand account of something you struggled with and how you eventually overcame it. Little flourishes like that provide texture and nuance. It turns your writing from something a little on the nose to something that seems to have been lived in rather than stitched together from bullet points.
You don’t have to make a big song and dance about your expertise either, but you should keep up with it. If you’re writing about business regulations, for example, keep an eye on what’s changing. If you’re in a hot-topic field like digital marketing, go back and refresh some of your posts. Readers know when writers keep up-to-date, and Google seems to care about that, too.
Example: imagine that you run a sustainable-living blog. Rather than simply writing about “10 ways to use less plastic,” for example, you can write about the “year you tried to go plastic-free”. You might talk about the awkward moment when you realized your grocery cart was full of something shiny or the odd pride you felt when you found some replacements that actually worked. You can even mention that you took a course in environmental science if you want — not to brag, but to give readers a sense of where your advice comes from.
Let Others Vouch for You (a.k.a. Build Authority)
Authority is strange. You can’t say you are an authority. Others have to declare you are one — and most of the time they do that with backlinks.
When a link comes from a place that is widely trusted on the subject of your post, it’s sort of like that site saying, “I can vouch for this person. They are smart, and they know what they’re talking about.” Google cares about those endorsements.
So how do you get them? Sometimes it means writing something that is really, really good and asking a known blog if they’d like to republish it. Sometimes it’s showing up — guest posting, speaking, paneling, and answering questions or otherwise working with influencers who already have your desired audience.
A really fast example: say you write an excellent, well-researched post about the future of blockchain and its impact on the financial world. You don’t just post it on your blog. Instead, you send it to a major finance blog that you know. They see it, and it’s a good one, so they link to it and republish. You then answer a few questions in a webinar that is part of a big tech-conference. A few tech news sites pick up some of your quotes from the session and they link to your content.
Demonstrate Trust
Trust is a feeling that accrues slowly and, typically, in little increments of which a reader is only acutely aware of the absence. It’s about small clues that aren’t clues at all until the site or platform in question doesn’t have them. This includes the secure connection (HTTPS!), a working email address or contact form, and clear information about who’s running the site and responsible for the content it produces.
Beyond that, on sites that provide information that could have an impact on people’s health, wealth, or well-being, it pays to be exceedingly careful about accuracy. Link to your sources, where possible. Point to actual studies, not just anecdotal evidence. If you’re sharing an anecdote, make that clear. If you’re giving general information instead of prescriptive advice, say that early and often. It’s obvious stuff. And, yet, being transparent about what you know, what you don’t, and where you’re getting your information helps establish a kind of frankness that’s readily apparent to most audiences.
Case in point: let’s say you have a site that provides dietary or medical advice. Rather than jumping right into recommendations, solutions, or “natural cures,” each piece of content begins with a tiny disclaimer reminding your audience to talk to a doctor or other medical professional. Your contact page has a secure form where your readers can actually contact you, and your “About” page doesn’t simply offer a kind of beautifully-worded mission statement. Instead, it provides an explanation of your qualifications as a trained nutritionist, and links to the peer-reviewed research that your recommendations are based on. Those little bits of information and transparency add up to a site visitors(and Google) feel they can trust.
Use Your Brand Pages Wisely
Pages like your About page and, if you have it, your author page are where many readers decide if they should trust anything you publish. It’s a surprisingly visceral moment: a reader wants to know who you are, what you do, and why you should be trusted over the dozens of other people with blogs out there.
The trick, then, is not to write these pages with the assumption that visitors don’t care about you or your qualifications. Tell your story. Describe your training, your work, and the projects you’re most proud of. If you’ve been in the media, or at an event, or have photos you can share, do that, too.
A human face is powerful, and a little backstory humanizes you, makes you less like a publishing platform and more like a human being with a life, experiences, and well-earned stains on your apron (metaphorical or otherwise).
For example: if you have a food or cooking blog, your author page might contain a short bio about your training at an accredited culinary school. You could include a sentence or two about the cooking competitions you’ve won, or a link to the podcasts where you’ve spoken about the cooking techniques you’re most fond of. Upload a few pictures of you at cooking events, chopping, plating, maybe even charring something. Suddenly, your qualifications seem less implied and more real.
Get it right (Accuracy):
Nothing erodes trust more quickly than getting facts wrong. Sure, your audience might be able to forgive a typo. But misinformation? You might get away with it once, but not if your content covers something your users actually care about. Double check your facts if you’re even a little bit unsure, and if you have the time, triple check. Because context can change (sometimes literally overnight), it’s also worth revisiting older posts now and then, and tidying up anything that’s out of date.
