EEAT Your Way To The Top Of The Food Chain

One of the largest topics in all of SEO is the concept of EEAT. It is widely discussed whether it’s a ranking factor or not and whether you should always prioritise it when working on your websites. I will be touching on that briefly but what I’m trying to do here is to teach you how to properly tend to your EEATs so that your website can experience good growth. Many people have different opinions on this and how you approach it and mine is one of many perspectives, you might still pick up something useful if you keep reading.

In my personal opinion I see SEO as a garden, it is something you tend to over time rather than something that will cause sudden blooms. There might be some ways out there to see growth straight out of the gate, but with SEO as it always has been it’s about tending to the sites that you have. Whether it’s fixing your crawl errors, watering your content or digging up harmful spammy backlinks everything has a purpose. A website that performs amazingly is one that has received a lot of attention, and EEAT is one of those aspects.

Experience - Enjoying The Moment And Writing About It

While experience wasn’t originally part of the EAT framework, it was then added to emphasise lived experience. This favours things like firsthand accounts and having done the things necessary to have the experience to be able to talk about them. This is one of my favourites, as it showed that writing articles in the first person that have personality isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Where I believe it’s invaluable is in websites that focus around said experiences such as travel blogs. These present it to you exactly how they see it and remember their times in whichever gorgeous place they went to.

In the analogy of the garden, Experience would be the soil, it’s the foundation from which good content will ultimately sprout. If your soil is rotten and it’s actually a generative AI in a trench coat it takes away from what the concept is actually meant to represent. However if you just have soil by itself then nothing will grow, you will just have a garden with probably a lot of grass but one that absolutely no one will want to see. Ultimately, in SEO terms that would be shallow repetitive content that will get you nowhere.

Expertise - Depth That Flows Beneath the Surface

Expertise shows the people who read what you’re typing that you are an expert in the particular field you’re describing and can rely on you to provide them with accurate information. Expertise isn’t just what you say — it’s the depth and consistency of coverage within your niche. However that’s only a small part, there are many ways to show that you’re an expert, answering questions asked by people accurately and in a detailed way is another, with many more.

To continue with the garden analogy Expertise would be water, it’s what nourishes the roots, seeps down into the soil and without it your SEO garden will dry up. By covering a topic in-depth across multiple pages, you show search engines you’re a reliable source. If you can’t show your expertise via your knowledge, then you will always be capped in your ability to grow. Think of it from a utilitarian standpoint as well, covering as much on a topic as possible to the best of your ability surely will help a user which in turn is more likely to turn them into a customer or client. It builds confidence that you can deliver, whether for your readers, your customers, or yourself.

Authoritativeness – Letting Your Website Shine Bright

While the previous two aspects of EEAT talked a lot about the content, the “A” is a lot more interested in what happens outside of your site. While things like author profiles can help you seem more authoritative, it’s what people outside value that matters here more often. You build authority through backlinks, industry recognition, or being mentioned in the news, signals that others value what you say. All of these build up to eventually show off your authority to the world. Expertise is how you display your knowledge and Authoritativeness is how others show the world that your knowledge is worth listening to.

Authoritativeness is the sunlight in your SEO garden, it nurtures growth while making your site visible. If you don’t have authority, then how will anyone believe that what you’re saying is true? However just like sunlight, authority is quite difficult to organically grow since it’s others that decide whether you have it. If you have a stormy reputation and you’re constantly blocked by clouds, you will have a hard time growing even if you have all the depth in the world. In SEO terms that means bad press, spammy links or a lack of trust in your niche.

Trustworthiness - Care For It And It Will Care For You

Whereas all the aspects have some easily understandable concept to hang onto, trust can be difficult. Providing your users with the ability to contact you if they need help is a good start but how can you signal that you’re open to that? Do you provide them with a chat bot, a number or an e-mail address? Is a current SSL certificate enough to show off that I can be trusted? People often ask if there’s a silver bullet and the things I just mentioned are important but trust is the sum of everything. Providing accurate information isn’t just your expertise, it’s also showing your ability to be trusted with said information. One of the simplest ways can be to show off your accreditations and rewards if you have any, things like reviews and testimonials are also amazing.

To finish our wonderful metaphor, what else can Trustworthiness be but the care that goes into maintaining your garden. You can build a fence to keep out unwanted nasties with your SSL certificate, you can put a mailbox at the front so that people can leave you nice messages or ask you questions, you can show off that Gardens Association Winner 2025 plaque. However what it truly entails is nurturing every aspect so that you can ultimately be trusted. Without it your website will wilt, if you can’t show that you are trustworthy then why would anyone use your site let alone become a customer. People will just look at your garden, see the weeds, and walk away.

Something Is EEAT-ing Away At Me…

I have to come clean, I’ve been hiding something in my garden this entire time. The truth. EEAT is not actually a ranking factor in Google’s eyes, so why spend all this time on it? Because even if it’s not a ranking factor, the concepts behind it are vital to a healthy site. The reason I used a garden for the metaphor is they are often attached to houses but they are not inside it, and that’s what EEAT is. Think of the valuation of a house, often gardens add a lot to a property. However if a garden is poorly maintained anyone that’s looking to buy the house will simply go elsewhere for their business or look to acquire the property to give it a makeover. 

This is exactly why EEAT is important, while not a direct ranking factor, building up each aspect increases the amount of overall trust a customer can put into your business or website. This allows you to sell to them and have confidence that they will be able to work with you. This isn’t just about selling products. If your site exists to inform, why wouldn’t you want your content to be experienced, authoritative, and trustworthy? And if it isn’t yet the standard for the internet, it should be.