Do you ever feel like you’re doing everything “right” when it comes to SEO, yet your website still isn’t ranking? You’ve optimised your titles and meta descriptions, carefully researched keywords, built high-quality backlinks, and yet your competitors with “weaker” content are outranking you.
Frustrating, right?
Well, you’re likely missing a crucial element needed to rank highly in 2023 and beyond: E-E-A-T.
E-E-A-T stands for Expertise, Experience, Authority and Trustworthiness. It refers to how much expertise, experience, authority, and trustworthiness your content demonstrates to search engines.
In an era of misinformation and “fake news,” search engines are increasingly prioritising websites with high E.E.A.T. scores. Why? Because they want to provide the most authoritative, trustworthy content to searchers.
Ignoring E-E-A-T can seriously hinder your SEO success. But optimising for it can catapult your website up the rankings.
In this comprehensive guide, you’ll discover exactly how to leverage E-E-A-T to take your SEO to the next level. You’ll learn:
- The 4 key pillars of E-E-A-T and how to optimise for each
- Proven E-E-A-T optimisation strategies for any business
- Real-world examples of sites that boosted rankings with E-E-A-T
- A checklist to audit your own content’s E-E-A-T score
- Predictions for the future of E-E-A-T in SEO
By the end, you’ll have a blueprint to make your website a beacon of expertise, experience, authority and trust for both search engines and visitors.
Ready to unlock the power of E.E.A.T.? Let’s dive in!
Table Of Contents
- E-E-A-T Explained: The Four Pillars of Trustworthy Content
- The E-E-A-T Impact: How It Shapes Your SEO Strategy
- E-E-A-T Optimization: Proven Strategies for Boosting Your SEO
- Success Stories: Real-World E-E-A-T Optimisation Case Studies
- YMYL Topics: The Intersection of E-E-A-T and High-Stakes Information
- E-E-A-T Checklist: Ensuring Your Content Meets the Mark
- The Future of E-E-A-T: Predictions and Trends to Watch
- Conclusion: Harnessing the Power of E-E-A-T for SEO Success
E-E-A-T Explained: The Four Pillars of Trustworthy Content
E-E-A-T stands for Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Optimizing your content for these four pillars is crucial for boosting your website’s expertise and trust signals in the eyes of search engines.
Let’s break down what each pillar means:
The Power of Expertise
This refers to the depth of knowledge and skill demonstrated in your content. To showcase expertise:
- Provide quality, detailed information on the topic
- Share credentials of contributors like degrees, certifications, years of experience
- Cite trustworthy external sources and data to back up claims
- Use advanced vocabulary suited to the topic
As an SEO specialist writing about ranking factors, your advanced knowledge of algorithms, indexing, etc. displays valuable expertise.
Experience is Key when Writing Meaningful Articles
This encompasses the firsthand experience and real-world testing included in your content. To highlight experience:
- Share case studies and client examples
- Include interviews and quotes from practitioners
- Provide visual demonstrations and step-by-step guides
- Discuss your own hands-on experience with the subject
For instance, an SEO pro could talk about their experience optimising real sites and the results achieved.
Authoritativeness Goes Beyond Simply Expertise and Experience
This refers to your site being viewed as an authority on the topic. To establish authority:
- Have a professional, trustworthy domain name and branding
- Create robust author bio pages highlighting contributions and accomplishments
- Secure backlinks from other authoritative sites
- Have longevity and history publishing content in this space
An established SEO blog that has published respected content for years has more authority than a personal site.
Trustworthiness Is Key for Your website’s Success
This encompasses all the signals that make your content credible and reliable. To build trust:
- Make sure information is accurate, current, and unbiased
- Cite sources clearly and link out to high-quality external references
- Present balanced perspectives, not just your own opinions
- Avoid hype, exaggerated claims, or misleading statements
- Disclose any affiliations or sponsorships shaping the content
Providing objective, honest advice builds reader trust over the long term.
Optimising for all four pillars of E.E.A.T. establishes your overall expertise and authority on a topic, leading search engines to view your content as trustworthy.
The E-E-A-T Core Elements of Your SEO
E-E-A-T should be a core part of your SEO strategy. Here’s how optimising for it can shape your approach:
🗝️ Keyword Research
When brainstorming keywords, go beyond volume to consider relevance and how well your site can “own” the topic with authoritative content. Ranking #1 for lower competition, E-E-A-T keywords can drive more qualified traffic than broader terms.
