Search engines are increasingly focused on content quality, credibility, and real user value. Ranking well today requires more than keyword optimization – it requires content that demonstrates trust, expertise, and relevance to real people.

This is where E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) and people-first content come into play. Together, they help search engines evaluate whether content is created by knowledgeable sources and genuinely serves users rather than algorithms.

In this article, we explain why E-E-A-T and people-first content are important, how they influence search visibility, and what they mean for websites aiming to build long-term SEO performance.

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 stems from its aim to encourage website owners to share more helpful content. As a search engine, its 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 learn how to create a content strategy for your website, you wouldn’t ask a mechanic for 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.

1. 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, which goes beyond 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 provided to eliminate subjective opinions among different evaluators.

However, they are still human. So, naturally, the more people-friendly your content is, the easier it will be for the quality rater to understand. Naturally, this will land you a better quality score. Since your quality score is based on feedback from dozens of raters, your content must be consistently good to earn a good rating.

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

2. 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 much simpler 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 they need different tones, structures, and lengths.

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

3. E-E-A-T Is Only On-Site

Finally, E-E-A-T is definitely NOT only on-site. While expertise and experience are primarily demonstrated 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 publish 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 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 ChatGPT usually follow the same patterns that are already familiar to 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.

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 provide both 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 use a higher-viscosity oil, typically 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, there is no single checklist that can ensure you demonstrate E-E-A-T across industries. 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. If you are looking for a solution to 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 in the previous examples, experience is not something you can fake by looking up content online or scraping it. 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 like if you stayed there and what it would feel like if you experienced all the best and worst.

This is impossible for an AI because it lacks imagination. It can only replicate what others have experienced.

Still, no matter how good a writer someone is, they can’t imitate experience in fields that require 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 of conveying the information, a medical professional will provide far more valuable information because they have firsthand experience. Thus, this information, though written more poorly 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 having 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, including issues and cases that can challenge 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 expertise and firsthand 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 in the way of 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 law, 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 any needed corrections when something is unclear, misstated, or misrepresented. 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 authority comes from the number of publications and websites that feature them. For example, an expert in 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 has just finished university. That doesn’t mean the student’s contribution lacks 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 demonstrate your website’s authority: through backlinks from authoritative websites in your industry. Moreover, your website needs to be properly aged and have a good reputation. For example, a website that has been live for only 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 piece of 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 users’ trust is not easy. 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 prominently displayed (typically in the footer).

Next, make sure your content is kept up to date. For example, if you wrote about your travels to Japan and mentioned a direct flight from LA, make sure to update it if that route is discontinued.

Another major way to demonstrate you are trustworthy is to make your website 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 shows your audience 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. Ultimately, your Search Engine Result Page (SERP) position will be determined by 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 of you; you must care about what your audience expects. 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 explained above, manuals are not a great place to find information about 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 content types 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, whether 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, longer blog posts can be heavy for readers. True, some topics (like this one) require you to provide detailed explanations and relevant examples. After all, you want to show first-hand knowledge and expertise, right? However, seeing a single massive block of text can be intimidating for any reader.

So, make sure your text is easy to scan. 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. However, writing nonstop about cloud hosting trends and explaining new industry trends will not add value for our customers. Instead, we are providing them with valuable content to help them build an effective, winning website powered by our hosting infrastructure.

In essence, we write across various niches, including digital marketing, web design, and content writing. 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 search on 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. While explaining the theory behind the problem is a great start, your blog post should always focus on how they can resolve their issue. In this post, we share 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 personal experience, entertainment, a new take on the facts, or something else, you need to find that little extra value that will drive 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 eventually mimic experience and expertise, we will have to revise parts of this article to keep it 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 demonstrating 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.

Regardless of your industry or website focus, there are some infrastructure 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 your website infrastructure is poor, 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 you, your content will have the support it needs to claim Google’s top spot. Now, all you need to do is check out our plans and choose the one that best fits your needs.

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