What is E-E-A-T?
If you’ve started exploring SEO, you might have come across the term E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust) in relation to something you need your website to demonstrate in order to rank well.
Unfortunately, it’s not enough to set out in your service pages your experience and expertise, nor is it enough to show authority through confident language or feature client testimonials to show trust.
Indeed, when it comes to ensuring you demonstrate E-E-A-T it’s tougher than ensuring your website ticks the boxes for some of the other ranking factors Google uses when deciding which websites to feature highly. Unlike optimising your website for speed for example, which can be objectively measured, E-E-A-T is more subjective.
And that’s why we’ve put together this practical guide: it gives an overview of the approach we use to show you what to check on your own website and how to improve it to better demonstrate E-E-A-T.
E-E-A-T in practice
First off, E-E-A-T is not a ranking signal in and of itself, instead Google uses a multitude of different signals to decide whether your website is demonstrating it. What this means is that it’s not enough to say you’re an expert, you’ve got to prove it. You’ve got to provide supporting evidence.
We have broken these signals down into two types:
- Direct trust signals (the who behind the content, their experience, reputation)
- Supporting signals (how current, relevant and usable your website is)
No matter the type of signal or the element you’re working on, what’s key to keep in mind is that Google wants to establish whether your business is a trustworthy source of information that it can safely direct people to and that should guide all your efforts.
The direct trust signals which go into E-E-A-T
1.Transparency: who wrote your content
This is really valuable in building credibility; by making clear who has written your content and what their experience is you’re helping your audience understand how much weight to place on what you’re saying.
This can be done by naming your authors, by giving short career bios or by providing links to profiles listing their experience and credentials.
2. Transparency: your experience
As we said above, it’s not enough to simply say you have experience in the service you provide or in creating the products you sell.
Google’s addition of “Experience” to what was before just E-A-T highlights the importance of having actually done the thing you’re writing about and openly demonstrating that.
To do this you can weave real examples from your work across your About and Service pages, as well as by having a dedicated case studies section. When writing about developments in your industry or sector you can also draw upon insights from your own personal experience.
Again, this lends credibility to what you’re saying. It makes it clear to your audience as well as to Google that you’re not just writing from a theoretical perspective.
3. Transparency: your business
This is an area where you can quickly make a difference through some simple content tweaks, no big content updates or developmental changes required. The purpose is to build trust. So, do a quick check of your website to see if it’s clear who you are and how people can get hold of you.
This can be shared in different ways, whatever’s most appropriate to your business. EG. an About page with information on your business and your team or an About and Team page and by having contact details across the site in your footer, or on a dedicated page.
4. Trust – beyond your website
This again is about demonstrating you can be trusted and are an authority in what you say you are. As we said, it’s not enough to say you do what you do, Google factors in signals from beyond your website to understand whether others trust you.
So, check your backlinks and see which domains are linking to you or referencing your work. Check to see if your case studies feature named testimonials. If you’ve achieved any awards or been recognised externally for what you do then make sure these are highlighted. In the same way if your team members are quoted elsewhere then make sure you close the loop between those mentions and your website.
The supporting signals that can strengthen your E-E-A-T
This is where things can feel overwhelming, but the list does not have to be tackled all at once. Everything we go through here can be made manageable by being broken down into smaller tasks which you can then more easily factor into your regular workflows, even if you are managing all of this yourself.
- How fresh is your website?
This is important because if your website isn’t fresh you could be inadvertently signalling to Google that while you may have experience your expertise is no longer current.
If you use statistics and references across your website check how current they are, if there’s more up to date information available then make sure you replace your old content with the most up to date set of facts and figures.
If you have a news section then check how recently you last posted. Be careful here though, it’s important to show Google you’re active in your space but it’s more important to be publishing information that’s genuinely useful to your clients and customers, rather than publish for the sake of having a new blog post.
Following on from this, if you have a news section then also check your older content – is it all still applicable as is, or could it do with a refresh to bring it in line with new legislation for example?
2. Language
This one requires you to take a step back and put yourself in your client’s shoes, it can be helpful to reflect upon any written feedback you’ve had from clients and customers as well as the language they use when making initial enquiries.
Are you using jargon where you could use alternative language? If a technical term is the most appropriate in the context of what you’re writing then have you explained it somewhere?
Are you setting out the problems you solve and how you solve them in the same style of language your prospects also use? If not, you’re making it harder for Google to connect you to search enquiries as it’s harder to match up to intent.
3. Relevance and context
It can be tempting to try and appeal to as broad a base as possible, the risk with this approach is you end up blending in and harming your SEO efforts. If your content comes across as too generic and not specific enough then not only will your website’s visitors potentially miss the value you could provide they might miss your website entirely as Google struggles to match to specific queries people make.
- So, check it’s clear who you solve problems for and in what context
- Check your examples clearly reflect your direct experience and expertise. With care, client and commercial confidentiality can be respected but real insight and lessons learned still shared which will build your credibility.
4. Page experience
Your team can be overflowing with experience and expertise, be trustworthy authorities in their fields but if your website’s performance is not matching up to your professional expertise it will be undermining it.
- Check your website on different browsers and devices, does it look as it should across them all?
- Is it fast and are people able to quickly get to where they need to? If key information is buried and only accessible via a series of links then you’re making it harder for people to discover your skills and for Google to crawl your website.
For both your direct and indirect signals there are certain elements you can audit, confirm you’re happy with and then essentially tick off your list and leave alone. However, where most of us fall down is in the tasks that you need to go back to as your website grows, particularly if you’re trying to do it all yourself. We recommend setting yourself reminders and building these tasks into habits, in this way your website’s SEO is much more manageable then if you attempt to tackle everything at once only every so often.
If you’re ready to get serious about your website demonstrating E-E-A-T and want help with a thorough audit, or if you want to ensure all your reporting is set up ready to start measuring impact then get in touch with our team today.