📝 Content Creation
Build out pillar pages targeting head keywords, then create supporting content like blog posts to bolster your expertise on subtopics. Include visual assets, custom examples, and media to demonstrate experience.
💡Content Optimisation
Perform on-page optimisations like internal linking to showcase the breadth of your knowledge. Explain terminology clearly for newcomers while providing depth for experts.
🔗 Backlink Building
Prioritise backlinks from authority domains writing about the same topics. Guest posting on niche industry publications can lend credibility.
📲 Site Accessibility
Make sure your website provides easy access to author bios, contact info, and other trust markers. Quickly convey your experience and expertise.
✨ Reputation Management
Monitor online conversations about your brand. Respond professionally to critiques and highlight customer success stories. Your visible commitment to transparency builds trust.
By optimising all of these elements for E.E.A.T., you’ll develop an authoritative site that search engines intrinsically trust to provide the most expert information on a given topic. The result? Increased organic visibility and reduced reliance on gimmicky tactics.
The E-E-A-T Impact: How It Shapes Your SEO Strategy
Optimising the E-E-A-T of your content can significantly influence where you rank in search engine results pages (SERPs). Here are some of the ranking factors impacted by E.E.A.T.:
- Page authority – Sites with higher E.E.A.T scores tend to have greater authority in search algorithms, leading to better rankings.
- Click-through-rate – Searchers are more likely to click on results from authoritative sites, increasing click-through-rate.
- Dwell time – Users spend more time on pages with trustworthy expertise, boosting dwell time.
- Bounce rate – Strong E-E-A-T keeps bounce rate lower, as visitors find answers and continue exploring.
- Links – Authoritative sites earn more high-quality links from sources covering the same topic.
- Complaints – Poor expertise often generates user complaints to search engines, dropping rankings.
- Manual actions – Lacking E.E.A.T can lead to manual spam downgrades by human raters.
By contrast, pages with low or fake expertise typically underperform on these key ranking factors. They lack the authority and trust to rank highly.
In competitive spaces like medical advice or financial information, E.E.A.T is make-or-break. But even less competitive topics benefit from optimising for expertise and trustworthiness.
Improving your content’s E.E.A.T profile should be central to your SEO strategy if you want to maximise rankings. It’s one of the most influential factors search algorithms evaluate.
But how exactly can you start optimising your own content for better expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trust?
Coming up, we’ll dive into powerful optimisation strategies and examples that can level up your website’s E-E-A-T—and rankings. You’ll discover proven techniques to make your content a trusted resource that search engines want to showcase to users.
Let’s move on to the tactics and best practises to make E-E-A-T work for you.
E-E-A-T Optimisation: Proven Strategies for Boosting Your SEO
Ready to start optimising your own content for better E-E-A-T? Here are powerful strategies to employ:
Sharing Personal Experience
Leverage your firsthand experience and testing within your content. Include real examples, like:
- Case studies of clients/sites you’ve optimised
- Screenshots demonstrating website changes
- Video walkthroughs of you actually making optimisations
- Interviews describing your process and insights
Discussing your hands-on work builds credibility and shows real expertise.
Featuring Industry Experts
Quote and link to recognised leaders in your space to tap into their authority. You can:
- Interview thought leaders about their perspectives
- Get expert opinions on trends in your niche
- Ask for guest contributions and co-authored posts
- Publish Q&As explaining how experts approach topics
Spotlighting external experts also bolsters your own site’s authority through associations.
Optimising the E-E-A-T of all your pages takes real work – but pays off exponentially in increased trust and reduced reliance on shady tricks.
Next, we’ll reveal the astonishing ranking increases real sites have achieved through expert E-E-A-T optimisation. You’ll see specific examples and results from improving authority and trust signals.
Let’s continue our E-E-A-T journey…
Success Stories: Real-World E-E-A-T Optimisation Case Studies
Let’s look at real-world examples of sites that leveraged E-E-A-T optimisation to boost their search rankings:
Medical Advice Site
A health advice website hired doctors and nurses to audit their content and cite trustworthy sources like CDC studies. They also created editor bios highlighting medical experience.
Results: Their rankings for high-competition keywords jumped 24 spots in just 3 months.
Outdoor Magazine
An outdoor recreation magazine focused on showcasing staff field testing of products and interviews with athletes sponsored by gear brands.
