Google Likes to EAT: What A Website’s EAT is All About

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BY Chris Loomis

Have you come across a website and thought: “Is this article trustworthy?” “Is the writer an expert in this subject?” “Where did the writer find the article source(s)?” 

People rely on Google for information. But there a LOT of information on Google after entering your keywords on the search engine bar. The question is which of the results you are going to click and consider a “trustworthy” source? Is your website trustworthy to begin with? 

This is where the concept of EAT comes into the picture. For starters, EAT in Google talk stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google uses these factors to evaluate the content and whether it can be trusted by users. Here’s what you need to know about Google’s EAT concept. 

 

EAT: Google’s core concept in content ranking 

As we all know, Google is in a constant battle with poor content on its search engine results. More than ever, users are looking for quality and trustworthy content over misleading and spammy ones. This is how EAT helps filter the good over the bad ones. 

Google likes expertly written authoritative, and trustworthy content. These core signals help the search engine judge the overall quality of content. Google also has a Search Quality Rater guideline which shows what the algorithm should be doing. Also, EAT is more heavily used on sites called YMYL websites short for “Your Money or Your Life”. 

YMYL websites are those pages that can greatly impact one’s life – physically, mentally, and financially. Examples of YMYL websites touch topics such as: 

 

  • Health, wellness, and safety 
  • Finance 
  • News and current events 
  • Retail
  • Government/law/civics 

 

These sites need extra assessing because any information coming from these pages can affect a user’s quality of life. Especially now that we are living in a middle of a pandemic, Google works twice as hard to prevent misinformation from spreading. This is how EAT comes into the picture and carefully checks every website for any spam or fallacies. 

 

How to improve your website’s EAT 

As mentioned, EAT means Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These factors are used to evaluate a website’s overall performance. Although these are used on YMYL content, it is also used on other websites.

Is the content writer a subject matter expert on the topic? Has he or she been writing or working in that industry for years? Would you seek medical advice from a newbie writer or a real doctor? Anyone can write something, but to write it in an expert, authoritative, and trustworthy way… is another story. 

Does EAT affect a site’s ranking factor? As of 2020, it is already considered as a ranking factor. It makes sense because EAT helps on making your website authoritative and trustworthy for the users. After all, making your website and your business a trusted one is one of your end-goals in business. 

Here are ways that you can improve your website’s EAT: 

 

  • Have your content reviewed by a subject matter expert or someone who is working in that actual industry.
  • Use high-value links for your external links. 
  • Work on your SEO techniques. 
  • Improve your website bio, business details, UI, etc. 
  • Avoid making your content sales-oriented. Write content that will be highly relatable to the user and eventually lead to your brand. 
  • Contact a trustworthy and skilled digital marketing expert in Franklin TN for the best digital marketing tips and techniques. 
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