All over the Internet, you will hear that great content is key to successful SEO. And it’s true. Great content is definitely one of the main pillars of your successful SEO endeavors. But reading Content is King for the 100th time won’t help you understand what great content actually is. After all, greatness is subjective, so naturally, one can hardly determine what content is objectively good enough to be on your website.

Fortunately, Google was kind enough to give us a hint. Naturally, when the king of search engines, the place where 44% of all customer journeys start, gives you a blueprint on what it considers good content, it’s wise to follow.

Google calls it E-E-A-T content. These four letters showcase your content’s objective characteristics so it can be considered a “Great Read.” But just following the E-E-A-T standard won’t help you all that much if you are unable to produce people-friendly content. Sure, E-E-A-T is absolutely necessary when creating people-friendly content, but it is not all there is to it. Your content can cover all of Google’s qualities, yet it can still lack the basic human connection that will make it a viral hit.

So, today, we will help you understand the basics behind E-E-A-T – what it is, how it works, and how to create E-E-A-T content. But, as that’s hardly enough to make your blog posts a true gem of the Internet, we will also share a few professional tips on how to actually create people-first content while implementing Google’s standards.

What Is E-E-A-T

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These are the four qualities that Google expects from your content.

Google’s E-E-A-T standard derives from its aspiration to push website owners to share more helpful content. As a search engine, their main goal is to give users precisely what they are looking for. Since 27% of Google searches are direct questions, Google strives to provide them with easy-to-understand, trustworthy, and authoritative answers written by someone who has the expertise and experience to give them.

For example, if you want to find out how to create a content strategy for your website, you won’t ask a mechanic to provide you with an answer, now would you? Neither will you ask an IT specialist. You will search for a content strategist or a content marketing expert. In the same sense, Google encourages websites to write about what they know, not what most people are searching for on Google.

So, in 2022, they introduced the E-E-A-T standard. This is an upgrade from the previous E-A-T, which sounded much catchier but lacked one crucial E – expertise.

But before we delve deep into Google’s E-E-A-T, let’s get some misconceptions out of the way.

Some Misconceptions About E-E-A-T

There are three main misconceptions about E-E-A-T.

E-E-A-T Is A Ranking Factor

First and foremost, E-E-A-T is NOT a ranking factor in Google. Though important, it’s not what will land you in the first spot in the search results. As we mentioned in the intro, your content must be people-first oriented, which takes much more than the E-E-A-T standard.

Essentially, E-E-A-T is a bunch of guidelines for Quality Raters (QR). Those are independent evaluators hired by Google to determine how well your content will fulfill the search request. These guidelines are given so they can snuff out the subjective opinions of different evaluators. However, they are still human. So, naturally, the more people-friendly your content, the easier the quality rater will understand it. Naturally, this will land you a better quality score. Since your quality score is not based on a single rater’s feedback but on dozens, your content must be universally good to be able to get a good rating.

So, E-E-A-T is more of a content writing philosophy. It will not give you direct SEO benefits like backlinks or website speed, for example, but it will give you the means to build genuinely helpful and Google-worthy content.

There Is An Universal E-E-A-T Checklist

Secondly, E-E-A-T is definitely NOT a checklist. There is no single recipe for demonstrating E-E-A-T within your content. You can follow some best practices and guidelines, but there is no such thing as an E-E-A-T checklist. You can’t just write 25 times a specific word and expect Quality Raters to check a box and say “Yep, that’s expertise”. How you will demonstrate E-E-A-T depends on your industry and niche. The most basic example lies in the difference between B2C and B2B content. The former is searched in a far more simplistic manner. For example, “Best 2024 bike tires”. The latter is a bit more complex and nuanced. “How to ensure business growth in 2024”. Both insist on experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness but need a different tone of voice, structure, and even length.

So, each industry and niche has its own checklist and way of demonstrating these qualities.

E-E-A-T Is Only On-site

Finally, E-E-A-T is definitely NOT only on-site. While the expertise and experience are predominantly shown on-site, authority and trustworthiness must also be demonstrated off-site. This is where backlinks, guest blog posts, and social and authority proof on third-party websites come into play. You are only as trustworthy and authoritative as others in your industry say you are.

So, you definitely need to go beyond your website’s borders to ensure you get the A and T.

