E-A-T SEO With Semalt 


Table of Contents

  1. What is E-A-T?
  2. Significance of E-A-T
  3. Demystifying E-A-T & SEO Relationship
  4. How To Identify If Your Website Follows E-A-T?
  5. Semalt’s Take On Demonstrating E-A-T For Improving SEO
  6. Final Words
E-A-T is a concept in SEO that has simplified the way to rank higher on Google. In this concept, E stands for Expertise, A for Authoritativeness, and T for Trustworthiness.

The confirmation from Google about the importance of E-A-T came in February 2019. Since then, SEO providers all over the world do not forget to include it in their SEO strategy.

What is E-A-T?

You know what alphabets E, A, and T stand for in this concept. Today, it is essential for Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) sites. 

Let’s find out what the terms Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness mean:

Expertise

The term Expertise means being skilled or having an advanced level of knowledge in a specific field. Your content should reflect that an expert has created it.

It doesn’t matter which website has the content or to which company it belongs. If the content is valuable and reflects the expertise, Google will reward it.

If maximum content on your website rounds around gossip or humour, then expertise is not necessary. If you are running a site containing legal, financial, or health/ medical-related content, make sure it reflects expertise.

Authoritativeness

By Authoritativeness, Google expects you to be an authority or someone reputable amongst other industry experts.

You can also understand authoritativeness as the guiding source of knowledge or/ and information regarding a topic. Authoritativeness comes from the expertise of your content creators.

In case pages on your website contain forum or community discussion, the quality of conversation echoes authority.

Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness means that your site and the content on it are legitimate, transparent, and accurate. Your website should appear as a trustworthy source.

The trust created by a company’s website and its content creators drive more traffic, and the number of potential customers also grows. eCommerce companies are well aware of this.

Whether it is the content or user experience, everything related to your website should make visitors feel that they are on a safe site. You can start by installing an SSL certificate and make sure your website has About Us, Contact Us, and other pages that build trust.

Significance of E-A-T

A common belief is that guidelines provided by Quality Raters of Google determine the ranking of a webpage. Well, it’s not the whole truth.

E-A-T determines whether a website is valuable for users or not. Google’s Quality Raters consider E-A-T while evaluating how much value a site or webpage provides.

They see if users will get an enhanced online experience, and the content is in alignment with their standards. In other words, when Quality Raters find that users will comfortably read, share, and recommend a piece of content, the webpage or website containing that content becomes more E-A-T friendly.

E-A-T is the reason that directs users to choose a site over its competitors. E-A-T directly impacts how Google accepts the content, and thus, helps websites or webpages gain a higher rank on search results.

Demystifying E-A-T & SEO Relationship

E-A-T is one of the SEO factors that enhances the ranking of a website. Since this concept makes the content valuable to users, it is fundamentally a human concept.

How can Google understand E-A-T and, based on that, improve the rank of a website? 

Many people understand how search algorithms work, but don’t have an answer when it is about E-A-T. In response to all such queries, below are three steps to understand how Google understands E-A-T.

Step 1: The search engineers look at the search algorithm tweaks to improve the quality of search results.

Step 2: The results found by tweaks made to search algorithms reach Quality Raters for evaluation. They, then, provide feedback about the changes.

Step 3: Based on this feedback, Google decides whether the suggested tweaks will affect the search results positively or negatively. If tweaks bring positive results, Google implements them.

And, that’s why the content created in harmony with the E-A-T concept ranks higher in search results.

This 3-step scientific procedure lets Google engineers understand the signals aligning with E-A-T and making necessary adjustments to ranking algorithms.

To better understand the details of this procedure, you can go through the Rigorous testing explained by Google. In addition to this, you can also watch the following video:


How To Identify If Your Website Follows E-A-T?

After learning about E-A-T and its importance, you may be interested in finding whether your content follows the E-A-T concept or not.

