What is E-E-A-T? And does your content pass the big SEO test?
If you work with SEO, E-E-A-T is an important concept that you should work intensively with if you want a good position in Google's search results.
Head of SEO
September 28, 2023
If you work with SEO, E-E-A-T is an important concept that you should work intensively with if you want a good position in Google's search results.
Already today, E-E-A-T is highly valued, but it will become even more relevant as soon as Google’s generative AI results start to show more often than they already do. That is why we have written a detailed post for you, so that you are well prepared to build your domain around the E-E-A-T requirements.
Before you can start working strategically with E-E-A-T, it is important to have a good grasp of what the term entails. So let’s start from the very top.
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness, which in Danish can be translated to experience, expertise, authority and credibility, and it is based on getting SEO strategies to create content that provides high value and helps the user from start to finish during the search.
It is important to point out that E-E-A-T (also called Double-E-A-T) is not a direct ranking factor in Google’s algorithm, but rather an important part of Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines (QRG). You can read more about this in section three.
E-E-A-T is not a new addition, but rather a further development of E-A-T, which aimed to be able to serve relevant and helpful content to users, but now your content should also be able to demonstrate experience – preferably as direct experience from, for example, the writer himself or through customer testimonials .
In the next subsections, you can read more about the four parameters.
Experience refers to the knowledge and experience that the author possesses. Here, emphasis is placed on whether the author has in-depth knowledge of the subject and whether personal experience with the product or service is involved.
If the content is written by a writer with experience in the subject, Google will consider the content to be reliable, giving better rankings in the search results.
In addition to the author’s own experience with the subject, you can also support experience with reviews from customers, testimonials, user-generated content and collaboration with influencers.
Experience is the latest addition to E-E-A-T (formerly just E-A-T) in response to the increasing amount of AI-generated content emerging worldwide. It has been important for Google to be able to emphasize the quality of the content, and this can be done by the content being built on human experience.
Overall, this can give your company greater credibility towards the user.
A review of a product seems more credible if it comes from a buyer of the product.
A distinction is made between two types of expertise: formal and informal.
Formal expertise is based on knowledge shared by people with in-depth knowledge of the given subject and possibly also have a relevant education.
This could be, for example, a doctor who advises on health, a bank advisor who writes about investment or an SEO consultant who writes about E-E-A-T.
It is especially important that you can demonstrate your expertise if you work with content that can either help or ultimately harm users’ finances and/or health. This is what is referred to as YMYL (Your Money and Your Life) in SEO.
In contrast to formal expertise, we have informal expertise, which is also called everyday expertise. This kind of expertise can most often be found on websites run by individuals who write about topics that interest them. This could be, for example, cooking, hobby projects or interior design. Here, it is not necessary to have a relevant education to achieve a high E-E-A-T score.
At Iternum Digital, we regularly publish new cases where we show how we have helped our customers in digital marketing and help strengthen their position in the market and generate sales.
Authoritativeness consists in being the users’ go-to place when seeking information on a given topic. This can be done in two ways; on a person level and on a page level. This can be briefly explained by the fact that Google does not try to identify individuals, but rather whether they contribute more content in the same field and how this content is received.
It can be difficult to rank on the competitive keywords with high search volume, but you can show your authority by embracing the whole topic. This is also what is called “content topic authority” within SEO.
If a given topic is fully covered across several pages, and if the content is continuously updated or published and manages to answer users’ questions, then Google will see the content and the sender as authoritative.
It is important to create content that others will read and share. This helps Google to understand which content users find relevant. The more links pointing to your page, the stronger the authority.
You can build your page’s authority by getting other authoritative pages (preferably within the same industry or topic) to point to your page. This can either be through links to blog posts, articles, products or if your brand or company name is mentioned on other pages.
Credibility is important to Google, which is why, among other things, it is looked at. on whether there is clear contact information on your site, secure payment, a reliable customer service, honest product reviews and SSL certificate. You must also be careful with claims.
Feel free to emphasize insight and neutrality when you work with SEO and want a good ranking when it comes to informative content. You should also ensure that your site provides the user with the best and most secure conditions for purchase by having a secure payment method, contact information, trading conditions, privacy policies, etc.
As such, E-E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor, but it absolutely plays a decisive role in where your content ranks in Google’s search results, as the term is part of their guidelines.
Google’s QRG are the most important guidelines you can follow if you want a good ranking, as they determine how the algorithm is composed. E-E-A-T is thus a way to strengthen your current position, but at the same time also secure your page against future algorithm changes, as Google tends to build on the existing factors and guidelines.
Besides pleasing Google’s algorithm by complying with their guidelines and working with E-E-A-T, your work also has another big advantage: E-E-A-T will generally strengthen the credibility of the company or brand among users, which can set you apart from your competitors.
E-E-A-T is part of Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines (QRG) and Google makes use of a large number of “Quality Raters”, whose task is to assess the content based on their guidelines.
The purpose of these guidelines is to present users with the most relevant results from the most reliable sources. These guidelines are constantly updated to ensure the best experience for users, and Google’s E-E-A-T is thus a further development of E-A-T.
