Have you ever stumbled onto a piece of online content and wondered just how much you can trust what is written? This happens to many people, particularly those who are scouting for content that can help them make decisions that will potentially impact their life. This is where E-A-T comes into the equation.
Let’s zoom in on each aspect of E-A-T to dissect just important these signals are.
What is E-A-T?
With so much good, and so much bad content floating about the web, Google is working hard to refine its systems to recognise and reward expertly written, factually correct and high-quality content. This is where E-A-T takes the limelight.
E-A-T is a core concept in Google’s Search Quality Raters guide, published in 2013 to help webmasters understand what Google looks for in a web page.
E-A-T stands for:
Expertise
This revolves around demonstrating a high level of knowledge or skill in a particular filed. This aspect is evaluated at a content-level and not at an organisational or website level. Google looks for content that is created by a subject matter expert; for YMYL topics, this means: formal expertise, qualifications, and education of the content creator.
Authoritativeness
This aspect is all about reputation. When users see a website, or individual, as a go-to source of information about a topic, that signals authority to Google. The author, content, and the website itself are all taken into account when determining authoritativeness.
Trustworthiness
Trustworthiness, as the name suggests, is all about legitimacy, transparency and accuracy of a website and its content. Google uses a range of signals to determine your site’s trustworthiness; everything from technical trustworthiness to more abstract signals like responses to Google My Business reviews and online discussions about your business.
The importance of E-A-T in SEO
E-A-T plays a vital role in Search Engine Optimisation. It is one way that Google tries to ensure that its users receive the most accurate, truthful, and useful information out there.
Anyone can create and publish a website; Google understands this and as a result developed E-A-T to help people make decisions that are based on the most trustworthy information possible.
When it comes to YMYL websites, E-A-T becomes even more important. Let’s take a quick look why.
What is YMYL?
YMYL stands for Your Money Your Life. This term encapsulates pages that feature content that can potentially affect your life. Pages like these often have an impact on visitor’s well-being, health, finance, and safety. It’s easy to see why quality, trustworthy and factually correct content is so important here.
At the end of the day, E-A-T plays a role in separating fact from fiction. And, although these are guidelines set out by Google, keep in mind that you’re doing this for your customers.
