4 Things You Can Do to Improve Your Google E-E-A-T Rating Right Now

On August 1, 2018, Google rolled out its broad core algorithm update to make content more relevant. And several months back, they revamped their 166-page internal document—Search Quality Rating Guidelines—a document which spends significant time talking about how to create this relevant content, and about something called EEAT.

Put simply, E-E-A-T refers to expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. Boosting your hypothetical E-E-A-T score will, in general, improve your chances of ranking well on the search engine results pages.

Here’s how you can start taking steps towards doing that today.

1. Add Author Information to Editorial Content

Google Quality Guidelines clearly indicate that “Understanding who is responsible for a website is a critical part of assessing E-E-A-T.” In particular, YMYL (Your Money Your Life) sites, such as healthcare and wellness websites, contain sensitive content that must be created by trusted, authoritative experts.

On landing pages for products or services, Google’s guidelines suggest that customer support and business contact information should be readily available.

But for blog posts, the reputation of its creators is extremely important, especially when a website utilizes different authors or content creators. A “Low” quality score indicates that there’s no visible evidence that the author has expertise on that particular topic.

2. Invest Time in Personal Branding

Raters are encouraged to consider reputation information created by third parties, which means that a positive personal brand is essential to compete with others in your niche. While reputation information isn’t always available for small businesses, large organizations are held to a higher standard.

If reputation and EEAT for the content creator are “lacking for the purpose of the page, the Low or Lowest rating is appropriate.” Spreading misinformation will only prevent others from trusting your reliability.

SEO experts also recommend fleshing out the About page on your website by mentioning all the publications on which you’re featured. Businesses should also fill out social media profiles and interact with users on their platforms in order to develop connections and trust.

3. Remove Low E-E-A-T Content

According to the Google search quality guidelines, websites that use individual authors should be evaluated based on each post and page of the website. However, low E-E-A-T content on a single page doesn’t necessarily impact the rating of other pages. The trustworthiness and authority of your website and brand are also taken into consideration.

What it does mean is that cutting pages with low E-E-A-T content is worth the potential loss of short-term traffic. Instead, rework the page to boost your E-E-A-T score.

How you choose to rework and repurpose depends on your business and website. For example, if you’re managing a YMYL website, ensure that the content is curated by experts in your niche.

4. Secure Your Site with Technical Security

Apart from quality content, backlinks and author reputation, website security ranks as equally influential to reputation and accuracy. For example, when users on an e-commerce site proceed to a checkout page, the connection should be verifiably secure.

Now that Chrome marks all HTTP pages as “Not Secure,” any site without an SSL certificate and that does not redirect automatically to an HTTPS URL is risking their E-E-A-T rating. Verifiable badges and certifications, such as BBB and Google Checkout logos, should also help earn a “Highest” quality rating.

Conclusion

The most recent changes to Google’s quality rater guidelines, and the core algorithm update, place authority, expertise, and trustworthiness at the forefront of site ranking factors. Starting today, take action to improve your SEO strategy and secure your position in search results by improving your E-E-A-T.

Contact our digital marketing experts at RLC Media to start growing your online business today.