What Is E-A-T and Why It's Important For SEO

Expertise is used to describe the qualitative level of content. It is important to note that Google focuses primarily on the author and not on the organization itself.

Depending on the topic, formal quality criteria are more or less important. Topics that significantly influence health, legal, or financial aspects of life require expertise from Google's point of view, which can be formally proven by qualification and training.

• Google describes these topics as YMYL — your money, your life:

"Formal expertise is important for YMYL topics such as medical, financial, or legal advice. ", QRG, p. 26.

• Nevertheless, practical life experience is not ignored. This is especially important beyond the YMYL pages:

"If it seems as if the person creating the content has the type and amount of life experience to make him or her an "expert" on the topic, we will value this "everyday expertise" and not penalize the person/webpage/website for not having "formal" education or training in the field. ", QRG, p. 20.

• Google even considers personal experiences if these correspond to the search intent:

"For example, there are forums and support pages for people with specific diseases. Sharing personal experience is a form of everyday expertise ", QRG, p. 20.

Authoritativeness means primarily "reputation". With this perspective in mind, the Quality Raters should consider the entire website and the particular author of the content.

"Look for reviews, references, recommendations by experts, news articles, and other credible information created/written by individuals about the website […] Look for information written by a person, not statistics or other machine-compiled information. News articles, Wikipedia articles, blog posts, magazine articles, forum discussions, and ratings from independent organizations can all be sources of reputation information. Look for independent, credible sources of information."

The more independent voices are added up, the more an author is seen as an expert on other sites. The more positive reviews for good experiences with a company are reported, the higher the level of expertise is considered.

As in link building, the relevant context is decisive here. Expertise must be proven for those topics that a website should be listed in the Google search results.

Trustworthiness sheds light on the credibility of a website. Google makes a strong connection with transparency: does it become clear who is responsible for the content? Is there a way to contact a supporter if problems arise, for example, in financial transactions? Are these contacts easy to find? Is there a telephone number to solve a problem very quickly?

• YMYL sites must also meet higher requirements than private websites:

"However, the amount of information needed about the website or creator of the MC depends on the purpose of the page. For personal websites or non-YMYL forum discussions, an email address or social media link alone may be sufficient," QRG, p. 35.

Furthermore, the correctness of statements is contributing to credibility. If false statements or unreasonable objections against an established consensus of other experts are accumulated, the trustworthiness of content decreases.

Outline who the person or team behind the page is

For the E-A-T principle, it is essential that it is clear who is running the site. An imprint is a minimum, which in some countries worldwide is already a legal requirement. It is better if there is also an informative About Us page and structured data is used to make information available in machine-readable form.

Show which experts write for you

Pages containing substantial information should mention a specific author. This author should also be identified within the structured data. Ideally, an author box should link to an author detail page. This page should provide further information about the author's experience and qualifications that enable him or her to give advice. If the author maintains social profiles, these should also be linked. Structured data can be used to store all information in machine-readable form.

Establish contact options

If the website is dealing with YMYL topics, there should be telephone contact options in addition to an email and postal address. Ideally, the telephone number should be clearly visible on each page and also be marked with structured data.

Invite experts to write content for you

If no experts are working in your own company or if there is a lack of reputation, it is legitimate to cooperate with experts. For example, experts can be recruited to publish guest articles on your own website. Freelance journalists with expertise in a certain range of topics can also be engaged.

Increase your reviews

The Quality Rater Guidelines emphasize the importance of reviews. In the long term, it should be ensured that there are more and mainly positive evaluations. It is forbidden to incentivize evaluations, i.e. to combine them with something in return.

However, depending on the business model, it is possible to invite customers to write reviews in the after-sales process. Positive business relationships deserve a "thank you", which can be combined with a little attention and an invitation to write a review. Who could decline to give feedback at this moment?

Negative reviews should be reduced by paying attention to a customer-centered service that takes criticism as free advice and reacts to it with optimization measures.

Build up reputation and mentions

Both for the website and for the authors themselves, a reputation should be permanently worked on. The most important means for this is the generation of links and mentions. This requires a profiled corporate identity and a good network.

Both can be addressed through clear marketing messages and participation in professional discourse at trade fairs, conferences, and industry events, and in the digital area through interviews, guest post articles, and much more.