How E-A-T can influence Google Ranking

Google keeps rolling out new algorithms regularly and this is when we need to create high quality content, understand websites, human minds and make the search results useful to the audience.

Google EAT is one such example that can create a huge shift in website rankings and SEO.

In this article we will explore:

What is EAT?

Who does it affect?

How to make EAT work in your favor.

 

What is E.A.T?

E.A.T stands for expertise, authority and reliability.

Expertise means being an expert in the industry or in your field and you need to create content that delivers your knowledge in a way your target audience understands.

Authority comes when you are the creator of original content and others start siting your content in their articles.

Trustworthiness is the reliability and credibility of the content, website, and content creator.

Who does EAT affect?

E.A.T affects the YMYL websites the most. YMYL is the acronym for “your money your life” and includes websites that have the potential to affect people’s future, security, finances, legality or health in real life.

These may include, sites related to financial services, healthcare providers, legal advisors and even sites that contain information about government policies science and technology etcetera.

How to make EAT work in your favor.

As per Google, E.A.T is very important for websites that fall under the category of YMYL (Your Money or Your Life)

Here are some guidelines that are important when it comes to making EAT work for you:

• Match the search intent with the deliverable.

Focus is the key. Keep the end goal in mind and create content that aligns itself to the search intent. Google has a way of knowing what the intention of the user is. For example, if the user types “best 4G phones”, the intent is to know the features and compare products. Not to make the final purchase. Google displays all necessary information that helps the user move towards final purchase, from features, comparisons and price listings.

 

The more your content is aligned to the user intent, the higher your rankings in the Google domain. The trick is to keep updating, keep relaunching and improve user interface to be at the top of the list as far as Google Ranks are concerned.

• Author credibility – highlight the author’s bio.

Every time we mention the authors bio it gives more credibility to the content. Google can easily do a background check to know the experience, knowledge and authenticity of the author related to the topic in question. This is even more relevant for YMYL sites. For example, it is best to get your medical questions related to pregnancy answered by a reputed medical practitioner on a relevant medical web page rather than a blog by a new mom.

• Remove unsatisfactory level of site information or useless information.

Data cleaning can help you make your site garner more relevance. This can be done in various ways, the most common ones being:

• De-duplication or removal of duplicate/irrelevant reflections.
• Removal of inconsistencies and fixing fundamental errors. For example, if you are using the term etc. this should be used across all contents and use of etcetera should be avoided. This gives credibility and creates brand consistency for all user interfaces.
• Validation – Make sure whatever goes up comes from a credible source, is well researched and ethical. This will enhance the originality and validity of the data in turn increasing your SEO score.

This is an on-going exercise and must be repeated at regular intervals for better traction and to make your content more powerful when it comes to Google ratings.

• Update relevant content.

We can’t emphasize more on content being the king. You have to understand your TG and catch the pulse of the audience.

• Do a quick check on any posts that needs to be updated, keep upgrading the site with regular and new content,
• Make the most of the key words by repeating it or using close synonyms for it,
• Make it attractive, add visuals or infographics or
• Simply relaunch an evergreen old post.

An example how making repeated use of any keyword can land your site on the top organic search.

• Get mentions on blogs, articles, social media and other relevant sites.

The best way to develop authority is through credibility and originality. When bloggers, other competitors etc. start citing your work in their content you gain credibility. A wiki mention is a sure shot winner, remember that getting a wiki page is not an easy task but the effort is worth it.

• Backlinks

These are like votes from other websites. The more the votes, the higher your ranking. But the catch is that the sites where your backlink features should have huge domain authority. For example, it would be better to have a backlink in Forbes site than any random site. The more Authority the carrier domain has the more your backlink can garner credibility for you.

• Correct grammar and simplified jargons targeted at your audience.

An article on biotechnology could be really outstanding coming from a professor at IIT (Roorkee) but may still not be able to gain top ranking as it may not be able to meet the search intent of the users. The article should be understandable and written in common man’s language for better understanding, the same if vetted by an expert can score more.

 

On parting thoughts, we firmly believe that the E.A.T will not be limited to the rankings of YMYL sites but will encompass all other genres with its added scrutiny and check levels. After all, “Google knows it All”!