What is Google's E-A-T?
Google's EAT is an acronym from Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines in ‘Page Quality’-a 168-page document used by human quality raters to assess the quality of Google’s search results.
EAT stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. It is the metric by which Google determines the quality of a website, and its ability to rank.
Google published this document and made it available online in 2013 to help webmasters understand what Google looks for in a web page.
Why is EAT Important?
Google EAT, and compliance with EAT, is essential for SEO because it hugely impacts a website’s ranking in SERPs.
If Google finds that a website contains poorly researched content, with spelling and grammar issues, false information and spammy links throughout - it will not be promoted.
This means a fall in SERP ranking, less traffic, lower page visibility and fewer conversions.
For this reason it is vital that websites keep an eye on guideline updates to ensure that they don’t fall behind and miss key changes to EAT.
How can you Improve EAT?
Adhering to google's EAT is a great way to give your website a head start.
Below are some of the things you can do to improve your hypothetical EAT score, and glide up the rankings in SERPs.
1. Relevancy is Key
You should ensure that all of the content on your website is relevant to your company or brand. It makes no sense to write a blog about the best winter footwear when your website is dedicated to hairdressing.
This goes for your link building too. Make sure outbound links and backlinks are relevant and within the same industry as your own.
2. High Quality Content
Ensuring that your website’s content is high quality is a great way to improve your EAT score.
This means producing well-researched, unique content that is free of grammatical errors.
It should also be easily accessible and easy to read.
You should optimise your web page for target keywords and embed them within your content. Don’t forget to include them within your meta tags, alt text and URLs too.
Content should always be valuable. Be sure to fulfil searcher intent by aiming for the human reader rather than the bots.
3. Maintain a Good Reputation
Having a good reputation on-site and off-site is a great way to boost your EAT score. Keeping away from black hat SEO techniques and sticking to white hat SEO is a good step towards this.
Engaging with your audience by responding to comments either on your web page or social media platforms is also great for EAT.
Noting any awards you have won within your industry, as well as adding any good testimonials you have received to your website will also see a nod of approval.
Tools to help Improve Google EAT
We've already established that, Google determines the quality of a website and its ability to rank. These are some tools to help you improve your ETA score and improve your rankings as a result.
How Can We Help?
Think you’re just missing the mark in achieving a great google EAT score? We can help you.
We’ve got a great set of teams lined up ready to take on your projects - contact us today and we’ll pair you with the right one that will meet your needs!
If money is an issue, why not head over to our training courses instead? There you’ll find lessons teaching the techniques and practises that we’ve perfected over time so your own team can be in the know.
