Definitions

We touched on the overall definition of E.A.T. earlier - but here’s some further detail for you:

Expertise - How knowledgeable the site owner or content author is on the subject matter they talk about. This is especially important for the aforementioned YMYL sites, not so much for gossip websites or similar. Are you an expert in your field?

Authoritativeness - The websites online profile in general and how google can perceive your brand to be positive or negative in the public eye. Are you an authority figure on your subject matter? Do you have some reviews somewhere that say you aren’t great and you don’t provide a good service (or the opposite).

Trustworthiness - Relating to the sites quality and ability to be trusted by a user. Specifically, elements around data and site security etc.

YMYL - what is and what is its relevance to E.A.T?

These guidelines were released as an addition to the earlier YMYL update focusing specifically on healthcare sites, which if you aren’t sure, stands for Your Money or Your Life Specifically defined by google as pages or websites that have an impact on the “happiness, health, financial stability, or safety of users.”

Examples that they give include:

• Shopping or financial transaction pages: webpages that allow users to make purchases, transfer money, pay bills, etc. online (such as online stores and online banking pages).
• Financial information pages: webpages that provide advice or information about investments, taxes, retirement planning, home purchase, paying for college, buying insurance, etc.
• Medical information pages: webpages that provide advice or information about health, drugs, specific diseases or conditions, mental health, nutrition, etc.
• Legal information pages: webpages that provide legal advice or information on topics such as divorce, child custody, creating a will, becoming a citizen, etc.
• News articles or public/official information pages important for having an informed citizenry: webpages that include information about local/state/national government processes, policies, people, and laws; disaster response services; government programs and social services; news about important topics such as international events, business, politics, science, and technology; etc. Please use your judgment and knowledge of your locale. Keep in mind that not all news articles are necessarily considered YMYL.
• Other: there are many other topics that you may consider YMYL, such as child adoption, car safety information, etc. Please use your judgment.

So what is the significance of E.A.T. with regards to YMYL and these types of websites?

E.A.T is effectively an extension to the YMYL guidelines and further defines what the Google’s algorithms will be evaluating when considering where your website should be positioned within the search results.

Ultimately, E.A.T can be summarised as trusted quality, and in order to build trusted quality, your SEO strategy needs to be more than just on page enhancements and an offsite linkbuilding campaign - it needs consider the different between a page that users what to use to know something and whether want to do something (such as buy a product or service)

Considering E.A.T., what should our SEO strategy look like?

Your SEO strategy should be an all-encompassing, 360 degree strategy, that considers:

Strategy Planning

• Who your target audience/s are
• What your target audience/s needs to complete a desired action online (and whether your site currently offers this)

Business offering & credibility

• Why your business can be trusted by these audiences
• How your website demonstrates your businesses ability to be trusted (security, accreditations, iso standards, testimonials, reviews etc)
• Is there opportunity to improve this trust

Relevancy  & Usefulness

• Detailed, relatable content to a users search query (how to guide, Q&A answers, video content)

Content & Digital PR

• What is your communication strategy for the year ahead?
• How are you utilising PR to expose your communications to your target audiences via trusted online websites (more than just a link building campaign, this is about getting market reach)
• Are you connecting with social influencers that can help share your communications (think Instagram, twitter, tik tok)

Google search quality guidelines

All of these guidelines in essence are covered within a document google released giving guidelines to its 10,000 strong quality raters - individuals worldwide that assist in checking and rating the  search engine results pages.
In essence, E-A-T requires auditing and planning of your business strategy as a whole. It is no longer safe to just consider how to get people online to convert and you should be considering how your business is perceived and trusted.

How can you measure your websites E.A.T?

As always, there is no clearly definitive way to measure your websites performance against such algorithms or guidelines. We recommend keeping an eye on the usual metrics, such as

• Domain authority
• Page authority
• Traffic
• Keyword visibility

My website isn’t in the medical or financial sector - does E.A.T. still apply to me?

Whilst google clearly states within its guidelines document that these guidelines primarily apply to medical and financial websites, at Polaris we believe its good to follow these guidelines regardless of your sector, as they are all indicative of providing website users with a website experience that’s informative, trustworthy, safe, and secure.

Keith Hodges, Head of Search at POLARIS, is an SEO expert with over 8 years experience in the industry. Heading up the search team at Polaris, the SEO agency specialises in campaigns for clients in the B2B, Retail and Services sectors. Keith enjoys technical SEO and the ever evolving landspace that is organic search, keeping up to date with changes in the industry and how these changes impact client accounts.