EAT and SEO: authority and positioning

E.A.T. is a relatively recent concept in the SEO world, but it is sometimes used without much rigor. In this article, we want to take a deeper look at the EAT factors and how they can help improve your website’s search rankings.

What is EAT?

EAT is an acronym that stands for "Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness". It is a key concept in SEO, as Google takes these three factors into account when deciding which pages should appear in search results. Or rather, it is one of the factors considered, along with many others that we have discussed in other blog posts and that are summarized in its guide Google Search Essentials. These factors are important for SEO because they help determine the quality of content and whether it is relevant to users. Good EAT content focuses on providing accurate, useful and trustworthy information. By having a high level of EAT, your website will be more visible in search results and will have a greater chance of generating traffic.

Expertise

Expertise refers to the quality and quantity of content published by a website, but above all to having a high level of knowledge in a specific field. Google will also take into account the authorship of the content: a great anonymous SEO article will not carry the same weight as one like this, signed by a specialist in the field with more than 10 years of experience — that is, a professional with proven experience and deep knowledge of the subject, who is recognized in the sector and generates trust.

For Google, a website with more relevant and high-quality content will be more trustworthy. Regarding quantity, we believe it does not refer so much to the word count of most of its content, since Google has confirmed that there is no optimal content length for ranking, nor even a minimum one. What truly matters is that the content is relevant and responds to the user’s search intent. If a user asks Google a question and we can answer it in 100 words, we do not need a thousand — as long as we meet their demand and do not create false expectations, which could lead to high bounce rates or pogo sticking. It is clear that it refers to the breadth of the website, in the sense that a site with 200 URLs containing solid content will always be more relevant than one with three pages. Unless the topic is very small and simple, with so little content it is impossible to present yourself as a major expert in the field. The recipe here would be to build generous websites in terms of content around a topic and avoid or limit URLs that could be considered thin content.

Authority

Authority refers to the reputation of the website. A website with a good reputation is more likely to rank higher in search results. Reputation may seem abstract, but for Google it is not. The algorithm takes into account fundamental aspects such as:

• Links to our website: it will evaluate whether we have backlinks from other sites pointing to ours, and whether these are of the highest possible quality and relevance, thematically or geographically related to ours, and whether the link profile appears natural rather than manipulated through practices Google dislikes, such as buying or exchanging links.
• Brand searches: one way the algorithm measures our authority is through searches performed by users on Google including our brand, team members, products or services. There is a black hat SEO technique that we would never recommend, although it works in the short term, which involves hiring automated traffic to perform brand searches in the search engine, or even better, brand + target keyword searches.
• Brand mentions: Google Search representatives such as John Mueller have confirmed on several occasions that Google not only crawls links to our website, but also takes brand mentions into account. Therefore, any mention you obtain in media, blogs or websites — even without a link — also contributes to EAT and SEO.
• Presence and relevance on social media: having well-managed social media profiles with strong traffic is considered, but especially their relevance. So-called social signals include mentions, likes or comments on our profiles or mentioning our brand. Social networks such as Twitter or TikTok are increasingly integrated into Google’s results, and the search engine can drive traffic not only to our website, but also to our social media profiles.
• Reviews and recommendations both from customers/users and influential people in the sector.

Trust

Trust factors are more related to the presumption of truthfulness of our content and the transparency we provide. Although this is complex to verify and label, we do know that having external trust certifications or third-party review tools that evaluate customer experience are helpful factors.

Imagine we visit the website of a dental clinic: the user will feel reassured knowing there is a physical office, that the professionals are registered with their association, that the website is accredited by a medical or ethical authority, that it has reviews from satisfied customers not written by the clinic itself, or that they can see detailed information about the dentists (name, license number, qualifications, CV, etc.). Google will feel reassured as well — it will want to show results from dental clinic websites that inspire trust. These common-sense elements must be kept in mind when working on your website, and properly tagged according to Google standards, such as Schema protocols for rich data.

We also know that in particularly sensitive topics requiring rigor, it is essential to cite verified sources, as we would in an academic paper, adapted to an online format.

From EAT to EEAT

In December 2022, Google announced an expansion of the EAT concept by adding a new E focused on Experience. The concept is now temporarily known as EEAT. The goal of this expansion is for Google to especially value evidence that we have actually tested the service, product or business.

EAT in YMYL sites

You should keep in mind that while these principles apply generally, and you would do well to consider them in all web projects you launch, there are sectors where working on E.A.T. is not just a recommendation, but a clear obligation. These are the so-called YMYL (Your Money Your Life) sectors, as they involve topics of extreme sensitivity for users, directly affecting our lives and finances. Health websites, therapies, medications, legal services, banking, mortgages and similar sites must pay close attention to all the aspects mentioned in this post, as there is already strong evidence that in recent Google core updates EAT has had a massive impact on rankings and traffic.

How we work on EAT at Latevaweb

Every SEO project, as you already know and as we have explained many times on this blog, is a world of its own. But sometimes we need tangible examples to inspire our path. So we thought we would explain some EAT improvement measures that we have applied to ourselves and that, whenever possible, we encourage our clients to implement:

1. Quality content: if you are reading this post and have made it this far, you already have an idea of what is offered. You can continue browsing the website; you will find a lot of content, all carefully planned, reflected upon and manually crafted with care. We also work, whenever possible, to refresh and update content that may have become outdated over time — something very likely in fields such as ours, digital marketing.
2. Official certifications: both the agency and the professionals providing services within it frequently work with tools such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Prestashop or Google Analytics. In addition to offering high-quality service to clients, we obtain certifications to validate our knowledge and performance with these tools.
3. Transparency: on our website you have multiple opportunities to verify that we are a real agency, with employees, a physical office, a team with names and surnames, specialties and real lives.
4. Authorship: you will notice that this blog post is signed by Bruno in this case. The author has a biography, is delivered to Google with the corresponding schema markup, and you can even access the author’s own page with contact details and a list of published posts on the website — something you have probably seen in many media outlets.
5. Life beyond: although agency dynamics can be very inward-looking or focused on client work, we must make an effort to nurture and promote our presence beyond our immediate circle, thus strengthening our brand reputation and recognition of our work and experience.