When I’m not on the internet, I’m in my kitchen. I love cooking because I love eating. As an aspiring chef I’ve learned that food not only has to taste good, but has to look good, too.
The same is true for your website’s content.
Lately I’ve been reading Google’s Search Quality Guidelines. In case you don’t know, Google hires people to manually review web pages. They use this information to see if their algorithm is serving quality pages. Another way of looking at this: web pages that meet these standards are what Google hopes to serve to users.
So, if we want to show up in search results, we should follow these guidelines.
There is a lot of information packed into the Search Quality Guidelines. One of the most important factors behind a quality page is EAT.
EAT stands for Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness. Simply put, would you trust this webpage? There are a few ways that reviewers measure EAT.
There isn’t a universally accepted source of authority for all web pages. Each topic has different standards of authority. What is the topic of your company’s website? Who are the recognized authorities in your space? How can you incorporate this into your website’s content? Here are some suggestions:
Each web page has a different purpose. According to the guidelines, each page should help users accomplish this purpose. Authority sources should support your information. Here are some examples of how EAT can help you accomplish your purpose:
Under some topics, Google expects much higher standards of authority. These topics are about “your money or your life” topics (YMYL). These are websites that, if their information is incorrect, it could hurt someone’s money or life. Topics include (but are not limited to):
If you have a business- Google will hold you to a much stronger standard of EAT than a personal website. That makes EAT essential for commercial websites.
A Google Search Quality reviewer is assigning a quality score to a particular page. According to the guidelines, a page’s quality is a function of the website’s quality as a whole. That means a page cannot have quality unless it’s on a quality website. What does your website do to show it’s EAT? Here are some ideas:
Google encourages its reviewers to leave your website, to judge it’s EAT. Of course the testimonials and reviews on your website are going to be positive. Do a search of Google and see what people are saying about you. Include the word “reviews” with your brand name in that search. Does anyone have anything bad to say? Does anyone have anything to say? Here are some ways to do improve your EAT from other websites:
Can you think of any other ways to add EAT to a webpage, website or third-party website? Add your thoughts in the comments, below.
Reliable Acorn will help you create a custom digital marketing strategy that does just that.
Ready to Talk?