Disclosure: When you buy something through one of the links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. We only recommend products we use and/or believe will deliver value to you.
Many websites write great content. But some have built authority over the years.
If you’re producing great content today, you might be frustrated with the poor results you’re getting. What could simply be the problem?
The Google E-A-T update provides some insights into how you can get the recognition your great content deserves.
What is E-A-T and how can you use it to improve your content? I’ll show you all the details in a moment.
Before we go on, we need to get this out of the way. What do we mean by E-A-T? Well, we’re not talking about food here.
E-A-T stands for:
- Expertise
- Authoritativeness
- Trustworthiness
The Google Search quality evaluator guidelines state clearly that E-A-T is an important factor in considering the quality of a page.
Now, what do the words stated above mean? In isolation, they mean very little. But you can understand the context better when you see more details about these words.
To define E-A-T in more details, it means:
- Expertise of the creator of the main content on a page.
- Authoritativeness of the creator of the main content, the main content itself, and the website on which the content is hosted.
- Trustworthiness of the creator of the main content, the main content itself, and the website on which the content is hosted.
If there’s one point you can take from this update, it’s that great content alone is insufficient to rank your page. You also need to build a brand for yourself as an expert and for your website.
And former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, agrees with this. He said, “Brands are the solution, not the problem. Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.”
The good news is that even if you currently have a poor brand, producing great content over time will lead you in the right direction.
What prompted the E-A-T update?
To satisfy its users, Google needs to provide the most accurate information possible on the search results pages. And this is even more important for some pages.
A prime example of these are the YMYL pages. This simply means “Your Money or Your Life” pages. These pages are branded with this name because of the importance of the information they provide.
Visitors to these pages usually get details and advice about actions to take to solve specific problems. Whenever the information provided turn out to be wrong, it can lead to disastrous consequences for the readers.
Examples of YMYL pages are:
- Medical information pages
- Legal information pages
- Financial information pages
- Shopping pages
To provide the most accurate information possible, Google wants these pages to be written by experts in the particular topic they’re considering. This will help the search engine provide the best value for its users.
What does this mean for ranking professional content? It means content written by an expert will usually outrank the one written by a non-expert.
For example, a medical page written by an expert medical doctor in the specialty will usually rank higher than a page written by someone without this reputation.
How do you improve your expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness to give your content the best chance to rank? Follow these 5 ways.
1. Create great content
Every optimization you make for the E-A-T update should be deeply rooted in great content. In fact, the highest number of websites affected negatively by the E-A-T update are health websites.
And it’s because of this that the update was nicknamed the “medic” update. Many of these websites had issues with the quality of their content.
If you’re yet to be considered an expert, then creating valuable content for your audience will get you that reputation.
In some cases, content written about your expertise also shows how good you are as an expert. However, great content means different things to different people.
How can we define great content? Let’s take a cue from the Google search quality raters guidelines. It explains that a high-quality page should have a beneficial purpose and achieve that purpose well.
What are some tips to keep in mind to create great content and reap benefits from it?
Create long-form content
While creating pages that can have big effects on your readers, you need to give them all the details they need. And this usually requires a high number of words.
In fact, a Backlinko study found that content length is correlated with Google rankings. It also found that the average post at the top of Google rankings has 1,890 words.
These pieces of content ranked for having enough details to provide value to their audience. While your sole target shouldn’t just be to write a high number of words, you should include as many important details as possible.
If you’re writing about a wide topic, then your content should contain more words than if you’re writing about a narrow topic.
Update thin content
To avoid being penalized, you should check all your website content pages to update pages with thin content or remove them altogether. These pages are seen as pages that offer no value to visitors at best or dangerous at worst.
Check out an example of thin content below:
Some common characteristics of thin content are:
- Having inaccurate information.
- Providing vague explanation to readers.
- Having less than 500 words on the page.
When you update these pages, they become better at providing value to visitors. Consequently, Google will reward you for this.
Publish on your blog regularly
In fields like medical and financial fields, new details and way of doing things come up on a daily basis. Added to this, Google wants to show fresh content to its users.
