What is E-E-A-T and why is it important for your website?

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. This abbreviation stands for the standard by which Google rates websites. It is 1 of the main ranking factors that determine how high or how low your landing pages can be found on search results.

Introduced in December 2022, the term is the successor to E-A-T ( Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness, the experience bit has been added later on), which has been active again since 2018.

Every website owner and SEO expert should know this term. And how to apply it to best optimize your website.

In this article, I will briefly explain the background history, what exactly E-E-A-T means and how you can apply it to your website.

How E-A-T was Introduced and changed into E-E-A-T

If you have been following internet and SEO trends for a while, you will probably have noticed in 2018 that several websites in the field of medical and health information took a nose dive in the number of visitors.

What had happened? Google applied the E-A-T standard to YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) websites. These are websites whose revenue model hinges on providing medical, health, fitness and also financial advice, among other things.

Now Google doesn’t have a problem with this kind of website per se, but it does expect the information given to be factually correct, offering value to the reader. And not in the least, that the adviser has the authority and experience to provide this information. Especially when it comes to medical advice.

And for that, E-A-T was introduced: a benchmark that the content of such websites had to meet. And many YMYL websites failed to meet it in 2018, resulting in their plummeting down the SERPs.

From 2019, this standard was going to apply to all other websites as well, regardless of whether you had a webshop or a harmless hobby blog.

Recently, in December 2022, E-A-T was changed to E-E-A-T. Experience was added to what Google expects from websites. See this link on Googles Guidelines.

Why adhering to E-E-A-T is important for your website and SEO

Of course, you are free to adhere to Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines or not. But in my humble opinion, it is advisable to make it part of your SEO Strategy. At least if you want to have a successful website, regardless of your topic.

And even though it may all sound a bit complicated for a beginner, in a nutshell, it boils down to nothing more than providing a well-functioning website. With content that is of value to your audience.

And in my opinion, SEO is also often made too big and too technical by some. Whereas if you focus on the E-E-A-T guidelines, you already come a long way to get as many visitors as possible on your landing pages.

And that is ultimately the goal.

So, let’s look at each part of this acronym in turn:

Experience

As a content creator, is it evident that you have experience with the topic of your website?  In other words, do you know what you are talking about?

For example, if you have a blog about surfing, you (or whoever writes your articles) would have put on a wetsuit at least occasionally and stood on a surfboard in the sea.

If you create content about marketing, Google looks to see if you actually have experience in it.

A final example, you write a review of a film. This should also show that you have actually seen it.

This is all it really is.

Expertise

Expertise has some common ground with Experience, but is mainly about having credibility. Especially with YMYL content, Google looks strictly at this. For example, if you provide medical information, you will score higher if you are a qualified doctor.

With non-YMYL content, Google is less strict. If you write a travel blog, Google will mainly look at whether you provide good content about travel. Your personal background is then somewhat less important.

Or a website about office humor. Can you offer funny office jokes? Then that’s enough. 

Authoritativeness 

Is your website an authority within your niche or sector? On the one hand, you ensure this if you have your Experience and Expertise in order.

But there are also other things involved. For instance, do you offer a technically well-functioning website? Is the User Experience (also known as UX) in order? Can your visitors find the right information quickly and simply?

Good backlinks from other websites can also play a role. For example, I worked for a company that did a lot of business with local governments. Repeatedly, we were positively mentioned, including hyperlinks to our site, on the website of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, among others.

That kind of thing shows authority.

Within your topic, this needs to be a bit less bombastic. Take the example of the surf blog, a mention on the website of a surf magazine can be enough.

Trustworthiness

And then we come to trust, probably the most important factor in these guidelines. Trust can be built in many ways when you have a website. For starters, is your domain name properly protected via an SLL? (You can ask your Hosting company for this). Do you have no links to any malicious landing pages on your website?

But there are also other things you can think about. If you have a webshop, it should be clear that your visitors’ payment and credit card details are well protected. What kind of guarantee do you offer in case of defective products?

Do you offer services, does your company have good customer service?

Google Reviews and a platform such as Trustpilot (a review website for products and services, also a Google partner) are good measures to check the reputation of your company/website. And you can also make excellent use of these to improve it, by talking to your customers, among other things.

Finally, I would advise on writing a first class About Us (or About Me) page on your website. Google will include this in your overall Trustworthiness rating. And it should include:

• What kind of topic your Website is about
• What kind of services or products you offer and to whom
• A short background history on your website, where did it start
• A short background history on you and possible business partners, including links to your personal Social Media accounts

How does Google rank websites using E-E-A-T?

Some think that Google goes down a checklist via 1 algorithm to check whether a website ranks well or less well on E-E-A-T. But it’s a bit more nuanced than that.

Basically, it uses several algorithms and updates (such as SmartBrain) to check a website. Here, for example, it checks whether it is fast enough, suitable for mobile users (very important since 2014) and other technical performances.

People are also hired to check websites against an E-E-A-T checklist to see if they comply with the Guidelines. These are so-called Quality Raters. I myself have sometimes been approached to do this as a Side Hustle and have spoken to folks who make money doing this.

Conclusion

Now, all of this may seem quite daunting. Do you really have to put on an extensive song and dance to get a high rating and score well in the SERP?

But remember, all you have to do is offer a website that is functioning well, has a good UX. And offer valuable, worthwhile and entertaining content to your audience. If you keep that in mind, you should get a good E-E-A-T rating, regardless of the niche or topic.