Here’s Why Google’s E-A-T Rating Is Critical To Your Website’s SEO Success

If you have kept up to date with the latest SEO news and developments over the past year, you’ve likely come across the term “E-A-T Rating.”

But what does E-A-T mean and why is it so important for your website’s SEO score?

What is Google’s E-A-T Rating?

Quite simply, E-A-T is an acronym for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. In August of 2018, Google put out a major update to its algorithm and these three things were among the most important factors in the laundry list of what it takes to rank high in Google’s search engine.

Let’s take a deeper look at each one of the E-A-T criteria and how you can leverage them to improve your website’s SEO score.

Expertise

Everyone knows that to be an expert in a certain area, you must be more knowledgable than the average person. But search engines can’t have a conversation with you to determine how qualified you are to provide information on a particular topic. No, instead they evaluate the content of your site and how it addresses each searcher’s query.

So, in order to fulfill the E of Google’s E-A-T rating, not only must you actually be an expert in your area, but you must also be an expert on communicating your ideas in a way that searchers can easily use.

Increase Your Webite’s Expertise

A large part of establishing yourself as an expert in your respective field hinges on your ability to create great content.

According to moz.com, a leader in SEO research, in order to create expert content, you must:

1. Use keyword research to find out what your audience is searching for, then meet/exceed their needs. There are many great keyword research tools available that you can use to accomplish this. For example, Google Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest are both fantastic free keyword tools.
   
   
2. Take note of the keywords you discover and try to understand the searcher’s intent for using those particular words and phrases.
   
   
3. Find a balance between comprehensive and simple when creating your content – real experts don’t just know their stuff, they have the ability to convey their knowledge in a way that is easy for all to understand.
   
   
4. Think about secondary queries that might pop into the searcher’s mind as they read through your content. Have you ever read an article or blog post only to immediately conduct a search for something else that was mentioned in the content?
   
   
   Always try to anticipate the reader’s next step and how you can help them find an answer. Things like links and “related posts” sections in your content help to direct readers to further answers on your site.
   
   Remember, experts don’t just know the answer to one question, but rather, they hold the answers to many.

Authority

Being an expert is just the first step when it comes to building your website’s E-A-T rating. The next level is to establish your business as an authority figure in your line of work.

Being an authority within your industry means other experts often look up to you for information.

Increase Your Site’s Authority Level

When Google is searching for authority figures in a particular verticle, here are some of the things it’s searching for:

• High-quality links – when other relevant and authoritative sites link to your website, your own authority gets a major boost. This goes hand in hand with creating expert content because the more expert content you have on your site, the more sites will link back to it, and the higher your site’s authority ranking will be!
  
  
• Honorable mentions – even if your site isn’t linked to, a mention of your business’s name from a credible source can still be helpful in promoting your level of authority. Google notices this and will reward you for it in search rankings.
  
  
• Share levels – nine times out of ten, the general public gets it right. That’s why Google places such a high value on share counts when it’s trying to determine the authority of each website. That’s one of the main reasons why your small business should be on social media.
  
  If your content has a strong social media presence, your authority will likely increase.
  
  
• Personal branding – Building up your personal or business’s brand can work wonders for your authority level. That’s because when people are constantly searching for your brand name, Google realizes that you must be doing something right and people are finding your site useful!

Trustworthiness

Just like any other relationship, trust plays a pivotal role in the customer-business dynamic. How is a customer supposed to feel comfortable doing business with you if they don’t believe that you can deliver on the promises you’ve made?

Google places a high value on the trustworthiness of each website, and it’s E-A-T rating reflects this.

Improve The Trustworthiness Of Your Site

Here are a few ways to make your site more trustworthy:

1. Encourage positive reviews – Reviews can go a long way to increase the level of trust that Google and future customers place in your website. Reviews are so effective because they typically come from a third-party source – someone who has no reason to hope your business either succeeds or fails. If they have a great experience with your products or services, they’ll be happy. If they don’t, they won’t. Their reviews will reflect this.
   
   
2. Add location information to your site – If your business has a physical location, add this information to your site. Assuming that the location provided is true, this makes it easier for Google to assume you can be trusted. A thief wouldn’t give their home address to the person they stole from, just like a scammer wouldn’t tell people where to find them.
   
   
3. Add a biography and author names to content – Sometimes seeing a snapshot or some words from the person who writes the content on your site can be very helpful when trying to establish trust. This helps the reader (and Google) to understand that it wasn’t just a random person who wrote this piece of content, but someone who can be trusted. Better yet, include links to an author bio so your readers can learn more about them!
   
   
4. Ensure your site is properly secured – A host who puts their guests’ personal information at risk isn’t a very good host. That’s why site security is one of the most important factors when Google evaluates the trustworthiness of a business’s website.

Using Google’s E-A-T Rating For SEO Success

Alright here’s a quick recap of the important points covered in this post…

Google’s E-A-T rating tracks:

1. Expertise

• Your knowledge level on a particular topic
• Your ability to easily convey that knowledge to readers through content
• Use of keyword research to understand the searcher’s intent
• Your ability to anticipate further questions

2. Authority

• High-quality links
• Honorable mntions
• Sharability of content
• Personal branding

3. Trustworthiness

• Positive reviews
• Location information
• Site security
• Biography and author names on content

Try incorporating these elements from Google’s E-A-T rating to improve your website’s SEO score!

If you would like a fresh design that makes it easy to input the E-A-T principles into your website, contact the staff at CreoLogic today. They’ll hook you up!