Navigating E-A-T: Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness in Small Business SEO

Since 2014, Google has been using E-A-T to make sure website rankings are deserving of their status. And no, E-A-T doesn’t stand for some exotic beast’s name, but rather Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These are the qualities Google prioritizes when determining a website’s value and credibility. Use this small business SEO guide as your compass to find your way amidst the E-A-T ocean.

Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness are three important factors Google first introduced in its Search Quality Rater Guidelines (SQRH) in March 2014. Later on December 15, 2022, it added an extra E to the formula (one that stands for Experience) to better asses website rankings.

But don’t mistake E-E-A-T as ranking factors. Technically speaking, these four are part of the 200+ factors Google takes into account to rank websites. However, these four criteria act more as quality check indicators meant to analyze how helpful and valuable your small business website really is.

So, in summary, Google evaluates your website’s merit based on four factors:

Expertise:

The depths of your knowledge, your skills, and your background all factor in when it comes to your expertise. Think of expertise as how you present yourself and your proficiency to your audience, competitors, and search engines. 

Do you have a qualification or document that proves you’re a niche expert? Google’s Quality Raters believe you must, especially if you talk about life-changing topics like medicine, law, and financial matters on your website.

The more of an expert you are, the higher your chances of getting better rankings on SERPs.

Authoritativeness:

Who’s your website’s blog author? Who’s the owner, and what’s their reputation? What are people saying about this business online? How many links are you getting from other websites, and how authoritative are they? 

All of these determine how authoritative your business is in your sector. Naturally, the more high-quality backlinks you have, the more authoritative you appear to search engines. 

Think of authoritativeness as how expert others think you to be. Getting your own Wikipedia page, for example, is a great step towards asserting your authority in your niche. 

Trustworthiness:

Your readers (and search engines) can only trust you once you show that you offer and publish nothing but legitimate, fact-checked, and transparent content. Even small actions like mentioning credible external sources in your posts and adding the correct contact information to your Contact Us page can make a big difference.

However, being trustworthy takes on new dimensions when it comes to sharing online shopping and Your Money or Your Life (YML) websites. For example, businesses with transaction pages or those offering medical and financial services MUST be trustworthy.

In essence, trustworthiness is the factor that connects all other three factors (experience, expertise, authoritativeness) together. So if your small business website can’t be trusted, you won’t rank no matter how expert, experienced, or authoritative you are.

Experience:

In 2024, users look for real people’s real experiences more than ever. Similar to how users trust you more with customer testimonials and case studies on your website, search engines do too. 

But the matter of experience goes beyond feedback and testimonials. For example, if you’re writing a blog post about a product you’ve used firsthand, you’re more likely to be found by your target audience.

The same goes for forum websites like Quora and Reddit, which is why they often appear high on SERPs compared to business websites.

Increased Visibility: Strong E-E-A-T signals to search engines that your content is valuable and deserves to be seen. Once you reach that level, you’ll slowly but surely climb rankings on search results to reach your customers.

More Credibility: When users perceive your website as trustworthy and authoritative, they’re more likely to engage with your content, convert into leads, and ultimately become loyal customers. The more people that do business with you, the more your brand will be known across the internet, and the more they’ll talk about you online!

Better User Experience: You can’t realize your E-E-A-T dreams without creating valuable content, a navigable website, and informative posts. Try your best to impress Google and you’ll be impressing its users, too! 

Here’s a quick example: 39% of users will give up on your content if your page takes too long to load. You’ll improve the errors, improve loading speed, and show Google and your audience that you care for their experience and are actively improving it. Next thing you know, you’ll be getting better ranking and higher click-through rates (CTR)!

Content Rules: Focus on creating high-quality content that delivers what your audience is looking for. Conduct comprehensive research, surveys, and data analysis to create truly useful, unique content.

Media Content Also Rules: Improve user experience and show off your skills and expereince by sharing images you’ve taken firsthand. Multi-media has become especially important in 2024 since users no longer feel like scrolling through long paragraphs and boring layouts.

Be Transparent: Transparency matters a lot in establishing trust with customers and search engines. If your Contact Us page only mentions an email address next to a message box, you’re probably not getting much credit. Make sure to mention all your contact information accurately on all your online platforms. 

Highlight Expertise: You can’t expect Google to read between the lines of your blog posts to understand your authors are experts in your business. Creating individual author bios and skill highlights for website content contributors shoves your expertise in Google’s face so it can’t be missed. 

Guest Post: Consider guest posting on authoritative websites in your niche to get more views, backlinks, and attention from Google. By reaching out to credible niche websites and contributing to their content, you’re securing kudos and authority from external sources.

Take Citations Seriously: Similar to highlighting your expertise, you should consider highlighting your sources, too.  Link to official studies, research papers, and reputable websites to show that you’ve done your research and can be trusted with your information.

Encourage User-Generated Content: Did you know that users find user-generated content (UGC) to be about 10 times more influential than influencers’ content? Did you know that not even 16% of brands have a strategy for generating UGC? That means two things: huge untapped potential to maximize return on investment (ROI) with minimum costs, and a great way to establish trust and authority within your audience base.

More than anything, E-A-T is a very helpful standard to compare yourself against. Once you put user experience first and take meaningful actions to improve your website, you’ll see your organic traffic grow and soon enough, Google will recognize you as a trustworthy niche expert.

Momentum helps you monitor your online reputation, improve your content quality, build valuable backlinks, and adjust your strategy to maximize your ROI with minimum costs. Trust us to be your SEO guides on your journey to success. Book a free quote today and we’ll help you find your way from there.