If your business wants to get onto the first page of Google.co.uk, you must understand the principles of Google E-EAT.
This is paramount because it’s what Google’s algorithms use to assess how well-written the content marketing is on your website.
So, before putting your hands on the keyboard and writing your first blog post, you must understand the acronym Google E-EAT and its meaning. This will help you to write better quality content marketing, which can help your business to rank higher in Google’s search engine results pages.
Written by: Ryan Walsh
Date: 10/07/2024
Topic: On-page SEO
Introduction
In a nutshell, Google E-EAT stands for “Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness”.
Google introduced this into the “Search Quality Rater guidelines” back in 2014. So it’s nothing new, but something all copywriters, businesses, and SEO agencies need to know about. Then, in 2022, Google added Experience to the acronym. We will discuss how this changed how companies should implement organic search engine optimisation.
We must consider the Google E-EAT signals as a significant factor Google uses to determine where a page should rank in the search results. This is not a minor ranking factor, like alt text, which is entirely different. E-EAT is used to evaluate the whole page’s quality to assess where it should rank in the search results.
Achieving and maintaining high search rankings
Getting to the top of Google is not straightforward; it’s like climbing Mount Everest. It’s a lot of work, yet we must persevere with grit and determination. It would be best if you had a good understanding of how Google’s algorithm works; therefore, as E-EAT is an integral part of that, you need to understand what the E-EAT acronym means, what the Google Helpful Content Update is, and why Google is now looking at every single page on a granular basis to assess is a good quality or not.
If your pages are generally of good quality, you can see an organic uplift in your business rankings, but if the quality is not good, this can mean your business is moved back down to the organic results.
What Does E-EAT Mean?
Can you tell us precisely what Google E-EAT means? What are the means, and how should they be introduced into SEO marketing strategy?
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
Google wants to serve the best possible answer to a question
It doesn’t matter if it’s finding a local dog walking company or you’re looking for a divorce solicitor- Google (Alphabet) wants to present the best, most comprehensive answer to any query.
Google will want to use proven businesses where the pages have a meagre bounce rate, high dwell time, and a lot of (do-follow and no-follow) backlinks leading to them.
You also need to assess whether the text on the page is written by somebody who understands what they’re talking about or if it’s just a marketing waffle. This is where Google E-EAT comes in a framework Google uses to scan over the page and determine whether it is good quality information. For example, Google E-EAT will ask questions such as, who’s the author? Have they got a good understanding of what they are talking about? How many good-quality links lead to that page?
Google’s Knowledge Vault and Entity-Building
Essential things are interconnected; for example, celebrities will be interconnected with films they’ve made, who they have married, where they live, and significant life effects, such as if they won the BAFTA awards.
The significant things are known as “entities.” They are people, events, and products, and they will be interconnected to other things. Google understands these entities well, which is why Google’s Knowledge Vault and GoogleBot constantly crawl and index new information.
Therefore, the point we’re trying to make here is that if a page offers excellent information, contains mentions about entities, and shows that the person knows what they’re talking about because they’ve gone in-depth, really pushed the boat out and made an effort to offer a good quality answer to a question, and followed the advice in Google’s E-EAT, then Google rewards these pages with higher rankings; therefore, Google’s E-EAT is simply a framework evaluating whether that page is good quality or not.
Google’s Rank Brain
Google uses Google E-EAT to evaluate whether the content marketing on the page is good quality. It is written by somebody who doesn’t know how to engage the reader, or if it’s a boring read. It’s a bit like reading a book written by a professor at a University, it might be written to offer an in-depth answer, but it’s not that interesting to read; a lot of technical language is used, which alienates the reader, and they don’t know what the page is talking about, and the reader loses interest in reading any more, because the work is tedious, or overly technical, well this page will have a low dwell time a high bounce rate.
Google RankBrain and Google E-EAT.
This is why this SEO agency firmly believes that Google E-EAT is using the framework to evaluate whether the information is of good quality and how interested the reader is in reading the work through Google RankBrain.
