When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), the majority of website owners spend time focusing on keyphrases, backlinks, AI SEO tools, and technical performance. While these parts of SEO are crucial to your crawlability and search performance, there is another aspect often overlooked in the SEO process and broader SEO efforts: E-A-T. E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
E-A-T is not a metric like page speed or meta tags. E-A-T can be viewed as another concept that can heavily inform how Google and other search engines view your content and how that content will rank based on whether they feel your content is E-A-T worthy.
This article aims to explain how E-A-T signals are monitored, why E-A-T is important, and how it may be affecting the volume of blog traffic you receive. Ultimately, knowing and improving your E-A-T will help your content receive a higher ranking and higher volume of readership over time.
What is E-A-T?
E-A-T was introduced in Google's Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, which search quality raters (actual people!) use to evaluate how well Google's algorithms are producing results. Although their feedback does not impact search rankings, it helps Google continue to refine its algorithm over time.
Let's break down E-A-T:
- Expertise: The creator of the content should have relevant (or relatable) knowledge, skill, expertise, or experience with the topic being discussed.
- Authoritativeness: The website or author should be considered an authority (go-to) source for information in that subject matter area.
- Trustworthiness: The content, site and author should be reliable, safe, honest, and trustworthy.
Google uses E-A-T to assess content quality particularly related to content that can potentially affect someone's health, safety, or financial situation.
Why E-A-T Matters for Blog Traffic
If your blog content practises E-A-T to Google's satisfaction, you have greater chances of ranking higher in search results. This gives your content more exposure, more clicks, and thus more traffic.
Let's say we have two blogs posting articles in the personal finance niche. One blog is by a certified financial advisor, and provides author bios, author references and websites, and clear disclaimers, the other was written by someone with no profession background and has vague and unproven statements. Even if both articles used the same keywords, Google is more likely to rank the first article higher because it clearly meets E-A-T expectations.
For blogs in competitive or sensitive niches, such as health, legal and financial topics, E-A-T will play a huge role in whether or not your blog can rank.
E-A-T and YMYL Topics
YMYL stands for "Your Money or Your Life." Google developed it to describe content that could negatively affect a person's health, finances, or general welfare. If you are blogging in a YMYL category, E-A-T is even more important.
Some examples of a YMYL category include:
- Health advice or treatments
- Investment or tax advice
- Legal advice or information about rights
- News articles about political or social issues
- Product reviews and buying suggestions
For YMYL content, Google will have higher standards in E-A-T to avoid misuse and to provide users with accurate, reliable, safe, and trustworthy content.
How Google Evaluates E-A-T
Google doesn’t assign an E-A-T "score," and it doesn’t measure these signals directly. Instead, it uses a combination of on-site and off-site signals to evaluate how trustworthy and credible a website is. Here are some of the ways it does this:
1. Author Transparency
Google is mindful of authorship. Demonstrating an author's name, experience, education, and other authorship identification attributes can help establish trust. If you're publishing "expert content," then it makes sense to show the person preparing the content has real-life experience or education.
2. Reliable Sources and Citations
Using reputable outside sources greatly enhances the quality of content while providing evidence to support industry's research and authority-approved information. For even more reliable and verified data, consider using a data enrichment tool. Use interactive tools like Outgrow to boost engagement and E‑A‑T with personalized, data-enriched content.
3. Quality Backlinks and Mentions
Quality backlinks from high-authority websites indicate trustworthy content. When other reputable websites link to or mention your content, it's a positive signal to search engines.
4. Current and Accurate Information
Search engines prefer content that is current. This is most important for time-sensitive topics (e.g., news, finance, or health).
5. Trust Signals on the Website
Having a complete About page, user-centric information - such as contact information, and a privacy policy - increases user's trust in the site or domain, which can indirectly help with SEO.
6. User Behavior Signals
Google may also take user engagement signals, like time on page or bounce rate, to indicate if the content is trustworthy and/or relevant.
How to Improve Your E-A-T and Increase Blog Traffic
Improving your blog’s E-A-T requires consistent effort. Here are practical ways to enhance your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness over time.
1. Create Author Bios and Profile Pages
You should always credit your authors. For each blog post, you can include short bios and if you prefer, you can also create an author profile page using customizable templates for faster formatting and consistency.. The bio can include information about the author's degree, number of years in practice, etc. It can also include information on the author's qualifications.
If you are solo blogging, then for you, there is the option to put this information on your About page or a signature at the bottom of each post.
2. Use Credible Sources and External Links
Assure your readers by backing up your claims with statistics, studies, or references to well-known publications. Linking to government websites, major universities, or reputable organizations will help add credibility to your content.
And please, do NOT give your readers unverified or really low-quality sources, especially for serious topics or sensitive topics.
3. Update Older Content
Make it a habit to check older blog posts and refresh them with new or updated explanations or data. This will help inform users and search engines that you have relevant and maintained content.
Consider including a note to advise readers when the last update was made to the blog so they know the condition of the content they are reading.
4. Get Other Authors and Content Creators to Reference or Mention You
When you get cited, this signals that websites you have mentioned have authority and can add credibility to your own site. You can request guest posting, email for a podcast, or ask to be included in an industry expert roundup.
Networking with other creators in a niche can give you an opportunity to gain backlinks, citations, or other mentions.
5. Write for People, Not Search Engines
Do not keyword stuff or write just for search engines for rankings. You want to write to solve actual issues for the consumer. Begin with headings, even sub-headings, use simple terms, readable sentences, and examples as required to make your content helpful and easy to read.
When you write useful and reliable content, your work will gain trust from users and search engines organically.
6. Be Open about Who You Are
Write a thorough About Page including your background, why your blog exists, and as much experience or achievements as you can.You should also provide instructions on how to write PO Box address if applicable. Additionally, ensure there is a way for users to reach out to you through an email address or contact form.
This kind of trust from your audience is what builds credibility and follows Google's expectations for reputable websites.
7. Safe and Clean Web Experience
Keep your site safe and secure by using HTTPS. Avoid too many ads, popups that are spammy, and clickbait style headlines. A safe, clean, and easy to use experience creates trust.
You don't need an extravagant website design, but your website should be laid out and easy to use!
8. Show Real Testimonials or Reviews
If you recommend services, tools, or any type of digital services on your blog, add user testimonials or case studies into your content. This type of social proof will only help build credibility for new visitors.
Real and verifiable reviews from customers or readers send a strong signal of trust. Leveraging GMB review management tools can help curate and showcase these testimonials more effectively, especially for service-based businesses.
Common Mistakes That Hurt E-A-T
Even experienced bloggers can diminish their E-A-T signals without knowing it. Here's a list of common issues that you should avoid:
- No author attribution: When you fail to attribute content to a particular person, it diminishes your authority and can make your site look generic - or possibly a scam.
- Outdated content: Posting old or incorrect information can hurt your E-A-T; this is especially true for serious topics that should have up-to-date information.
- Too many ads or affiliate links: If a site is over-monetized with programmatic ads and the explicit value to the reader is limited, trust levels can delve into the dirt.
- Low-quality backlinks: Purchasing links for your site or linking from spammy directories can jeopardize the reputation of your site, and have the opposite effect of building authority that you wanted.
Tracking E-A-T Progress Over Time
While E-A-T is not a metric scored like other metrics, there are ways to track EAT progress:
- Monitor referral domains using Ahrefs and SEMrush to track to whom you are linked.
- Monitor your search performance, impressions, average position, etc., in Google Search Console.
- Create Google Alerts for your blog or personal name to track your mentions.
- Regularly audit the content for quality, clarity, and relevance.
- These very insights will identify what is going well and what requires improvement.
