Digital marketing is a vast and rapidly changing landscape that works to keep the content we view relevant, interesting, and safe. One term that has increased in popularity over recent years is E-A-T, which has emerged not as a term for ranking your favourite takeaways, but rather as a tool in a search engine’s algorithm and their Search Quality Evaluator guidelines.
If you are looking to up your digital marketing game, then finding your way around E-A-T and using it to benefit your business could level up your content and SEO game.
What is E-A-T?
E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, three elements that serve as evaluative criteria used by search engines to gauge the quality and reliability of online content. It indicates whether a certain page is high-quality, making it helpful to users, and therefore determines how high up your content ranks in searches.
Below is a brief breakdown of what E-A-T stands for:
- Expertise – refers to the level of knowledge and proficiency in its subject matter. Content creators and websites should demonstrate their expertise through accurate, informative, and well-researched content.
- Authoritativeness – refers to the credibility and influence of the content creator, the content itself, and the website. An authoritative is likely to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
- Trustworthiness – refers to the reliability and integrity of the content. To establish trust, content should be transparent, verifiable, and free from misleading or deceptive practices.
Why is E-A-T so Important for SEO?
The terms “content is king” or “create high-quality content” are tossed around a lot in digital marketing, without an explanation as to what makes content quality. This is where E-A-T comes in, a search engines sprinkling of an insight into what makes content high-quality, which can have huge implications for content marketing and SEO. It also:
- Improves Search Rankings.
- Enhances User Experience.
- Builds Credibility and Reputation.
- Adapts to Algorithm Updates.
Does E-A-T Affect Rankings?
E-A-T cannot be classed as an actual ranking factor, but it can impact how your content ranks during a search. It may be confusing but being a guideline used by a search engine to determine the quality of the content, means that it can pull out the information that should be ranked higher by hitting different levels of its algorithm.
Implementing E-A-T Strategies to Improve SEO
Understanding E-A-T is only half the battle. Understanding how to implement it is where the golden ticket to content creation lies, so to give your SEO and content a glow-up, you can utilise the below steps:
- Create that High-Quality Content.
Focus on producing accurate, comprehensive, and valuable content through thorough research, reliable sources, and striving for clarity and readability.
- Clear Purpose –is your content trying to inform, explain, convince, or describe? Use headings to make its purpose clear and get to the point quickly using clear, straightforward language.
- Working with Experts – utilise field experts to ensure content is trustworthy and readable.
- Link to High-Quality Sources – using real data is a great way to implement trustworthiness and linking to official sources is the best way to do this.
- Be Transparent and Trustworthy.
Ensure the transparency and integrity of your website, from accurate contact information and clear privacy policies to secure payment gateways and authentic testimonials.
- Let Your Identity be Known – for a search engine to trust, it needs to know who you are, and so do your readers. About Us and Author pages are a simple way to do this.
- Online Reputation – encourage customers to leave positive reviews and respond to negative ones promptly and with humility, and if your brand has a slightly generic term, then claim all the special profiles you can to ensure no one else tries to use it for other means.
- Look at Various Viewpoints – try to research and explain different viewpoints where you can to establish trust with your audience.
- Establish Authority
Build credibility by showcasing your expertise, thought leadership, and original research, and build relationships with other reputable websites and influencers to earn backlinks and endorsements.
Optimise Technical SEO.
Improve technical aspects such as site speed, mobile responsiveness, and structured data markup to enhance user experience and search engine crawlability.
Give your SEO and Content a Glow-Up with the Help of a Digital Marketing Agency
Staying on top of your SEO and content creation is crucial and one of the best ways to do this is through implementing E-A-T. Search engines are continually refining their algorithms, which means in digital marketing, we need to constantly apply best SEO practices to ensure maximum visibility and relevance in search results.
RUN2 is a multi-award-winning digital marketing agency based in Manchester and we believe that by consistently producing expert, authoritative, and trustworthy content, your website can thrive. So, get in touch with our expert digital marketing agency today and see how we can level up your business.