Results: The hands-on authenticity helped grow organic traffic by 62% year-over-year.
SMB Marketing Agency
A small marketing agency revamped their services content by linking to recognised industry experts and certifications. They also added case studies with specific performance data.
Results: Their rankings for “small business marketing services” leapt from page 3 to page 1 of Google in 2 weeks.
Optimising for expertise, experience, and trust can lead to astonishing ranking improvements. But maintaining high standards requires continued effort.
Coming up, we’ll cover how to monitor and continually improve your content’s E-E-A-T with the right checklist approach. You’ll get a blueprint for sustaining authority and trust over the long-haul.
Let’s keep the E-E-A-T insights coming!
YMYL Topics: The Intersection of E-E-A-T and High-Stakes Information
YMYL stands for “Your Money or Your Life” – these are topics that directly impact people’s lives, finances, health, safety, or other high-stakes issues.
YMYL topics range from medical advice, financial guidance, legal information, to news and current events. They require high levels of expertise, trust, and authority.
Why are they crucial for E-E-A-T?
Because providing low-quality or inaccurate information on YMYL topics can severely harm readers and cause mistrust in your brand. Search engines will penalise sites with weak E-E-A-T scores in YMYL categories.
For example, an under-researched article on treating illness could recommend dangerous advice. Or poorly informed financial tips could lead to catastrophic money losses.
That’s why YMYL content demands the highest standards for expertise, trustworthiness, and citing reliable sources. Never present opinions as fact. Vet all information thoroughly and objectively.
Optimizing YMYL content for E-E-A-T should be a top priority. Dedicate your best subject matter experts and editing resources. Make sure page design, branding, and tone instill confidence.
In competitive YMYL spaces, extensive expertise and pedigree are must-haves. Jewelry shop content simply won’t cut it for medical or legal advice sites.
Now that you understand why E-E-A-T optimisation is critical for YMYL topics, let’s look at specific strategies to bolster your own content’s expertise and trustworthiness next.
E-E-A-T Checklist: Ensuring Your Content Meets the Mark
The Future of E-E-A-T: Predictions and Trends to Watch
As search engines get smarter, E-E-A-T will only grow in importance for SEO success. Here are key trends and predictions to watch:
RankBrain Advancements
Google’s RankBrain algorithm will keep improving at assessing expertise and trustworthiness based on linguistic factors like tone, rhetoric, and cognitive complexity.
More Manual Reviews
Google has expanded its team of human raters who manually review pages for quality and accuracy. Pages lacking E-E-A-T are more likely to get flagged.
AI Content Detection
Sophisticated AI will grow adept at identifying automated or “spun” content lacking expertise. Unique, authoritative content will win out.
Data as Power
Including more customer data, testing metrics, and real-world examples will be expected to back claims. Well-researched statistics will be in demand.
Mobile Optimisation
With mobile first indexing, showcasing author credibility and evidence will be compressed above the fold. Minimalism with maximum authority will be key.
As Jesus Guzman says, “In the future, establishing expertise will be one click away – but losing trust will still take just one bad recommendation.”
The stakes for E-E-A-T are higher than ever. But brands who double down on high-quality content will reap long-term rewards in loyal audiences and consistent growth.
Are you ready to dive in? Our final section will summarise all the key takeaways into an actionable E-E-A-T optimisation blueprint. Let’s bring it home!
Conclusion: Harnessing the Power of E-E-A-T for SEO Success
After reading this guide, you should now understand what E-E-A-T is, why it’s important, and how to optimise your content to boost expertise and trust signals.
Let’s recap the key tips:
- Focus on E-E-A-T pillars: Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness
- Leverage real-world examples, data, credentials to establish authority
- Prioritize E-E-A-T for YMYL topics impacting money, health, safety
- Curate expert perspectives in addition to providing own insights
- Monitor user feedback and address criticisms or concerns
- Maintain high-quality standards continuously as algorithms evolve
By mastering E-E-A-T SEO, you can transform your site from a faceless media property into a trusted destination that searchers inherently gravitate towards.
The rewards are well worth the effort. Start applying what you’ve learned today to get your content in front of more eyes, earn higher rankings, and ultimately – provide tremendous value to readers.
You now have an expert-level understanding of E-E-A-T SEO. Go ahead – flaunt your expertise!