Find answers to the following:
  • Is the content on your website about YMYL topics?
  • Whether an industry expert has created the content on your site?
  • Fact-check your site’s content. Is it from reputable and renowned sources?
  • Do you regularly update your site’s content?
  • Will visitors to your site find the content valuable and trust it?
  • Is your site secured?
  • Does your site contain “About” and “Contact” pages?
  • If there are articles or blogs on your site, do they contain “Author’s Bio” in the end?
If you can get answers to these questions and, based on them, make necessary changes, Google will consider your site valuable and rank it higher in search results.

However, there is also an easy way to find if your content is in harmony with the E-A-T concept. It is hiring the Website Analytics services from Semalt.

When you go for professional services over self-analysis, you can expect only the best recommendations. In the case of self-analysis, you may miss something. 

When experts from the industry analyze your content on several parameters, the chances of missing something vanishes.

Semalt’s Take On Demonstrating E-A-T For Improving SEO

By now, you have understood E-A-T, its significance, and its relationship with SEO. It’s time to understand the ways to demonstrate E-A-T so that a website becomes valuable in the eyes of Google, and its search ranking improves eventually. 

Experts from Semalt suggest many ways. Here are some of them:
  • Keep Content Updated
Regularly updating the content is crucial for the demonstration of E-A-T. And, it becomes essential in the case of YMYL sites. 

It means if the content is about legal, financial, medical, health, tax, or any other YMYL-related topic, it must be edited, updated, and reviewed regularly. 

In addition to this, such type of content must come from professional sources or presented in a professional style. 

If the content is on non-YMYL topics, then also regular updating is necessary. Quality Rater Guidelines (QRGs) have not revealed anything about it, but Semalt experts believe it is still significant. 

How can a website or webpage with outdated content gain the user’s trust?
  • Evaluate the Facts
According to the Quality Rater Guidelines (QRGs) from Google, news articles, scientific posts, and other relevant content must be factually accurate. It should come from trustworthy sources and must go along with the appropriate community.

For example, news articles on a website should follow journalistic professionalism, and scientific posts should come from organizations or people having scientific expertise.

It doesn’t mean you should avoid facts for non-YMYL content. You must fact-check the content against sources Google finds trustworthy, such as Wikipedia and others.
  • Get Reviews
When it comes to building a reputation, online reviews are a big help. They reveal positive or negative information about a website, product, service, or business. And, it leads to authority and trust.

Many people misunderstand this and focus only on one review site – BBB (Better Business Bureau). But, ratings from BBB are not the ultimate parameters of a positive or negative reputation.

Website owners or businesses should get more positive reviews from the sites that carry some weight. They can be the sites, from your industry, used and trusted by people.
  • Display Your Credibility
You can demonstrate E-A-T to Google by displaying your credibility. Suppose that you are highly-qualified or are the winner of prestigious awards regarding your industry, mention it on your site and let Google, as well as the whole world, know it.

There are two ways to display your credibility – in “Author Bio” and in “About” or “Team” pages. The purpose behind it is to tell Google about your Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T).
  • Hire Expert Services
There are experts in all industries to finish work perfectly. You can also go for hiring expert services to make your site E-A-T compatible. If your website covers YMYL topics, it is mandatory to publish content prepared by experts.

Hiring expert services is not mandatory for topics not falling under the YMYL category. You can hire the services of people having experience in your industry. You can also hire people known for crafting high-quality content related to your topics.

Every website owner doesn’t have the budget to hire expert services. In that case, Guest Post is the solution. You can ask an expert to write a guest post for your website.

Final Words

The concept of E-A-T is crucial for SEO. Website owners should make sure the content on their site reflects Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. If most topics on a website belong to the YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) category, the E-A-T concept becomes necessary.

It’s not all because you need to demonstrate E-A-T to Google as well. Making Google realize your site is following the EAT concept positions it higher in search results as well. To do this precisely, you can hire expert services and relax.


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