For instance: you run a blog about historical events. You’re writing an article about an event, and one of the players involved is a relatively obscure figure. You end up cross-referencing a few academic papers, some out-of-print books, and any number of primary sources. A few months later, a team of archaeologists uncover new evidence about that event. Instead of just leaving your article to gather dust, you go back and edit it, updating any assumptions you might have made, adding new details, and noting where things have changed. It signals to users that you care about getting things right.
Keep Users engaged
Google will often pick up on whether or not people linger on your site. Stick around, scroll, comment, share, or bounce within two seconds? Content that keeps users engaged will typically send a pretty loud signal that you’re actually giving people what they want.
This doesn’t necessarily mean anything flashy or gimmicky. It can be as simple as adding a visual aid, or asking a question at the end of a post. You can also just work on making your writing more conversational, and less like an impersonal lecture. Just about anything that gets readers to pause, think, react, and maybe argue a little bit can make a difference.
A quick example: you write a blog post about DIY home repairs. In addition to text-based instructions, you link to a brief video that guides readers through the repair process. At the end, you throw out a small, personal question for readers—something like, “What’s your next repair project going to be?” It sounds too simple to make a difference, but questions like that can often prod users into sharing their own stories, or asking follow-up questions. Suddenly your comments section is jumping, your shares are spiking, and Google has a page that people are actually engaging with.
Implement Schema Markup
Schema markup, also referred to as structured data, is a way of giving Google a roadmap of your content so it can make sense of what’s on a page. Put this code on your site and you can have a search engine understand information from your page in one go: an event date, a product’s price, a recipe rating, an article headline, small pieces of data that were before interpreted by the search engine.
In return, when the page is readable to Google, it can make your search result eligible for enhancements. Rich snippets, as they are called, are probably nothing new to you: star ratings, FAQ accordion, breadcrumbs, prices, tiny pieces of information that give your result the winning look that says “click me”.
Of course, these details are not only to make search results more beautiful. They are also highly informative, so as soon as someone is looking for an answer to their question, they can see it straight away on your search result. Isn’t that helpful? Well, it’s also a rather transparent and practical approach, so exactly in line with what Google is asking for more and more these days: content that is straightforward, useful and ultimately trustworthy. Which is also the foundation of E-E-A-T!
Be Aligned with the Intent of a User
You should be able to set aside a few moments to get into the mindset of a user looking for something in your niche. A vast majority of users visit websites with a clear goal in mind – to search for local how-to instructions, to quickly find a location on the map, or to make a purchase. Therefore, a structure that signals to the user what to expect and confirms the user intent immediately is easier to scan. You can always take your time to think about your headings and subheadings to make the user intent clear.
Ideally, your content would provide an answer to the actual question a user is looking for. If a user searches for a ‘how-to’ of a local subject, providing background information or history can be deemed unnecessary by the reader. For a person searching for South African wines, instead of reading chunks of fillers and large word clouds, he/she wants relevant info about tasting notes or review from experts. With the help of a crystal-clear, focused structure and headings that answer a user’s queries, you can cut down on your word count and communicate to your audience without being too wordy.
Be Active in the Other Trusted Spaces
Your website is not the only place where your audience should be able to find you. By being active in the platforms that are already trusted by your audience is a great way to establish your credibility and authority in your niche. Whether it is LinkedIn, Medium, or a local community forum, these places will give you the ability to showcase your knowledge and expertise in an unobtrusive way. Simply jumping into a thread and providing a well-thought answer to someone’s question, or posting your work on one of these sites to communicate with your users without putting a loudspeaker above your head, works wonders.
Platforms like these also have a wonderful way of sending traffic your way. You might even earn a backlink, you might just strike up a conversation with someone in the same industry, or you might just be remembered as “the guy who actually gave a decent explanation”. And the more you give to the community, the more people will think of you as an authority to be reckoned with.
Give Your Readers Helpful and Useful Content
Value is such a cliche word now that it probably lost any meaning it used to have by now. At the end of the day, that’s what good content is. People who read your content have questions, and they need to solve issues. Your content should provide relevant answers to those. Say you’re in the sustainable fashion niche – a well-researched how-to guide on “How to Build an Eco-Friendly Wardrobe” will provide much more value than a long list of tips.
You can easily guide your readers through the fabrics to look for, the brands that are making a difference, or small but important swaps that will change their consumption patterns. Add to that industry trends, well researched data and purposefully integrated keywords that people are already searching for and you’ll have a combination that is both discoverable and useful.
