If there’s one thing Google loves, it’s EAT content.
If you’ve never heard of EAT, it has nothing to do with food—it’s an acronym that stands for authority, trust, and expertise.
According to DivvyHQ, the term was coined by Google in 2015 when they released their latest Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. The guidelines were written to help Google’s search engine evaluators assess the quality of web pages.
When assessing your website, search engine evaluators want to see that you have expertise on the subject you’re writing about and authority in your industry. They also want to make sure that you’re a trustworthy source that provides accurate information.
If they like what they see, they’ll give you a high EAT score. Boosting that score can improve your chances of ranking well, so you should do everything you can to raise it.
If you want to meet Google’s requirements for expertise, authority, and trust, here’s what you need to do.
How to produce content Google will eat up
Demonstrate expertise
To determine your level of expertise on the topic you’re writing about, search engine evaluators look at your qualifications and experience.
If a teacher writes about education, for example, she’ll earn high marks in this category.
But don’t think that you need a degree in the field you’re writing about to score well for expertise.
If you write about a hobby that you have several years of experience with, that should be enough to earn you a high expertise score.
Make sure that you include some information about your experience with the topic in your author bio and about page. If search engine evaluators can’t quickly find evidence of your expertise, they’ll give you a lower score.
Build authority
Becoming a known and respected authority in your industry is another strategy you can use to improve your EAT score and search engine rankings.
Two of the best ways to build your authority are:
- Writing guest posts for established websites in your industry
- Publishing high-quality content on your own website
As you publish more and more helpful content on your website and other blogs in your niche, you’ll gain backlinks and increase your site’s authority.
Cultivate trust
Another important aspect of EAT is trust. If your website isn’t a trustworthy, accurate source, it won’t rank well.
One of the best ways to establish your website as a trustworthy source is to publish high-quality content that’s factual, accurate, and valuable to readers.
You should also engage with your audience in the comments and on social media to get to know them and build relationships. After all, we trust people we know.
Why EAT is especially important for certain industries
Striving to create high-quality content is important no matter what industry your business is in. But if your business offers legal or financial advice, for example, you’ll have to put even more effort into building your authority and publishing accurate content.
Google puts an emphasis on page quality and EAT scores for websites that publish what they call “your money or your life” content. To give you an idea of what that means, here are some topics that fall under the category:
- Finance
- News and current affairs
- Government information
- Law
- Finance
- Health
- Ecommerce sites
You can see why Google pays extra attention to websites that cover these topics. Getting inaccurate health information could have a pretty negative impact on someone’s life and could even be dangerous.
So if your website falls under one of these categories, you’ll have to work harder to build your authority. Here are a few things you can do to ensure you’re getting a high EAT score across the board:
- Add clear customer service and contact information to your website
- Get more positive online reviews from your customers by encouraging them to write reviews
- Hire writers for your company blog who have relevant qualifications
Those are just a few suggestions, but hopefully they give you an idea of what you need to do to build social proof and get higher EAT scores.
If you want your company’s website to rank well, getting high EAT scores on your content is important.
But don’t worry too much. If you’re focused on publishing high-quality content that will help the visitors who land on your site, then high EAT scores will follow.