When it comes to making your website stand out, content plays a pretty big role. Sure, we’ve been saying “Content is King” for years, but for years, people have continued to put out trash content and land top rankings in search. Not so anymore (phew).
Now, it’s all about helpful, informative, thorough content that satisfies the searcher’s intent. Yup, if you want to show up in search results and increase your online traffic, you’re going to have to write E-E-A-T content. Note: E-A-T has been updated to E-E-A-T as of December 2022.
Since When Does E-E-A-T-ing Have to Do With Content?
E-E-A-T is an acronym from the Google Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. It’s part of the requirements for evaluating pages in search results. Here’s what it stands for:
E – Experience. This means you have quality content and show you’ve got first-hand knowledge of the subject.
E – Expertise. This means making it clear you know your stuff.
A – Authority. This means making it clear you’re THE authority on the topic at hand.
T – Trustworthiness. This means making it clear Google can trust you with their searchers.
3 Quick Tips to Help You With E-E-A-T
In the past, you worried about whether or not your content was informative and original, but now you have to worry about proving your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness, too? How do you do that?
#1 Cover your topic thoroughly. Think of all the people may have and answer them. There are several great tools (besides using your ears to listen to customers) for doing this, like relying on Google Autosuggest, People Also Search For, and tools like Answer the Public. The point is, you want to not just answer the searcher’s intent, but also anticipate their next question in that same piece of content.
#2 Aim to get mentions, links, shares, and other authority-building signals that tell Google it’s safe to trust you. When it comes to links and mentions, not just any links or mentions will do — you want relevant, natural links and mentions that build up your authority in your niche or area of expertise. How do you get these? By doing step #1 and covering your topic thoroughly. The better your content, the more you’ll find people linking to it and mentioning it.
#3 Keep the positive reviews coming. While reviews are different from the content you’re creating directly on your website, they’re still signaling your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (or lack of all three). While Google knows that most businesses have at least a couple of negative reviews, too many negative reviews signal to Google that something isn’t all that great or trustworthy about your business. And ya know what? They don’t want to serve up that kind of business in their search results because it’s likely not the kind of business searchers want to do business with. So work on getting more positive reviews!
Bonus Tip: Make Sure Your Content Is Clear, Well-Written & Sending the Right Message
According to an article from SiteProNews, “8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest.”
Now, that doesn’t mean the rest of the content can be fluff (Google don’t play that). What it does mean is that you have to make it obvious that you have what your potential client needs, as soon as they land on your site. This means making sure your headers and subheaders are descriptive, and breaking up text in scannable, easy-to-read chunks.
Also, you’ve got to make sure your content is written in a way that sends the right message and puts your business in the right light. Whether you like it or not, potential clients are judging you based on your grammar and tone. If your content is littered with typos, it will communicate that you don’t pay attention to details and will hurt your professional image. So give it a quick edit or have someone edit your copy for you.
Is Your Content Helping or Hurting Your Business?
So let’s recap: To build a strong web presence and show up in search results, your content should communicate a high level of expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. You have to prove to Google that you’re worth the searcher’s time, and that you’re the answer to the searcher’s question.
Sounds like a lot of work, huh? It’s really not. You have first-hand experience. You are an expert. You are an authority. You are trustworthy. Just make sure your content reflects that.
You see, as frustrating as it can be, all of Google’s changes and rules are designed to make the search experience better for the user. Google wants to shine a light on the websites that possess an air of authority, because these are the websites that are most likely to help the one conducting the search. So if you’re the best there is and you put time into creating content that reflects that, E-E-A-T should be easy to swallow. 🙂