Harnessing Google’s E-E-A-T for Small Business Success

Did you know that 9 out of 10 business owners aren’t optimizing their websites according to Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines? It’s true, and it’s a big deal!

After selling my SEO agency, I want to clear things up. Why does this matter so much? In simple terms, E-E-A-T stands for Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Following these guidelines can lead to higher rankings, more leads, and ultimately, more money.

Let’s break it down. The concept of E-E-A-T was introduced in Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines back in 2014. These guidelines help a group of people called Quality Raters assess the quality of Google’s search results. They also guide Google’s algorithm in recognizing high-quality, relevant content. E-E-A-T is a crucial part of these guidelines.

As a business owner, understanding E-E-A-T is important. If your website doesn’t have these qualities, it’s less likely to rank high in Google searches. And we all know higher rankings mean more revenue. Prioritizing E-E-A-T can also position you as a leader in your industry.

E-E-A-T is a nice acronym, but let’s think about it starting with Trustworthiness. To build Trustworthiness with Google, you need to show Expertise, Experience, and Authoritativeness. There are some simple adjustments you can make to your site today to improve these qualities.

I believe Google is shifting towards ranking people, not just content. This means they prefer content written by experts. For example, who would you trust more to write about football, John Elway or me? You don’t need to be a superstar like Bill Gates to get your content to rank. Here’s how to do it.

Write about topics in your niche as much as possible. The more content you create, the more you establish topical relevance and authority—key factors in demonstrating expertise. Google values real, practical experience with a topic, and AI-generated content can’t compete with that.

Try these tips: when writing, or creating videos, summarize your videos into articles to reach a wider audience. Top-ranking websites share common traits: quality content, experience, and backlinks.

Backlinks, or inbound links, are like votes of confidence from one website to another. They boost your website’s authority and improve its ranking in search results. One of the oldest strategies for building backlinks is guest blogging.

If you want to dive deeper into link building, a quick Google search will provide thousands of articles on the topic. I plan to cover link building in more detail in a future post, so stay tuned!

In conclusion, Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines are essential for producing high-quality content that resonates with your audience. The more valuable content you create, the more Google will reward you with leads. That’s it for now! Let’s go!