By Karen Kleinman
E-E-A-T is not Google’s attempt to join the food delivery business; it is Google’s attempt to provide guidance for creating quality content for the web. To rank higher in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), forget about tricks and techniques to fool search engines. Google wants to show content that is helpful, useful, factual, easy to find, and easy to understand by human standards.
Introduction to E-E-A-T
Google's focus on Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) aims to ensure that content not only ranks well but also provides genuine value to readers. The inclusion of "Experience" emphasizes the value of personal insight and the practical application of knowledge. Writing with E-E-A-T in mind requires a balance between SEO and crafting informative, reader-centered content.
Understanding E-E-A-T
· Expertise: Showcasing your knowledge and skill in your content area.
· Experience: Sharing personal experiences that add a unique perspective.
· Authoritativeness: Establishing your site or yourself as a go-to authority on your topics.
· Trustworthiness: Earning your audience's trust through accurate and reliable content.
Implementing E-E-A-T in Content Creation
Identify Your Audience: Know who you are writing for to tailor your content to their needs and questions. If you are the business owner of a dry-cleaning service, your audience is people who:
· Don’t have time to do laundry, like business executives who are always on the go, but need to make a good first impression with their attire.
· Have laundry that requires special care, such a leather skirt or a silk dress that can’t be cleaned at home.
· Have a difficult laundry issue that needs to be addressed by a professional, such as getting a stain out of a pair of pants.
How To Choose Your Content Topics
After identifying your audience, you should have a mental image of them. Think about their demographics, the kinds of situations that would lead them to use your product or service? How would your product or service benefit them? What questions would they ask?
Create a narrative where your product or service solves their problem or would make their task, job, or life easier.
Utilizing E-E-A-T
Expertise and Experience:
· Use personal anecdotes and case studies to illustrate points.
· Cite credentials and relevant experiences to build credibility.
· Contribute unique insights derived from personal or professional experience.
Authoritativeness:
· Enhance your site’s reputation through quality content.
· Get recognized by your peers, provide guest posts on other sites, and engage in relevant online communities.
· Make sure your website clearly displays your credentials and affiliations.
Trustworthiness:
· Be transparent, especially about your qualifications and any potential biases.
· Ensure your content is accurate and cite reputable sources when necessary.
· Employ a secure and user-friendly website design.
Keywords: Quality Over Quantity
· Avoid over-optimization for search engines. If you have done the research and planned accordingly, your keywords will automatically be in your content.
· Write naturally, prioritizing informative and engaging content. Make sure your content makes sense if read aloud.
· Utilize keywords thoughtfully, ensuring they fit organically within your content. There should be no need to stuff keywords into your content or be unnaturally repetitive with keywords.
Feedback and Improvement:
· Encourage and pay attention to user feedback.
· Use analytics to understand how well your content performs from a user engagement perspective.
· Update content regularly to keep it accurate and relevant.
Challenges and Solutions
· Balancing SEO and User-Focused Content: While SEO is crucial, a user-focused approach necessitates providing real value, beyond keyword optimization. Solve this by ensuring your content is designed to answer questions or solve problems faced by your audience.
· Maintaining Credibility: Regularly update your content to reflect the latest information and developments in your field. Engage with your audience and peers to stay relevant and authoritative. Don’t be afraid to share the stumbling blocks or set-backs with your readers that you experience.
· Promotion: Share your content in online communities, social networks, and ask for backlinks to your content where appropriate.
· Recognizing Realistic Timelines: Being able to provide E-E-A-T in your content and to your audience isn’t something that can happen overnight. It takes time and work to establish your Expertise, Experience, Authority, and Trustworthiness. It also requires forethought and planning to create content for your audience that is timely and relevant, not just for them, but for them right now! Keep in mind that you know your business better than anyone else, so take the time to put in the work it requires to show and convince your audience that your voice is a voice that should matter.
How To Get E-E-A-T?
To adhere to Google's E-E-A-T principles with content writing, writers can enhance their Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness through specific approaches and practices.
· Expertise: Writers can demonstrate expertise by obtaining formal education, certifications, or training in their respective fields. Publishing detailed explanations, thorough analyses, and well-researched content consistently will also help establish their expertise. Expertise is not limited to professional achievements; it also includes the depth of knowledge shared in the content, ensuring it's accurate and informative.
· Experience: Experience is shown through personal narratives or case studies that underline the writer’s direct interaction with the topics they discuss. For instance, a home improvement blogger might share detailed project chronicles, while a healthcare professional might discuss case studies from their practice, emphasizing practical insights gained through firsthand experience.
· Authoritativeness: To be considered authoritative, a writer should strive to be recognized by peers in their industry. This can be achieved by earning endorsements from reputable experts, accumulating substantial citations from influential publications, or contributing to prestigious journals and events in their field. Authoritativeness is also built through creating content that others see as reliable enough to reference and share.
· Trustworthiness: Establishing trustworthiness involves consistent accuracy in content, transparency about sources, and honesty about the context and limitations of the provided information. It's also critical to ensure the security of the website, showing users that their privacy and data are protected, which Google sees as part of trustworthiness.
Creating website content for human viewers, according to Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines, involves a significant shift from traditional SEO strategies. It emphasizes expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness as pillars of content creation. By focusing on providing real value to your audience—combining personal insight with professional expertise—you can create content that not only ranks well but also genuinely meets the needs of your readers.
Remember, the core of E-E-A-T is authenticity and user value. Make those your priority, and your content will naturally appeal to both your audience and search engines.