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The E-E-A-T principle: a must-have for every online marketer

In the world of online marketing and SEO optimisation, the E-E-A-T principle cannot be missing. By applying this principle, you can make your SEO activities more effective and achieve your goals faster.

In other words, if you apply this Google principle cleverly for your website and pages, your website will appear higher in search results. This is because Google wants to show search results and content that follow these principles.

Since it is such an important part of SEO optimisation, we will go into it in more detail in this blog. We will tell you what the principle stands for and give you useful tips on how to apply it effectively for your website.

Let's get started!

What is the E-E-A-T principle?

The E-E-A-T principle is a way of assessing the quality of websites and pages. Not only for Google, but you can also use it yourself to check your own quality and SEO optimisation. Thanks to these pillars, it becomes clear whether a website or page is relevant and trustworthy for users - which is what Google is all about.

That is why it is so important to focus on the end user when writing content for Google. That way, you always make sure you don't get any big surprises when Google updates. Why not? Because you focus on valuable and relevant content for the user, and not purely on SEO optimisation.

And that's what it does: it ensures that content is as valuable and relevant to the user as possible.

The E-E-A-T principle stands for the following pillars.

Experience

The more personal experience the content writer has, the better. After all, this shows that the writer knows what he or she is talking about. For example, are there personal opinions or authentic insights added to the story?

Expertise

Expertise is about the knowledge and expertise the writer has on a particular topic. Although expertise is similar to experience, it is not the same thing. When you write from personal experience, you cannot answer readers' questions when they are looking for expert advice, for instance. Think of someone with training in this area, such as a doctor.

Authority

Authority is about the overall reputation of the website and not the individual content. Think of the domain authority (DA), which is determined by backlinks from relevant websites to your site, among other things. Authority is about your website or author being perceived as a good source of information.

Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness is incredibly important and is about the reliability of the website. This includes the link profile, whether your website has an SSL certificate (extra security), whether there is a contact page, whether reviews have been received, and whether there is a return policy.

What is the difference between E-A-T and E-E-A-T?

In 2014, Google first explained the E-A-T principle in a blog post. It stands for expertise, authority and trustworthiness. Meanwhile, since 2022, a fourth pillar has been added: experience. Therefore, to apply the principle successfully, it is important to include this fourth pillar. Therefore, in this blog we also focus on the E-E-A-T principle.

Tips for applying the E-E-A-T principle in SEO optimisation

Now that you know what the principle stands for and why it is so important, we will now give you some tips on how to apply it successfully for your website and/or pages.

This will make the user happy, and you will rank higher in Google. A win-win!

Establish your own expertise

How exactly do you tell Google that you have expertise in a particular field?

Website with reviews

First of all, it is obviously important to have a website. Preferably a website with external reviews. Don't have one yet? Then try to get them soon and put them on your website. This shows Google that you are good at what you do.

Biography

"In addition, you can show your biography to your audience as much as possible. When there is a biography of the author next to a blog post that shows that person has expertise, it ensures that the content will rank better. In it, tell people why you are an expert on that topic and be honest. It shows that you are the right person writing this content.

You can also integrate the biography into an 'About Us' page that lists the team or the different writers. Insert, for example, work experience, knowledge, or educational background relevant to the topic. This helps with the authority you need.

Many users want people who are experts. Suppose you are looking for advice on a medical condition. You are less likely to take advice from a freelance writer who talks about medical conditions. You are more likely to take this advice from a doctor because of the expertise.

Guest articles and podcasts

Another tip is to write guest articles - preferably within the same niche. This will ensure that your name appears on other websites as well. Of course, you can also do this with writers to build up their authority and reliability, which also benefits the authority of your website.

In addition, you can think about joining other people's podcasts. Because did you know that Google can also 'crawl', or search, podcasts?

Use reliable sources

When you back up your content with reliable sources, you show Google that you have not made up important information yourself but that it has actually been researched. This is especially important for claims from scientific research, or certain statistics or studies. By backing up your claims, your content will be seen as more reliable.

Another tip for appearing trustworthy is to have a contact page. This tells people how to get in touch with you, which provides extra accessibility, transparency, and trust.

Provide relevant content

We mentioned it at the beginning of this blog: in the end, Google is all about the end user. So don't worry too much about SEO optimisation, but focus on the user first by creating relevant content, and then make sure it is SEO-optimised. This will help you perform better.

SEO optimisation should, of course, not harm the user's readability. To give an example, keywords are important in SEO, but too many of them significantly weaken the quality of the content.

There are a handy questions you can ask yourself to check if you are creating relevant content. Here are some examples:

What is my specific goal to help others (does the page have a useful purpose)?
What do people want to achieve by reading my content?
In doing so, how can I optimise the page for Google?

When you provide a good user experience, you show Google the right signals. People will come back to your website more often and Google will send more visitors to your website thanks to higher positions.

Do a content audit

It is wise to conduct a content audit at least once a year. This is a process where you analyse the content of a website, blog or other online platform to assess and improve its effectiveness. Look at your old pages of content. How well are these performing? Are they performing better this year? Or are they not working as well as before? Do they need an update? Is this piece of content following the E-E-A-T principle? How do we make sure it does?

Which pages are most affected by the E-E-A-T principle?

As you can imagine, for certain niches it is especially important to comply with the E-E-A-T principle. Think about pages that deal with medical or financial advice. But government or news pages are also most affected by this principle. Google wants some form of security to ensure the ultimate goal: content that is as relevant and valuable to the end user as possible.

Need help applying it?

After reading this blog, do you think you could use some (extra) help applying the E-E-A-T principle correctly for your website? We can help you with that. Our experienced online specialists are up-to-date on the latest developments and work with the smartest tools. For almost 20 years, we have been providing more sales, more leads and maximum online return, both nationally and internationally. Request a free Quickscan here and receive no-obligation advice.