What are Google’s EEAT guidelines and why do they matter? 

Posted on February 1, 2024
Bay dressage horse in a double bridle

I’ve posted on social media and written a blog earlier this year, both times explaining why blogging is so important for businesses of all sizes – and it’s great advice for anyone who wants to improve their visibility online in 2024. But there’s something crucial you need to know about to make sure your blogs are working hard for you. It’s Google’s EEAT guidelines which are crucial to good SEO for your blog and wider website. They had previously been known as ‘EAT’ but were quietly updated by Google in December 2022 to add an extra E. So, in this blog I’ll explain what the EEAT guidelines are, why they matter and why they matter. It’s time to dive in, so get your nerdy SEO hat on, please! 

SEO basics 

So, what is SEO? It stands for search engine optimisation, and it’s the process of enhancing the content on your website (headers, subheadings, copy and images) so that it lists as highly as possible in search engine (such as Google’s) results page when web users search for terms that are relevant to what your business offers. There are lots of factors that can boost SEO on your website, including the user experience, meta descriptions, backlinks, updating content and using relevant keywords. That’s why blogs are such an excellent tool for SEO. By uploading a new blog once or twice a month, you’re adding new content. Box ticked. Blogs also give you the chance to include key words and phrases that your potential customers will use when they’re looking for something online. Another box ticked.

That’s just the very tip of the iceberg when comes to SEO – there’s a lot more you can do than just upload blogs – but it’s a start! SEO can get very technical and there’s a lot to learn and try if you have the time and/or the money. But I think that reading about EEAT is an excellent first step to start taking your SEO to another level. 

What are Google’s EEAT guidelines? 

So, it’s let’s get on with answering the question ‘what are Google’s EEAT guidelines?’. Google has a department (for want of a better word) called the quality raters which evaluate if its search ranking systems are providing helpful, relevant information to people. It would lose a lot of users if when they search for ‘how to make a Victoria sponge’, all the results were utterly useless. So, the quality raters assess all websites to see if they’re worth people visiting. For years, the quality rating guidelines looked at three factors when it assessed webpage content. Expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness – EAT. Then, in December 2022, they added another ‘E” – this time for experience. EEAT means your website – including blogs and written content – needs to demonstrate expertise, experience, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.

A little later in this blog I’ll look at how to make sure your website can demonstrate those four factors, but for now, let’s move on to why EEAT matters.

Why do the EEAT guidelines matter?

Google implementing the EEAT guidelines is a timely move. Here’s why. Regardless of your views on generative AI, it is flooding the internet with oodles of written content. If you’re working in a busy, competitive online sector – let’s say selling women’s fashion, fitness programmes or healthy recipes – it’s already tough to rank highly. Unless you find a niche or target via local geography, you could be up against people with big marketing teams and budgets for content. Generative AI makes it easy for them to write a 1,000-word blog in moments. They ask it to research and add in keywords too, so on the face of it, that’s their SEO sorted… Upload two blogs a week and hey, job done. Or is it?

So far, most AI-generated content is easy to identify, with hallmarks that make readers feel less than satisfied. And it just can’t demonstrate experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness to the level needed by Google’ Quality Rater guidelines. ChatGPT might produce something that on the face of it sounds professional but doesn’t mean it’s better than something you can produce – or that you can ask a writer to craft for you. It’s repetitive, it hallucinates and it’s learning from myriad blogs out there already about the subject you want to rank for. In lots of cases, it’s also simply not helping people who read it. That means that it’s not going to help you meet the EEAT guidelines – I promise.

A tick in the box for human-first content

If you want your blog content to boost SEO and work for EEAT, it’s worth your while sitting down and writing one. Or working with a copywriter. You’d be astonished at what I can do in just an hour or two… You’re going to get a real, human perspective – not something that’s the average of what’s on the internet already. I’m more than aware of AI’s potential future impact on content generation. Not just for me, but for videographers, graphic designers and photographers. But right now, with EEAT in play, the risks are too big to just hand over content writing to ChatGPT. Your experience and expertise are so valuable. Why risk being ranked low on Google’s results page because you used AI to write a blog? Why risk customers not finding you because your website isn’t judged as trustworthy? And why not try to be an authoritative voice in your industry?

How to meet the EEAT guidelines 

Let’s put AI chatter to one side because I want to talk about EEAT and how you to bake it into your website content strategy. If you focus on EEAT you will give Google and therefore your potential customers what they’re looking for. Excellent content that answers all their burning questions on an easy-to-navigate website. It will take a bit of effort to execute, but I promise it will be worth it. 

Here’s a handy way to think about EEAT. You can include web content that shows your experience, your expertise and your authority – I’ll explain how in a moment. But what you can’t easily do is prove to Google that you’re trustworthy. So why is it one of the EEAT guidelines? It’s because trustworthiness sits on top of the other three elements. Show expertise, experience and authority in all your website content, and you’ll find it ranks for trustworthiness automatically. 

Let’s take a closer look at how you can tick the EEAT boxes and build the website credibility that Google loves. Stanford University’s Persuasive Tech Lab carried out three years of research and came up with 10 steps to help you build web credibility. You can read them in full here, but here are few of the key takeaways.

How to build website credibility for SEO

  • Link to sources that verify the accuracy of your content, especially if you’re quoting stats or news stories! 
  • Highlight the expertise of your team and what makes you best placed to offer your services.
  • Include any accreditations, qualifications and affiliations you and your team have.
  • Make sure your site is easy to use – check links work, that the menu loads on a smartphone and so on.
  • Focus on making your content – especially blogs – useful. Don’t claim to give ‘five tips to…’ and then include nothing helpful in the blog!
  • Make your blogs and other website pages easy to read. Use subheads and bullet points and don’t just upload big blocks of text.
  • Use a clear, direct and sincere writing style across the board. This is where a human writer is SO much better than AI.
  • Don’t stuff content with keywords – focus on readability with keywords used where they feel natural.
  • Check in on your content and update it when it’s out of date.
  • Create reviews and case studies that are long-format. We’ve all heard of fake reviews on Amazon or people making up testimonials. Going in for a deeper dive builds credibility.
  • Don’t have too much promotional content – and never, ever use pop-ups!
  • Make it easy to contact you – include a mapped address as well, if you can 
  • Don’t link to and from dodgy websites! This is important if you’ve been working on backlinks for SEO. 

OK, this blog was technical – sorry!

As I wrap up this rather technical blog, I want to remind you of something else about blogging. SEO is a key reason why lots of brands decide to blog, but it isn’t always the sole reason. If you’re writing a blog to share some exciting company news or to share your views on a sector issue, do just that. Remember that it might not be stuffed with keywords, but if it’s clear, well-written and you’re sharing some authority or expertise, it might just help in a different way. And apologies if I lost any of you along the way! If so – or if you’re curious to learn more, feel free to contact me for a 1:1 chat about EEAT.