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What does EEAT mean for websites and SEO?

Hilary

EEAT is a Google acronym that stands for

 

  • Experience

  • Expertise

  • Authority

  • Trustworthiness

 

It’s used by the search engine algorithms to ensure that the search results returned to a user are a useful and valuable piece of content. The stronger you can demonstrate one of those ‘qualities’, the more likely Google will evaluate your content as meeting your user’s needs, and the more likely your content will be higher up the search engine results page (SERPS).

 

From the users perspective it reduces the amount of bumf to have to trawl through to find the answer you’re really looking for, and for a website owners perspective you can help boost your SEO by nailing one of the qualities.

 

Improve your EEAT scores to boost SEO

Other than getting your content higher up the SERPS, nailing the EEAT qualities will also help your SEO through other means. Google wants users to appreciate and value what you’ve written, and they measure that through these means:

 

Increased ‘events’

Events on your website pages refers to the number of times someone scrolls, clicks, opens a document and so on.

 

More time spent on the page

Obvious…

 

Increased social shares and backlinks

If it’s really good stuff people are more likely to share it.

 

Featured snippets

That’s the part at the top of the search results – the bit where Google picks it’s favourite answer to the search question – and it’s above the paid ads too…

 

Increased domain authority

Websites are measured for their strength and credibility – the more a user uses it, the stronger it becomes.

 

Demonstrating EEAT

There are only four qualities to focus on. I add these to the pre header information on everything I write for clients, along with the meta-data, so I make sure to hit one every time.

 

Experience: What ways can you directly reference a personal experience? Can you give an opinion on a quotation, show behind the scenes, screen record a process, give a direct quote yourself?

 

Expertise: Demonstrate your expertise by sharing in depth knowledge with high accuracy. Step by step guidance can help here or referencing other industry experts such as your accredited membership bodies.

 

Authority: Do you have letters after your name? Use them in your bios! Do you know of any other websites that would guest-host your content? Getting PR articles out there and being the expert that magazines and newspapers quote will do the trick! (Search Intelligence can help with that). Otherwise, quote other authorities…

 

Trustworthiness: Honesty, transparency, positivity and a consistent representation of your business and personal brand helps boost trustworthiness. You can also share great reviews and encourage more Google or TripAdvisor reviews…

 

How to improve EEAT

This is all about knowing your audience, understanding their problems, and then providing the solution.

 

  • Create content that is original – don’t copy/paste from AI

  • Make sure your topic is relevant and time relevant where possible

  • Update older content if locations, industry, technology, attitudes or methods change

  • Make sure you’re truthful and accurate in everything you write – what goes out into the ether gets compared to everything else out there

  • Be helpful, give tips, lists, directions etc

  • THINK! What am I trying to say...? Who cares? Why should they keep reading?

 

I hope this helps you to stay on track when you’re writing! My best tip is to start by clearly asking yourself – ‘what’s the point?’ and then writing down the shortest most simple answer possible…

 

If you need help improving your EEAT, or providing consistent content for your website and social media, I’d be happy to have an informal conversation about how I can do that.

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