This makes having a regularly updated blog vital. It’s also a way of updating your website.
HubSpot, in a study, found that companies that publish more than 16 blog posts monthly get 3.5 times more traffic than those that post 4 or less.
However, not every expert can write on a regular basis. You might even feel that your writing is poor.
If you find yourself in such a situation, you can hire a professional writer to do the writing for you. However, you have to ensure the details are accurate before publishing.
2. Improve your about page
As this page is all about you and what you have achieved in your career as an expert, it helps to increase your E-A-T score. But to get these benefits, you’ll have to add more details to your about page.
And these details need to show your expertise to both visitors and search engines. As Copyblogger’s Sonia Simone said, your about page should be written for your audience.
Visitors to your website should be able to see on your about page how you can solve their problems. Some common details to add to your about page are:
- Your name and profession.
- Your business or practice name.
- Conferences and industry events you’ve featured.
- Companies you’ve worked for.
- Important industry publications you’ve been featured in.
- Career achievements.
If you accept guest posts on your website, you should have author bios that show the expertise and authoritativeness of your guest authors. This will help to improve the overall authority and trust for your website.
For an example of a detailed about page, see Aja Frost’s about page below.
You can see that she has included basic details about herself and her work at HubSpot. Added to that, she explained some of her achievements working at HubSpot.
3. Provide value on social media
People visit social media every day to interact with their friends and businesses. As an expert, you can share insights about your field to your followers.
This will help you increase interactions and gain more followers on your social media pages. Also, followers can share your posts on social media and you can get popular in your field.
When you’re active on social media, your followers can also ask you questions that you can provide answers to. By doing this, you provide even more value and build your reputation.
Added to this, you can share your blog posts on social media to attract more traffic to your website. See an example of an influencer telling his followers about a chat where they can learn or teach others. This helps to build a community.
4. Engage in guest posting for authoritative websites
Guest posting is one of the best ways to build your brand and authority online. Even though guest posting is a popular link building strategy, it has many more benefits.
By publishing posts on another website, you gain access to a new audience. This helps you to show your expertise to this audience and to build your brand.
It’s rare to find an influencer online who doesn’t have guest posts on big industry websites. However, publishing guest posts requires a strategy.
You need to find the right guest posting opportunities and create great content. You should target authoritative websites in your industry for your guest posting campaign.
See an example of a guest post bio on Search engine journal.
Guest blogging is so effective as a strategy for developing your authority and traffic that Shane Barker used it to grow organic traffic 12X in 2 years.
5. Collect testimonials and reviews
If you provide a service or sell a product, potential customers want to know how good your service is. Likewise, Google wants to show the best services to their searchers.
One of the best ways to have this knowledge is through testimonials and reviews. This is what current customers of your business have to say about it.
Having positive reviews will help you to convince potential customers. Also, you’ll gain better rankings for local searches and show up on the local map pack.
However, an issue you might face is that people rarely leave reviews. You’ll have to remind your customers to leave reviews on popular review sites and professional directories related to your business.
See an example of reviews on a Google My Business page.
One way to collect testimonials and reviews is to send messages to your customers. See an example of an email asking for a testimonial.
This makes it straightforward and easy for your customer to send their testimonials.
Conclusion
The Google E-A-T update has shown that content is important. It has also shown that you need to do more to get your pages to rank.
You need to become an expert and build your authority. You also need to improve your website to increase its authoritativeness and trustworthiness.
When you follow these steps, you can continue to maintain your rankings despite the E-A-T update. And if your website has seen a drop in organic traffic, these tips will help you recover with time.
Samuel writes long-form guides to help businesses and entrepreneurs achieve better results from their marketing activities. He also writes for marketing and SaaS companies that want more leads and customers. Get in touch with him to discuss your content needs.
Great article about Google EAT. In fact people need to understand that writing an article is not an easy task, much less when we are dealing with a quality that makes it an authority on the subject. A trusted authority. Wonderful excellent content.