EEAT Made Easy: 5 Proven Tactics to Build Expertise and Credibility
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust. As part of Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines, EEAT has been around for a while now. Especially with the addition of Experience, the topic has gained traction once more.
Now are you still struggling to put EEAT into practice? You're not alone. The available advice out there can be a bit aloof.
Don’t worry, I got you. Here are 5 proven tactics to implement EEAT on your website.
Experience: The journey is the reward.
The newest addition to the EEAT family - the second E - is something a lot of people struggle with. What now, I should talk about myself in a blog post? In a product description, even? Hold on. That seems so out of place.
But it doesn’t have to be. Consider the following example:
Years ago, I co-founded an online house plant store. Before sending our plants to their new owners via post, we’d repot them into new soil. That was necessary, as a lot of the plants would have the same old, drained soil since the day they sprouted from their tiny seed. They desperately needed to freshen up.
However, we’d learn rather quickly, that soil doesn’t equal soil.
There are various components with different qualities you can mix - peat, perlite, coconut fibers, humus. They’d be super absorbent, but drying quickly, draining like a sieve, only drying on top and leaving the roots wet (and potentially rotten).
No wonder houseplants are a tricky survival candidate in many homes!
So what began as a pain point ended up being an asset: To find the soil that would keep our house plants alive. We spent weeks mixing, testing, and tweaking until we hit gold - the perfect blend to send our plants thriving. We eventually even landed a deal with a big soil producer and sold the “magical” soil under our brand name.
Long story short and back to SEO:
We could have kept the mystery ingredients to ourselves and sell the ready-made mix. Instead, we chose to share our struggle: pouring it all into a blog post, describing our journey, our problems with existing solutions and what we wanted to achieve. How we ended up mixing it ourselves, explaining what the key components from all the soils available on the market were. And how our readers, if they chose to do the mixing at home, could achieve the same.
This soil was never going to be our unicorn product.
But its story served as our credibility rocket.
This applies to you, too. What frustrating problem did you overcome, and what's the story behind your solution?
A few examples:
E-Commerce: There isn’t just the story of how you came up with this incredible product idea. Stories and experiences evolve around a product, too - how you discovered the need for it, how you made it better. Don’t be afraid to talk about the failures in the process. Highlight them.
SaaS: Share images, videos, and other visual elements related to the experience of your product. What does the interface look like? How does it get the job done? Think of detailed step-by-step guides, not just a few screenshots.
Well, when might it not make sense to go into full creator mode?
Banking, any type of financial service or insurance can be a tough subject. Medical providers as well - sometimes those stories are just not yours to tell. Also, think twice about creating content around testing your product(s). Those words are best left to your customers.
Expertise: Turn data into gold.
Do you work at a company with in-house experts on the matter at hand? Great. Now, rather than just writing opinion pieces (which is also great), consider gathering data and publishing actual studies.
I used to work for a big Swiss bank that was, like any Swiss bank, into real estate and mortgages. Differentiating on Zürich Paradeplatz is tough - but we were convinced we had the best experts on the payroll.
Rather than just publishing the changes in mortgage rates, for example, we teamed up with an external firm big on real estate data.
This collaboration resulted in a quarterly real estate monitor, with a bigger real estate study in the first quarter of each year. Data like price development, vacancies, and the office market would be tackled and condensed into an easy-to-digest format, loads of telling graphs, and great quotes.
Within a few years, those industry-standard publications grew into keywords with considerable search volume. Our experts worked closely with the internal PR, Content, and SEO teams around the time of publication to craft media releases, and news-worthy and evergreen content around the studies. We centered communication around the experts, letting them take the stage. That’s how we ended up on the Swiss evening news, for example.
Want to recreate this?
Ask yourself these questions:
Which data is your audience interested in?
How often does that data (notably) change?
And where are your unique insights and competitive edge?
If your experts are not in-house, buy the best data before your competitors can.