Why Is E-E-A-T Important

With the rise of AI content, E-E-A-T has become even more important for your blog posts. Today, a website can splurge ten or more articles a day thanks to AI, and if you wonder why this is a problem, we urge you to check out this article on how to use AI properly for content creation first.

AI is great for many things, but it can’t work alone. It needs supervision and editing to create valuable content.

However, writing your own content does not guarantee you will rank higher than AI-generated content. That’s why you need the E-E-A-T standards. They give you a general outline of how to make your content more valuable than the one written by AI. And since AI can’t mimic personal experience and is definitely not an expert, as it only repurposes information that you feed it, you need to add that value. Not to mention that AIs like Chat GPT usually follow the same patterns, which are already familiar to the general users. So, as you can imagine, these users are reluctant to trust a business that uses AI to generate its content.

So, demonstrating E-E-A-T is not directly linked to Google’s SEO score, but it still reflects on your overall content quality and your ability to produce people-friendly content. In other words, the E-E-A-T standards are based on precisely what your audience is expecting to see.

An Example

If you ask Google Gemini, currently one of the most advanced AI modules, what type of oil should I buy for a Toyota Auris 2012, it will give you this answer:

Chat GPT will give you this answer:

A good E-E-A-T text will give you some general information and specifics. An author with expertise and experience will tell you that after 100K miles, the model often starts burning oil, so you need to go with a higher viscosity, often 10W-40. Moreover, they will share personal experiences on what to use during summer and winter, which brands to look for, and which brands to avoid. The user experience will be more like getting a personalized consultation rather than reading a manual.

That’s the whole difference between E-E-A-T content and non-E-E-A-T content. That’s what you should be aiming at.

Furthermore, that’s why there is no specific checklist that can ensure you are demonstrating E-E-A-T regardless of the industry. Users expect different answers from different professionals. For example, if you are looking for a car repair, you would expect a more direct and straightforward answer. While if you are looking for a solution of a medical problem, you will need a far more detailed and comprehensive answer.

E-E-A-T Content Core Elements

Now that we’ve learned what E-E-A-T is and why it is important let’s discuss its core elements and how to demonstrate them in our content.

E for Experience

As you already saw from the previous examples, experience is not something you can fake by looking through the Internet and scraping content. Experience refers only to your first-hand knowledge. Now, to be fair, a good writer can actually fake some experiences. For example, if you read 1500 reviews on a restaurant, you can get a pretty good overview of what you can expect. Thus, a good writer can actually fake a real-life experience by imagining what it would be if you stayed there and what it would feel like if you experienced all the best and worst.

This is impossible for an AI, as it doesn’t have imagination. It can only replicate what others have experienced.

Still, no matter how good of a writer someone is, they can’t imitate experience in fields where you need specific knowledge. For example, you can’t expect a professional writer to create an E-E-A-T text for medicine without giving them your point of view.

So, while a professional writer will do a much better job conveying the information, a medical professional will give far more valuable information as they have first-hand experience. Thus, this information, though written poorlier than the alternative, will be ranked higher and will be a much better people-centric content.

However, you don’t have to be a professional to have personal experience. For instance, the Toyota example I provided earlier is based on the fact that I have a car like this. I have first-hand experience with its problems and dealing with them. I know the difference between asking a professional, researching a manual, or asking AI.

So, demonstrating experiences requires a unique perspective, such as some issues and cases that can change the generally available solution. But as you can see, having experience doesn’t qualify you to give a solution.

E for Expertise

If experience were enough, I’d be able to advise you on how to deal with your Toyota engine problem. Unfortunately, that’s hardly enough. For a satisfying solution, the writer needs to have expertise as well as first-hand experience. For Google, this is instrumental for the quality of your content, as they insist on expert advice.

Now, of course, some types of content require far less expertise. For example, a foodie blog reviewing local restaurants requires little restaurant management or cooking expertise. It represents a personal experience. Still, it would be a good idea to share why you feel qualified to give these reviews. Have you been eating a lot outside your home? Have you been traveling a lot, seeing all sorts of places? How do users and others in your industry see your content? Do they agree with your points of view? How influential is your opinion? All these factors matter for the Quality Raters. On the other hand, in industries like medicine, finance, and legal, expertise is a must. To demonstrate expertise, you need to add an author’s bio. Inside, add their qualifications, experience, and career information.