For example, Google RankBrain will want to know what the bounce rate is for that page and how high dwell time is. These are all critical factors that Google’s algorithm uses to determine whether a page is of good quality or not.
Here’s what you need to know about Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and
Trustworthiness:
Experience
Does the person show in-depth experience of that particular product or service?
For example, a builder describes their services, explaining how they add property extensions to a house have they explain the construction process in an in-depth way.
When the copywriters work with a builder; they will be able to clearly show in-depth knowledge of the process, explaining step-by-step how the extension is built from the ground works through to writing about the roofing tiles being added.
Google’s algorithm can examine the page, use semantic SEO, examine the keywords on the page, and clearly ascertain whether or not the person knows what they are talking about. For example, if the author when they are writing about the construction process, of a new property extention if they mention breeze blocks, certain tiles, electrics first fixing, and plasterboard. All of these things are interconnected with making a property extension and the construction process, so it shows to Google’s algorithm that the person know to some level, what they are talking about.
You also need to write in such a way that engages the reader. Say if the reader spends over three minutes on average reading each page, so it’s clear to Googles algorithms the dwell time is high, Google’s Rank brain shows that you have engaged the reader. As of this page, it moves up the SERPs.
Expertise
Does the text show that the person clearly knows what they are talking about, and it is effortless for them to explain something to a customer. For example when you sit in front of a highly qualified barrister or solicitor; they should be able to convey complicated areas of law simply.
On the other hand, if the website is content-thin, has a small amount of text, then you cant expect to rank well in the SERPs. So you need to work with expert in their related field, who really know your stuff, and use their knowledge, expertise, advice and make sure that this is placed into the article.
Google’s Helpful Content Update
Google’s Helpful Content Update clearly shows that Google prioritises content marketing that will be helpful to the customer, that’s gone to the extra mile, to offer useful information that the customer will want.
Therefore, gone are the days of trying to push a product down a customer neck; instead, you have to walk in the customers’ shoes and help make their buying decision- by offering helpful and useful information . Content marketing must be helpful, insightful, and written by an expert.
If it’s not helpful, and you keep mentioning keywords all the time in a feeble attempt to try and get the business onto the first page of Google though black hat methods of SEO; well this attempt will not work- it will most likely result in the business incurring a big fat, Google penalty.
Authoritativeness
If your website offers high-quality information, such as excellent and well-written blog posts, you could attract many do-follow and no-follow backlinks to your company’s website.
Your website’s authority can improve as you accumulate more good-quality links.
As any good SEO consultant will tell you, links, also referred to as backlinks, are still one of the most important ranking factors.
This means Google deems links necessary when determining where to rank your business in the SERPs.
So, if you want your business to appear on page one of Google, you often need quality links.
Trustworthiness
Trustworthiness is an arbitrary factor but an important aspect of Google’s E-EAT.
Therefore, Google will be trying to decipher whether a company’s website can be trusted.
For example, are you happy to include credit card details on the website?
- Does a show company address?
- Is the website secure in terms of having a padlock within the browser?
- Is it clear if there is contact information, such as a company phone number?
- How many positive reviews are there on the likes of Trust Pilot, for example?
- Is there a Google Business profile, and if so, how many positive reviews does it have?
Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines
The Google E-EAT framework initially came from this: “the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines”.
The Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, published by Google, is a comprehensive document that provides detailed insight into how Google evaluates a page’s quality. It covers various aspects, such as content relevance, user experience, and trustworthiness, which are crucial for SEO. So, before you go burning the midnight oil writing a very long article, we highly recommend reading this document, “The Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines”.
SEO strategists
If your business is based in Cardiff, what’s to improve your organic search engine optimisation, then do call us today:
We can help improve the following aspects of your company’s SEO:
– Backlinks
– Content marketing
– Technical SEO
Call us today, and we can offer you a free, no-obligation quotation.
