What is Google E-A-T in SEO?
Quality is an important thing to consider when improving your SEO and trying to rank higher on search engine results pages. the quality of a webpage is a relatively new thing that search engines are using to rank pages but it is becoming more and more important that search engines associate your webpage as one with high quality. Google E-A-T is something that has been developed to help marketers and web designers better understand how the rankings and ratings behind quality work, and how one can improve the quality that a search engine associates with a webpage. The following points briefly explain what Google E-A-T means and how you can use it to gain better rankings on search engine results pages.
Expertise
The E stands for expertise and it refers to the expert level of the main content creator. Having an expert in the industry you are in write and create the content on your webpage will tell search engines that the information you are providing is valid and from a reliable source. This does not mean that a person has to have three degrees in whichever topic they are writing about, but a search engine crawler will take into account the life experiences of the author. The amount of expertise required to understand a certain topic also varies across different industries, and having a page that gives out medical advice, for example, may require a higher level of expertise than say a gossip site.
Authoritativeness
The authoritativeness of a website refers to more than just the authority of the author and it is a point that also looks to ensure that the website itself and the actual content is written well. This is important to consider when deciding on the content itself and how your website is designed, and things like on-site safety can impact how a search engine rates your authority.
Trustworthiness
Another important thing to conisder is the trustworthiness of a website, the content creator and the content itself. Trustworthiness is measured by looking at things like the links to your page and whether your content has been updated as this will tell search engines whether your content and your website are reliable and trustworthy.
Why is E-A-T Important for Your SEO Strategy?
Google E-A-T is important for your SEO because it is a high ranking factor that search engines use to determine where to rank your webpage. As the internet grows and more people use online sources to find valuable information, it is becoming necessary for search engines to provide users with the most reliable data out there. Many users out there take everything that they read online and associate it as data that has been inspected and vetted, so search engines like Google are making a concerted effort to place information from the best sources as the easiest to find, ranking these web pages highly. Google E-A-T ranking factors
Google E-A-T & YMYL
YMYL is an acronym that is used by Google to determine which webpages need to have the most amount of authority given to highly reputable websites and these webpages are subjected to being held to the highest standard. It stands for Your Money or Your Life and it is associated with websites that give information about your health, well-being or your finances. These websites have to reach the highest E-A-T standards as if they supply users with bad information, it could be detrimental to their health or to their finances. Google E-A-T & YMYL are both industry standards that are set to help ensure that the information that is placed on search engines is of the highest quality, and while YMYL is only used for certain websites with certain content, E-A-T is a standard that is used across a number of different web pages and across different content.
What are the Types of YMYL websites?
YMYL websites are sites that contain content with information about your health or your finances. These websites could be medical ones like WebMD or financial ones like the Financial Times, and it is important that these websites have reliable information. Google has developed this update so that these kinds of websites have to obtain a higher Google E-A-T score to rank highly compared to other websites. This is to protect Google users from receiving bad or incorrect advice about either their health or finances, as this could endanger their lives and their livelihood.
What are The Effects of Google E-A-T for Website Ranking?
The Google E-A-T algorithm update greatly impacts where you rank on search engine results pages as it requires certain expectations about the content, the author and the webpage to be met. If you do not meet the requirements laid out by the Google E-A-T guidelines, you are likely to rank far lower on results pages compared to those who have high expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. Search engines like Google have become more concerned with providing reliable information as the internet has grown and people have become used to finding data from online sources as opposed to more traditional methods. It is important for the continuation and growth of Google as a reliable platform that the search engines finds and provide only information that is reliable. The Google E-A-T update is a new algorithm that is used to ensure that these ideals are met.
How to Optimise According to Google E-A-T Guidelines?
When it comes to optimising your content and webpage to be in line with E-A-T guidelines, there are many different things you can do and tactics you can use to ensure your content has the best chance of ranking highly. The following is a Google E-A-T checklist that can be used to see what you can update on your website to better align your Google E-A-T with your goals.
Focus on Your Expertise
Through growing your own expertise and becoming knowledgeable in the content you are writing about, you can assure Google that your webpage has content that is reliable. Focusing on growing your expertise, both in formal and informal ways, you are growing your knowledge and constantly improving how well you understand a specific topic.
Optimize Your About Us Pages
Having about us pages that show that you and your fellow employees as experts and knowledgeable in specific fields is another way to optimise according to Google E-A-T guidelines. Having verification of who you are and your level of expertise on this page makes it easy for search engine crawlers to identify you as an expert in your fields, so including this vital data is always a good idea. This also provides Google with information with other members of your team, so make sure to include everyone you can when creating these different pages.
Care about Content Quality and Timeliness
The quality of your content and how often your content is updated can tell Google a lot about your reliability. Google E-A-T SEO relies a lot on determining the quality of your content, and part of that is looking at whether or not the content is updated regularly. This factor obviously changes with different types of content, and things that do not change will not need to be updated as frequently as content that is about things that are constantly updating. things like the news and new Google algorithms would have to be constantly reviewed and updated to remain relevant, whereas information about history would stay the same.
Ensure On-Site Security
The security of your webpage influences how Google will rank your webpage, and those who have high security on their websites are sure to rank higher than those who do not. One of the most important things to ensure you have on your webpage is an HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) as this will ensure that your users information is protected when they are on your webpage. Having this system in place will let Google know that you are working to protect the safety of Google users, ensuring you are a trustworthy website.
Make Authors Visible
The authors who are creating and writing your content should be clearly visible, with their names and even a bit of information about them provided on the webpage where the content is displayed. As discussed above, having an expert write and produce your content goes a long way to ensuring Google that your content is effective and reliable, and if you have an expert writer, you need to do all you can to ensure that Google is aware of it!
Get Reviews
Good reviews are a great way for Google to measure your Google E-A-T score as they are a direct line into seeing how effective and helpful the information you provide actually is. Now you may be thinking about that one bad review you got three years ago, and no, do not worry, one or two is not going to impact how Google views your site if you have many other positive ones. If you however have many bad reviews and very few good ones, this may impact how Google measures your website and your Google E-A-T score, lowering your ranking due to your website not being seen as reliable.
Get a Wikipedia Page
Having a link from a Wikipedia page is actually highly beneficial to have and it can actually help to boost your SEO. Wikipedia is a website that has a very thorough editorial system, where pages are constantly being checked and updated. Backlinks from this page are therefore very beneficial and they could help to promote your page as one with authority. A Wikipedia page can also boost your SEO and the confidence that a webpage crawler has in your page because it is another place where you can put your credentials and accomplishments, putting an extra spotlight on how well you know and understand a specific topic.
What Factors Can Affect Google E-A-T Negatively?
Just like your brand’s authority with its customers, it is important that search engines trust your website and the content that it provides. As with trust in the real world, it is hard to earn and even harder to get back if lost. By working from the basics and ensuring your website abides by all of the Google E-A-T guidelines, you can be sure that search engines like Google will trust the content on your page. It is important that you avoid using spammy links and having invalidated and out of date content on your webpage can quickly get you in hot water with search engines.
To increase your Google E-A-T rating, we here at Markethinkers have a team of experts who is able to help implement and design E-A-T tactics to ensure your webpage ranks highly. With a team of skilled and professional SEO consulting experts, we can help you to reach your goals, structuring your website and your content to draw users in and increase your standing on search engine results pages. With our skilled SEO copywriting team, who are experts in their field, you can be sure that you are getting top-notch content!