Now, naturally, if you are running a pharmaceutical business, you won’t have the time to write high-quality people-first content yourself. This is where you need a ghostwriter. These professional writers can create content based on your notes. At the end, you place your name and credentials under the article. So, make sure to read the article carefully and ask for the needed corrections when something is wrong, poorly understood, or wrongfully conveyed. It’s your name on the line, after all.

A for Authoritаtivness

Authoritativeness is a mix of two factors. On the one hand, you have the author. Usually, their authoritativeness comes from the number of publications and websites that feature them. For example, an expert on stem cell research who has written articles for hundreds of media outlets and is well-known in the field is far more authoritative than a student who’s just finished university. That doesn’t mean that what the student has to offer lacks any value. They may even showcase first-hand knowledge and expertise. However, since they are not yet an authority in their field, QR will rate them lower.

On the other hand, there is the website and its authority. There is only one way to showcase your website’s authority, and that is through backlinks from other authoritative websites in your industry. Moreover, your website needs to be properly aged and have a good reputation. For example, a website alive for merely two weeks can’t be authoritative. Especially compared to a website that has been out there for more than a decade.

So, the easiest way to increase your authority, provided your website is already aged, is to build an efficient backlink portfolio.

T for Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness is the most important factor in the E-E-A-T standard. You may have experience, expertise, and authority, but if you are deemed untrustworthy, your score will be horrendous.

Of course, the importance of this factor depends on the kind of content you are providing. For example, if you write restaurant reviews, which are basically your own opinions, your trustworthiness is not as important for the QRs.

Naturally, if you are caught lying and tarnishing a restaurant’s image just because they refused to treat you as the King or Queen of England and offer their services for free, your overall QR score will suffer significantly.

On the other hand, if you write about medical, financial, or legal topics, your trustworthiness will be examined closely. After all, information in these fields is based on facts rather than opinions. As a result, one wrong advice can have devastating effects on users. So, Google is protecting its interests.

How To Become Trustworthy

With the Internet being a breeding ground for all sorts of scammers, earning the users’ trust is not an easy task. Still, there are a few things you can do to inspire trust.

Firstly, make it easy for your audience to contact you. Provide them with clear instructions on how to speak with you, and when they try, you must respond.

Moreover, make sure all your privacy policies and terms and conditions are well-written and located in a visible place (most often in the footer).

Next, make sure your content is constantly updated. For example, if you wrote about your travels to Japan and you shared a direct flight from LA, for instance, make sure to change that if the line gets discontinued.

Another major way to ensure you will be considered trustworthy is to ensure your website is a safe place. The bare minimum is to have a valid SSL certificate.

Still, you will need some authority and social proof. So, make sure you add testimonials to your website. Add awards and media features—anything that will show your audience that you are legit.

Ensuring your content answers Google’s E-E-A-T standards, however, is definitely not enough to provide you with a high SEO score. After all, those are just the basic features your content should employ. However, ultimately, your Search Engine Result Page (SERP) position will be determined by the users. The more value they see in your content, the higher your position will be.

So, while you are trying to please Google QRs, don’t forget who you are trying to impress with your content. Naturally, you need to focus on people-first content.

How To Create People-First Content

Writing about people is not that hard. Actually, it’s far easier to write people-first content than to please Google’s crawlers and QRs. After all, people look for value, not sentence length, how often you mention a specific keyword or anything else only a machine can care about.

Now, if you ask Google to show you “how to create people-first content,” all articles will tell you what Google expects to see. But that somehow defeats the purpose. You shouldn’t care what Google expects from you; you must care about what your audience is expecting. All Google wants is for users to be happy, so if you manage that, you will get Google’s first spot.

So, how do we make users happy with your content? Well, there are several tricks:

1. Consider Your Brand Voice

First and foremost, don’t sound like a manual. As we already explained above, manuals are not a great place to get information for specific problems. Moreover, whenever users send a Google search query, they don’t mean a specific manual on how to deal with a problem. That’s what the entire E-E-A-T is all about.

So, make sure you sound like you are talking to that user in your office. For example, if you are a medical professional, don’t use overly complicated terms. Explain your point as if a worried patient’s mother is standing in front of you. Understanding your audience’s needs is the cornerstone of successful communication and a great people-first blog post.