Showcase Transparency and Author Details
Humans trust other humans – not chunks of texts. This is why a small but honest section about the author somewhere on the site can greatly impact how your users view your content. Whether it is an About Us page, or individual author bios, it is worth dedicating a part of your site to informing the readers about who you are and why you care about the niche that you write about.
If your content is based on sustainable fashion, for example, sharing a bit of your personal journey on the subject would do the trick. Perhaps you used to work in the industry, or maybe you’re in the process of shifting to a zero-waste lifestyle. These small details about you or your interests, whether it’s your work experience or your favourite ethical brands, will help your users feel as though they are learning from a real person. Contact information or links to your social media profiles just adds to that effect.
Use Trustworthy and Credible Sources
Your content only looks like it’s built on something if it is. If you’re writing about the carbon footprint of clothing, you might want to pull from sources your readers already know and trust. Reports by the United Nations Environment Programme, studies published in environmental science journals. Names people know and website with big names with high domain authority.
I always check my facts twice, partly because I’m old-fashioned but mostly because it just feels more secure. It’s also, incidentally, better for SEO, but I don’t like to think about Google every second of the day. Still, accuracy creates trust, and trust has a way of amplifying.
Nurture and Enhance Brand Reputation
Brands that people like are often rewarded in a self-perpetuating way with organic links, positive mentions, and just a baseline sense of “this brand has good things to say.” The quickest way to get there, in most cases, is by just doing good things. If you’re in a niche that’s about sustainable fashion, you might organize a small local meetup to talk about minimalism and waste, partner with like-minded brands and creatives, participate in local discussions where these topics are already being had.
None of this has to be big, glamorous, or groundbreaking. Just consistent, small efforts that build up a sense of your brand as a grounded and helpful one, one that, in time, you’ll be in a position to lead by example.
Track and Leverage User-Generated Content
User-generated content can be useful in a way you might not expect. Content about your brand has a way of sounding like too much content about your brand, but UGC is just naturally more real. It also tends to bring in new words, new phrases people are actually using, and, as a nice side effect, gives you a solid shot at good search visibility.
You might encourage your audience to flaunt their style, make a casual competition of who can take the best eco-friendly outfit each month. With consent (and this is the important part), you can use their images and style notes on your own site, on your social pages, and in your own copy. It’s a nice way to show you’re listening and making something that’s a little more like community and a little less like monologue.
A Few Reminders
- Consistency is important. You want your content to be consistently high-quality wherever it shows up, whether it’s your website, social media, or guest posts. Readers should know what to expect when they see your name or brand.
- Think local. If you have a specific geographic audience you’re trying to speak to, in this case South Africa, little details matter. If you need to know more to give relevant advice, just ask your audience (or in this case, ask me).
- Permission is always required. As tempting as it is to take and use and share the work of the people who follow you and support you, you always want to be respectful of their privacy, of the copyright they have in their own work.
A simple question of “can I share this?” is a courtesy to remember when you’re swamped by your editorial calendar.
FAQs About E-E-A-T SEO
Is E-E-A-T a direct ranking factor?
While E-E-A-T is not a ranking factor that we can point to with a specific measurable signal, like page speed or backlinks, Google uses the four factors associated with E-E-A-T to a large degree when determining whether or not it should trust your content, which — if you can guess — has a major impact on your search ranking.
How can small businesses or individuals improve E-E-A-T?
Small businesses often feel like they’re already behind and will never be able to compete with the big brands, but the truth is you can do a lot to improve your E-E-A-T by simply being helpful. Helpful blog content, high-quality customer reviews, transparency about yourself and your business, and some quality backlinks go a long way.
Do all websites need to be concerned with E-E-A-T?
Yes. While certain sites are able to get away without it (you could say E-E-A-T matters more for certain types of sites), Google made it clear last year that if your site falls under any of the YMYL (your money, your life) categories, then you need to take E-E-A-T very seriously.
How long does it take to see results from E-E-A-T improvements?
Typically, improving your E-E-A-T is something that is a longer-term goal. It takes time for Google to truly determine whether or not it can trust you, so you may start to see results in a couple months, but it’s also likely to take several months to really make improvements in that area.
Does Google prioritize sites that have author bios?
Yes, they do. Author bios that are more than one sentence and actually give some insight into who they are and their expertise go a long way in earning trust for your content.
Final Thoughts
E-E-A-T is all about creating content and being a presence online that is trustworthy. When you are regularly publishing high-quality content, being transparent about yourself and your business, and interacting with your readers, Google will have an easier time deciding that you should show up higher in the search results.
Need help optimizing your E-E-A-T? Or just want to pass SEO duties to someone else? Let us know if you need a hand. We’re always happy to help.
