E-E-A-T-ing Your Way Through Christmas: Google’s Festive Update

As we all know, Christmas is a time where we indulge in food and drink. From turkey to pudding, there are plenty of delicious foods to eat - but this week there’s not-so-festive discussion of Google’s update to its E-A-T framework.

In this short piece we’ll recap (almost) everything you need to know about Google E-A-T over the Christmas period. We'll discuss what E-A-T is, the extra ‘E’ added this week how it works, and most importantly - how these principles can help your website rank higher on Google!

What is Google E-A-T?

Google E-A-T stands for 'Expertise, Authority, and Trust'. It is a principle employed by Google to determine whether or not a website contains quality content that is relevant and trustworthy. Google looks at several factors when assessing the E-A-T rating of webpages, including how authoritative the source is (the author/publisher), how experienced the author is in the given topic, and how much trust can be placed in the content.

This week, Google has added an “E” - Experience.

Google is now emphasising that trust associated with the experience of the content creator will be the “most important member of the E-E-A-T family.” 

Why is Google E-E-A-T Important in 2023?

Google’s revised E-E-A-T framework is important because it helps to determine which websites are the most relevant and trustworthy. Google will rank higher those sites that demonstrate expertise in their field, have authoritative sources, and can be trusted as a source of information.

According to their guidelines, great content should:

• Help users.
• Be created by an expert.
• Be posted on an authoritative site.
• Be trustworthy.
• Be updated regularly. 

Google’s goal is to provide users with the best possible search experience, and E-A-T helps them do that by making sure only the most quality content appears higher up in the search engine results pages.

How Can You Improve Your E-A-T-ing?

To improve your website's rating on Google E-A-T, you'll need to focus on creating quality content that is helpful to users. Make sure the topic is covered in-depth and written by an expert in the field. 

Additionally, you'll want to make sure your website is regularly updated and that any external links used as sources are from authoritative websites that are trustworthy. Finally, be sure to create a secure website with an SSL certificate to ensure a safe browsing experience for users.

Let's take a look at a few examples of who has been doing it correctly over the World Cup period.

Tell Visitors Who You Are And Why What You Say is Reputable

All aspects of E-A-T indicate that Google wants to know who creates content and whether that person or website is a legitimate source for that knowledge.

Author pages are a simple and easy way to establish your credibility of expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.

For example, this Financial Times article surrounding France player Antoine Griezmann was written by Simon Kuper with a link to his profile which explains his expertise as a sports columnist since 2002, and further links to his plethora of sports articles not just surrounding the world cup but football as a sport. Therefore Google can determine that this article has been written by a reputable source and why this article features for widely searched terms like “world cup news”.

Make the Purpose of Your Content Clear

What is the point of what you are writing? Do you want to inform an audience, explain or describe something or even try to convince them of something?

You should use titles and headings that make it very clear what the purpose of your content is and you should do it using straightforward language.

Here is an example from the Washington Post titled “The World Cup is set to kick off in Qatar. Here’s what to know.”

As you can see from the table of contents in the image, the article is straight-talking and to the point on all the questions that may be asked surrounding the World Cup. The purpose of this content is to explain the World Cup to an American audience where “soccer” is not as popularised as the rest of the world.

Update Your Content Regularly

In 2020, via their How Search Works pages, Google made it public that they made 4,500 “improvements” to search in 2020.

4,500 changes to Google Search. 4,500. In 2020. 4,500 UPDATES… anyway… for those of you without a calculator nearby, that’s over 12 updates each calendar day during the year.

Naturally, you are going to also want to make your that your content is kept as up-to-date as possible. Sites get taken offline, people take on new roles, and Google has probably added yet another update to search during the time you have read this. 

The lifespan of your content can vary massively depending on the topic and the industry you are in so make sure your content is accurate and up to date by including content updates in your SEO strategy.

Update stats, best practices, and check for dead links every so often, particularly for high-ranking content.

For example, this Sky Sports World Cup landing page updates with the latest scores from each round of the competition with links to match reports for each game and also embeds any relevant content such as podcasts and other related content ensuring that this page is kept well up to date.

Linking to High-Quality Sources

To be a trustworthy reputable source you need to ensure what you are saying is correct. So data goes a long way in helping do this.

Link your content out to official sources to back up your points and show you do in fact know what you are talking about.

For example, the above article by FiveThirtyEight.com is based upon the high-tech World Cup ball poised to change the future of the football ball. 

This section highlights the different kinds of testing that ball manufacturer Adidas had to endure to ensure the embedded sensors did not affect the performance of the ball in any way. But how did they know this? 

Well, it's because they then link to an article written by Adidas themselves explaining the use of the internal sensors within the ball and how the technology is unnoticeable for players and does not affect its performance whatsoever. Much like how I’ve told you that the above article is from FiveThirtyEight.com and then linked directly to that article so you can have a look for yourself. Easy!

Conclusion

By following these steps, you can make sure your website is as E-A-T-friendly as possible and that it ranks higher in search engine results pages over the Christmas period! So get ready to enjoy all the delicious food this holiday season - and be sure your website is up to Google E-A-T standards!

Happy Holidays!