2. Don’t Go For A Specific Length

Now, if you look at Google, you will see that an SEO blog post should be between 1500 and 2000 words. But that’s just an overall average. Different industries and different types of content require different lengths. Moreover, different topics require different lengths. So, instead of focusing on word count, focus on what you have to say. Is it worth saying, and would it help your audience? If so, no matter if your content is 600 or 4000 words long, the blog post puts your audience’s needs above all else.

3. Make Your Content Easily Scannable

Of course, lengthier blog posts can be heavy on the readers. True, some topics (like this one) require you to go into detailed explanations and give some relevant examples. After all, you want to show first-hand knowledge and expertise, right? However, seeing one massive block of text is quite intimidating for any reader.

So, make sure your text is easily scannable. Add a Table of Contents at the beginning, and make sure all your paragraphs are no more than 150 words long. This way, any reader can quickly scan through the text and find the part they need.

4. Don’t Stick To Your Own Niche

Now, this is a very controversial statement, but well, it’s true. While Google crawlers expect you to stay as tightly to your niche as possible, that’s not very user-friendly. This article is the perfect example.

Our niche is cloud hosting—that’s our industry and our business. However, writing nonstop about cloud hosting trends and explaining new trends in the industry will not bring any value to our customers. Instead, we are providing them with valuable content that will help them build an effective and winning website powered by our hosting infrastructure.

So, in essence, we write in various other niches, such as digital marketing, web design, content writing, and others. Yet this content brings the most value to our customers, and as a result, we have an outstanding SEO score.

5. Prioritize Solving Problems

Writing about a topic is not enough. Usually, people who initiate a search through Google are looking for a solution to a problem. Whether it is the type of oil you need for your Toyota or how to make your website more user-friendly, users are looking for a clear path to solve their problems. So, while explaining the theory behind the problem is a great start, your blog post should always be about how they can resolve their issue. In this post, for example, we are giving you steps you can take to improve your overall content quality and SEO score. We started by defining the problem and explaining what Google expects. Currently, we are discussing what the users expect.

So, by the end of the article, you will have the knowledge to improve your SEO score and content quality on your own. That’s the whole idea.

If we were an SEO agency, we would have given you some advice and advised you to seek our help to accomplish the task. This is called monetization.

Monetization is not a problem for users or Google as long as you provide enough additional value.

6. Add Value

Speaking of value, this is probably the most important aspect of your efforts. Users will only stick around if they have something to gain. Now, usually, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of articles on almost any topic. There are over 2 billion websites on the Internet, with 400 million active. So, chances are someone else has already discussed the topic you chose.

So, you need to provide more than just information. Whether it is some personal experience, entertainment, a new read on the facts, or something else, you need to find that little additional value that will drive the users to your website.

7. Keep Your Facts Straight

Still, no matter how edgy your blog posts are, make sure the information is correct. Keep your facts straight and ensure that whenever something changes, your content follows. For example, if AI becomes a viable option that can mimic experience and expertise at some point, we will have to change some portions of this article so it can stay relevant.

On the other hand, make sure to always quote and link statistics and numbers, as well as ideas that are not yours. Giving credit to others for their work is also part of showing off Trustworthiness. But more importantly, using statistical data from authoritative websites like Statista for example, will increase your expertise levels.

Access is everything

Those are the fundamentals of creating genuinely helpful content that will help you reach the top spot on Google’s SERPs. Of course, there are other factors as well, but they depend on your niche.

Still, regardless of your industry or website focus, there are some infrastructural needs. Access, security, and website speed play vital roles in the user experience. So, no matter how good and people-friendly your content is, if you have poor website infrastructure, all your efforts will be for nothing.

That’s why we are here. HostArmada will provide you with the best cloud hosting service on the market. With our hosting services, your clients will have lightning-fast access to your pages. Moreover, your website will be guarded by state-of-the-art security features. To top it all off, thanks to our cloud-based infrastructure, we can guarantee your website will be operational 99.9% of the time.

With such infrastructure behind your back, your content will have the backing it needs to claim Google’s first spot. Now, all you need to do is check out our plans and choose the one that will best fit your needs.