Experience
The E for Experience was not added until 2022, thus adding an extra E to E-A-T. This E emphasizes that you must demonstrate your experience with the topic you are writing (or speaking) about. Demonstrating your experience can be crucial when you want to build trust and credibility with your target audience.
There are several different ways you can demonstrate your experience. You can do this by showing your in-depth knowledge of a subject, for example one of your services or products. If it is a product, you can do this by testing the product – and in the same way, you can share knowledge about your services so that your target audience has no doubt that you have the necessary experience with the product or service.
Especially as more and more AI tools come onto the market, it is important to show your own experiences. This is what separates content made by humans from content made by AI – AI cannot have real world, first hand experiences, and therefore it can also be difficult for AI to deliver content that lives up to this.
Additionally, studies show that AI-generated search results favor content from real experts. By demonstrating your experience and expertise, you increase the likelihood that AI-powered systems will recognize and cite your content, strengthening your visibility and authority online.
How can you demonstrate experience?
There are several different ways you can demonstrate your experience. If you have a physical product, you can create product reviews, product guides, etc. This can be in writing or as a video. In addition, you can also get your customers to review the product they have purchased.
If you are a service company, you can demonstrate your expertise through cases, guides, personal stories, etc. You can also get reviews from your customers. This can also be done through a well-designed “About Us” page on your website.
So there are several different ways to demonstrate your experience. The most important thing is that you create content based on your first hand experiences.
Remember that when you demonstrate your experience in a given area, you also help build trust with your target audience.
Expertise
When it comes to expertise, it's about demonstrating your knowledge and skills within the area or topic in question. In other words, it's about positioning yourself as an expert in your industry..
It doesn’t have to be a single person who positions themselves as your expert – it can easily be your company as a whole that is the expert. In some cases, however, it can be a great advantage to present the author behind the text. This can be, for example, within the finance, law or healthcare sectors, where there is a special need to know the author’s background. These industries fall under the concept of YMYL (Your Money, Your Life), where the content can have great importance or consequence for the reader.(read more about YMYL in the section here).
How can you demonstrate expertise?
There are several different ways you can demonstrate your expertise. Expertise does not mean that you have a long education, but that you can demonstrate your knowledge and skills. We do this ourselves, for example, through our blog "Knowlegde" and our cases. In this case, we are talking about our professional expertise.
But it's not just professional expertise that's relevant. Everyday expertise can be just as relevant in SEO and E-E-A-T. There are many individuals who demonstrate a high level of expertise through their hobby projects and passions.
Of course, this is also about demonstrating your expertise over time. So you can't expect a single in-depth blog post on a topic to be enough to boost your SEO, especially when it comes to the E-E-A-T principles..
The best way to demonstrate your expertise is by producing quality, in-depth content within your industry. Here, it can also be advantageous to use statistics and data to emphasize your points and strengthen your company's credibility.
YMYL (Your Money, Your Life)
When we talk about E-E-A-T, we can’t avoid YMYL. YMYL specifically covers the health and finance categories. If you operate in these categories, it is especially important that you demonstrate expertise (and authority). Incorrect information can have serious consequences for users or readers.
If you fall into these categories, it is therefore important that you provide reliable and verifiable content that demonstrates your expertise within these topics. In these cases, it can also be a good idea to include a short author biography in the post, so that the author's professionalism and expertise are emphasized.
Authoritativeness
Building authority requires continuous effort from you, creating relevant content for your target audience. Authoritativeness is related to the other principles of E-E-A-T, and therefore you cannot demonstrate authority without also demonstrating your experience and expertise – and this ultimately creates trust in your company.
Having authority means that you become the source that others seek out for knowledge within your industry. When you have a high level of authority, it means that others in the industry see you as one of the leaders within your industry. Therefore, Authoritativeness also implies that you are front runners and therefore at the forefront of what is happening in the industry.
Having a high authority has a number of advantages: On the one hand, your target audience will have a high level of trust in you, but you will also experience that many other websites will link to your content or otherwise mention you as a source/reference. When you succeed in this, Google will see you as an authority within the subject.
How can you show authority?
When you build authority, it's all about creating buzz about your business. You can do this in several different ways.
First and foremost, it's about creating quality content that is valuable to your target audience. By creating high-quality, in-depth content that answers users' questions, others will naturally link to your content.
In addition, you can also actively work on link building yourself. Although Google itself has stated that they attach less value to links, it still plays an important role when working with SEO. When working with link building, you should also focus on creating quality content that is relevant to the page you are linking to.
Another way to show your authority is through reviews. Therefore, you should have a strategy for how you collect customer reviews of your company, your products or your services and solutions. In addition to supporting your authority, reviews also strengthen the trust of users and the target audience in your company.
Finally, it is important to mention that authority is something you have to build over time. Therefore, it also requires you to maintain your online presence and therefore regularly produce new content to share.
Trustworthiness
Trustworthiness is the last letter in E-E-A-T and perhaps the most important. Essentially, Experience, Expertise and Authoritativeness all support Trustworthiness. However, there are also some other elements you need to be aware of when it comes to building trust.
Building trust and credibility is about being transparent, reliable and trustworthy in all your interactions with customers. You probably know this yourself, when you have to shop on an (for you) unknown webshop or contact another company; then you probably also have some things you investigate before you make contact or make a purchase. It is these things that you also investigate yourself that build trust.
How can you build trust?
Building trust is a long-term process. It takes ongoing effort to build and maintain trust with your target audience. The best thing you can do to build trust is to be transparent and trustworthy in all your interactions with customers.
Some of the elements that Google looks for in connection with Trustworthiness include whether the website is protected by an SSL certificate, whether there is clear contact information on the website, that there are no fake reviews, that the content on the website is kept updated, etc.
