EEAT in SEO: why experience, expertise, authority and trust matter
A couple of very important acronyms in that title!
If you’ve been to one of our SEO workshops or heard us speaking at an event, you’ll know that we’re big advocates of EEAT.
EEAT stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness, and while it isn’t a specific Google ranking factor in itself, it is an important way of thinking about what makes content useful, credible and worthy of visibility in search results.
And as AI makes it easier than ever to produce polished content, demonstrating genuine EEAT is becoming increasingly important.
The example we use in our workshops is a search for “how to get more traffic to my website”. With a good prompt, almost anyone can now use AI to produce a well-written article on the subject. It might be accurate, well-structured, and packed with useful advice.
But anyone can write it.
So how can search engines and visitors distinguish between generic information and content produced by someone with genuine knowledge and experience?
This is where EEAT signals become important.
Experience can be demonstrated through real projects, case studies, original research and practical examples. Expertise might come from qualifications, professional experience and specialist knowledge. Authority can be reinforced through industry recognition, speaking engagements, professional memberships and mentions from reputable sources. Trust comes from providing accurate, transparent and useful information.
What does EEAT look like in practice?
Imagine two articles about generating more website leads.
One has been created from an AI prompt and contains the same general advice you’ll find on hundreds of other websites.
The other is written by an experienced digital marketing agency and includes examples from real campaigns, links to relevant case studies, evidence of results, information about the people behind the advice and examples of their involvement in the industry. It may also be supported by digital PR for SEO, helping to build brand authority through relevant coverage and credible external mentions.
The second article gives both search engines and readers far more reasons to trust it.
That’s EEAT in action.
How AlphaQuad demonstrates EEAT
If we were writing about attracting more leads through digital marketing, we could link to our CPD-accredited SEO workshops to demonstrate that we actively teach businesses about SEO.
We could reference our Calor Gas SEO case study or Sutcliffe & Co website and SEO project to demonstrate the results we’ve achieved for clients.
We can also demonstrate experience through speaking at industry events, contributing to marketing panels and sharing our expertise at local events and expos.
These are all EEAT signals that help demonstrate who we are, what we know and why our advice can be trusted.
EEAT marketing is more than an author bio
EEAT shouldn’t be treated as a checklist of adding an author name, photograph and biography.
Good EEAT marketing starts with the content itself.
What have you actually done? What have you learned? What evidence can you provide? What makes your experience different from the hundreds of AI-generated articles now competing for the same search terms?
Your experience, expertise, results and reputation are the things that make your content different.
So when planning your next piece of SEO content, don’t just ask “What keywords should we include?” Also ask: “What can we say that demonstrates we genuinely know what we’re talking about?”
That’s where EEAT becomes a way to create better content, build trust with potential customers and give search engines more reasons to recognise your website as a credible source of information.