And then, don't publish just another white paper. Mine the data and show it to the world, in a format that is easy enough to digest.
Also, don’t forget the basics when it comes to showcasing that expertise:
include author credentials (as detailed as possible, with a CV or link to their LinkedIn profile if allowed by company policy),
cite reputable first-party sources
don’t be afraid to link out to said sources.
Trust: Don’t sleep on the obvious.
Trust is where the money gets made. None of the other components of EEAT matter just as much. Google themselves said so.
For me, trust begins with the basics.
You’re probably well aware that your website needs an imprint, a privacy policy, or some sort of data protection text. Resist the urge to just get them over with. Make them your secret trust-building weapons!
Where other companies fail to provide value, go beyond the usual templates and “legal musts” in favor of being transparent and understandable.
At the plant shop, we turned dry terms and conditions into a treasure hunt, full of inside jokes and reiterations of what our top-notch service included.
From nice to must have: Make sure you include the company’s address in the footer and the imprint. In the latter, you are expected to provide an actual person’s name. Who’s responsible for the website? State it clearly.
The “About us” page is likely the second most visited of all your URLs (right after the homepage). Show real people with real pictures (if you have their consent).
Do you have an online shop? Include all the necessary “trusted shops” and “secure payment” certifications and badges fit to your business.
Use the secure protocol (https). Crawl your website to find instances of HTTP URLs and update them, not just redirect them - even in PDFs, if need be.
Experience & Trust: Let your customers do the talking.
You don't write your own reviews (duh).
However, a smart review strategy is essential. Consider external testing sites, for example.
Having your products tested by real people, and stating their independent view, will boost your authority beyond gaining a backlink.
The review site will rank better for certain (often competitive) terms, which just creates more trust.
Additionally, use Google reviews and third-party review providers. Make a habit of asking for reviews and letting your customers know how vital these are for your business. It's like a modern word-of-mouth: small gesture, big impact.
The process could look like this:
Three days after the (predicted) arrival of the parcel or the product download, you send an email asking for feedback.
You make giving feedback as easy as possible: <<Just reply to this email, or click on the button below to leave a review.>>
Be interested in the feedback and be prepared to mitigate any negative experiences.
This forward approach will increase the chances of customers getting back to you with negative feedback, instead of shouting it from the rooftops (with one-star reviews).
Authority: Play the long game to be known & recognised.
I never said the EEAT thing was easy. People have to recognize you as an authority. There are, of course, a few ways to work towards this, but you can’t take away the factor of time. Becoming an authority takes a while.
All the more reason to start today.
At the plant shop, our focus was on creating the best content on the internet and spreading the word on our owned channels.
Every once in a while, we’d pitch a story to the radio and local media: Around Christmas time, for example, we’d send over a gift guide we wrote, including what to look out for when buying plants - a unique angle that other, bigger sellers wouldn’t take. (They’d be more like: You like red? Buy a red plant.)
Journalists appreciate any time taken off their backs. Even if they don’t jump at your story, they’ll remember you provided real value over pushing salesy corporate stuff. Plus, this kind of outreach plants the seed of association with your brand. And who knows when they’ll next need an expert on house plant care!
Once you land a story, don’t forget to pursue that backlink, as many journalists still don’t do so without being asked.
Other brand authority boosters include:
speaking on podcasts
attending events
writing articles
etc.
EEAT is much more than Google’s new nerdy kid in town.
Drop the search engine satisfaction glasses and work towards building real value for your customers and users: by demonstrating your journey, showcasing your data-backed expertise, building rock-solid trust, and earning recognition.
The best content doesn't “just” sell; it tells a story, answers needs, and builds lasting connections.
Article by
Gabriela Troxler
Gabi Troxler is an independent SEO consultant, trainer, and speaker. She helps businesses leverage content and SEO to build thriving customer relationships. Outside work, she enjoys reading fantasy and sci-fi, sports, and learning about birds and astrophysics
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