Google EAT: The Secret to a Thriving Online Presence

online presence

When we share our ideas online, it’s only natural for us to want others to read it. However, reaching audiences in the virtual arena is not a given. It is something that content creators and website owners must work for.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one good way to get noticed on the web. In this process, website owners employ various techniques such as keyword use and image optimization to get search engines to “notice” their pages. This means that they want search engines such as Google to index their page so that it will be included in the results that the search engines give for every query.

There might be thousands or even millions of examples of similar content. All may provide satisfactory answers to a given query. How do you rise above all of them? This is where being mindful of your stature as a content creator becomes helpful.

Search engine Google recommends that on top of ticking off their checklist for local SEO, a page and its creator must be high in expertise (E), authority (A), and trustworthiness (T). What exactly do they mean by this? Read on to find out.

Expertise

It’s pretty basic; we can only teach or influence others if we know really well what we are talking about, and Google is getting better at scanning credentials. You can guide a traveler with the ins and outs of the Philippines only when you’ve been to this Southeast Asian country yourself or at least done considerable research about it.

You can write a main or guest article about sensitive medical information only if you are a medical professional with proper and up-to-date training. The point is to focus on where you are experienced and good at, and stay there; it’s where you have the most expertise and the highest reliability.

You also need to communicate this expertise to your readers. A good About page or a short author bio at the end of every article can help in giving your readers an idea about who you are and where your ideas are coming from.

Authority

When a person or an entity is considered an authority, people respect their pronouncements; they might even base their own decision-making on what they read. In online terms, this simply means that a page is considered high in authority when other reputable pages are citing it or at least linking to it. The more links you have, the better for the page.

Now, how do you get pages to cite you? First, provide value in your content. Put your expertise in practice. After that, you can either do guest posting on other people’s pages or just let the web admins know about your content by contacting them. You see, active networking still pays even in the virtual arena.

Trustworthiness

Speaking of contact details, providing these on your site and pages will help you enhance your trustworthiness. This tells the readers that you are open to discussion or correction if there is a need for it. Your trustworthiness can also be improved by citing your sources on your pages. This communicates to your readers that you did research and that your knowledge is up to date.

It’s worth noting here that while the three concepts are semantically distinct, it’s practically difficult to tease them apart. We submit to someone’s authority because they are an expert, and we trust that they know what they are doing. Hence, the things that you do to achieve one will have a significant effect on the other two factors.