EAT and SEO: How to Create Content That Google Wants

E-A-T means Expertise, Authoritative, and Trustworthiness. It’s a significant portion of Google’s Quality Rater’s Guidelines, which give you a glimpse into the factors that the tech magnate uses to evaluate the content, the Search Engine Journal explains. Sites with low E-A-T pages need to improve the quality of the content they put out there if they have any hope of recovering from the massive drop in rankings and loss of subsequent traffic. By using E-A-T, websites undergoing penguin penalty recovery efforts can develop high-quality content, precisely the kind that Google wants.

What is E-A-T?

You already know what it stands for. However, let’s dig a little deeper. A better understanding of what E-A-T is about can help you in your quest to improve your content.

• The author of the content should be an expert in the field or topic.
• The author of the content should be an authority in the field.
• The website posting the content should be trustworthy.

If your visitors see these three factors in play, then they know that they can trust your site, the Medium says. If you want your pages to recover from a Google penalty, then start paying attention to E-A-T as it involves your website pages. Improving efforts in these areas will also improve your chances of achieving SEO and content marketing success.

Why Does It Matter?

Google uses E-A-T to assess the quality of a page, or essentially, it’s value. Google has always said that providing a better user experience will get you a higher spot on the Search Engine Results Pages. Better E-A-T is a massive part of that. If you want to rank higher on the SERPs, you’ll need to improve the E-A-T of your content. With the latest Google update, E-A-T is now a significant aspect of your SEO campaigns and efforts.

How to Use E-A-T?

• Optimize your content. Do that by showing you understand the needs of your audience thoroughly. More than traditional keyword research, you’ll need to focus on the user. What kind of queries do they have? What’s the intent behind them? Anticipate that information and optimize your content to provide your target market with what they need.
• Improve quality. Continue to focus on building better content. Back up claims with supporting evidence. Make the content mobile-friendly to ensure easy consumer consumption and access. Provide real value by talking about topics that matter to your audience.
• Show credentials. Your target market needs to know that s/he can trust the information on your site. Don’t be afraid to post your credentials, training, and experience. That will send trust signals to your readers. Google will also reward that by improving the rank of your pages.
• Expand your authority. If you don’t have an influencer on staff, build the authority of your site and authors online. Get your staff’s name out there by using guest posting on leading sites. That will contribute to the outcome you want.

What Else Do I Need to Know?

The E-A-T of your content will affect your score, whatever industry or field you’re in. But there are simple ways through which to improve your content. If your current content is bad, hire pros to help you. Find an SEO marketing firm to get your content up to scratch.