Although E-E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor, you will not avoid having to work with it, as pages that do not meet Google’s guidelines rarely achieve good positions in the search results.
QRG, and thus Google’s E-E-A-T, can also be used by content creators and content writers to assess their own work, so that their content gets the best living conditions.
As mentioned in previous sections, E-E-A-T is an important factor to work with for all industries, but…
There are certain industries and companies that should pay particular attention to their E-E-A-T. These are pages that are categorized as YMYL (Your Money or Your Life), where the user can strengthen or directly harm his finances, health or safety.
Therefore, E-E-A-T is particularly relevant for the following industries:
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With YMYL pages, Google pays particular attention to presenting users with relevant content in relation to their searches, as Misinformation and bad advice can have very big consequences for users’ lives.
If you’ve come this far, you’re no longer in doubt that you should work with E-E-A-T – but how do you get started?
I would recommend that you start by making an overall plan. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and good SEO results unfortunately don’t happen overnight, but if you plan, they will come.
At Iternum Digital, we work with E-E-A-T with all our customers every day, and we therefore know how the algorithm works and what is needed. Do you want help with your SEO strategy? So don’t hesitate to get hold of us. We are ready to take your website and content to the next level for the good rankings, so you can spend the time on your core competencies at the company.
If you still want to try your hand at E-E-A-T yourself, here is a small guide to what you should focus on and how to get the best start.
Google now also evaluates your pages on whether you have first-hand experience with your product or the service you sell or mention.
There are many pages that use high-volume keywords that include “best in test,” which has previously worked well in the search results. The problem, however, is that many who use this type of search term have never held the real products in their hands or tried the performance, which Google is now cracking down on. It must be possible to provide a more complete description, advice or report if there is first-hand experience.
A good place to start is therefore to have content on your page that differs from others by being:
There is some overlap between the two E’s in E-E-A-T. For what is an expert? It is a person with experience and knowledge of a given field.
Expertise can be expressed in several ways. You can, for example, use yourself as an expert if you have extensive experience with what you are writing about. Remember that you should have an author bio that contains important information such as name, job title, education, etc. You can also choose to use a guest author if you do not have the necessary knowledge and experience yourself. If you do not have the opportunity to do this, you can choose to include quotes from experts, but remember to mention them by name, occupation and preferably a link to where the quote was found.
Google is able to assess expert status based on other pages indexed in Google, including your or your guest author’s LinkedIn and other mentions on the Internet.
Do you provide content that users return to and that other websites link to? Then you most likely have good authority.
If you want to work more intensively with authority, you can, among other things:
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If your brand name or company name is mentioned on other indexed pages in Google, then Google can see it. The more times relevant mentions, the better. You can therefore advantageously work with relevant link building or PR.
Credibility is the most important factor in E-E-A-T, because if you don’t have a credible page, you most likely can’t deliver content that lives up to experience, expertise or authoritativeness.
This is what you can work with if you want to demonstrate credibility in relation to Google’s E-E-A-T:
The best strategy is adapted to your business. This means that, unfortunately, there is no “one size fits all” solution.
However, you can start by emphasizing trustworthiness, as this provides the best conditions for working with the remaining three factors. After this, you can start looking at experience and expertise, as authoritativeness takes longer to achieve.
Do you have doubts about how to best work with Google’s E-E-A-T and approach SEO? At Iternum Digital, a whole team of SEO consultants is ready to lay out the best strategy for your company that will get you off the ramp.
According to Google’s QRG, the following E-E-A-T scores are differentiated:
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Google’s Quality Raters look at the following when evaluating a given page’s E-E-A-T:
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If your website belongs to a YMYL site, Quality Raters will demand extra high standards. You can read more in Google’s own guidelines: Search Quality Rater Guidelines: An Overview.
Common to all pages that rank high in Google’s search results is that they have a high score of E-E-A-T. This means that the website provides relevant information through thorough work and unique content that users find valuable and other websites want to link to.
In addition to good content, the characteristics of a high E-E-A-T score will also be security, visible contact information and who is behind the content.
If there is a low E-E-A-T score, the site will often have difficulty maintaining its position in the search results. Especially if it is a YMYL page.
If, for example, you advise on the best medicine for arthritis, but do not have a health professional background, this will result in a low score. The same applies if you write about products or services without having tried them yourself.
Websites can also have a low E-E-A-T score if they spread misinformation.
We cannot avoid the fact that AI takes up more and more of our work and everyday life, but how should you relate to AI in connection with Google’s E-E-A-T?
Since the addition of the second E, i.e. experience, it can be difficult for AI to meet Google’s guidelines, as AI simply cannot have that first-hand experience.
Google will not penalize AI-generated content with poor rankings, but it should be read and fact-checked by humans to ensure the quality of the content. Here you can also add your own experiences at the same time, so that the content meets the high standards in the best possible way. You can also advantageously have an expert review and edit AI-generated texts so that there is no doubt about expertise.
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