{"id":1996,"date":"2019-12-13T15:52:40","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T15:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.seotesteronline.com\/?p=1996"},"modified":"2021-05-19T13:04:47","modified_gmt":"2021-05-19T13:04:47","slug":"eat-guidelines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.seotesteronline.com\/blog\/seo-basics\/eat-guidelines\/","title":{"rendered":"What are EAT guidelines?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In August 2018, many websites took a dramatic hit in their ranking. <\/span>Most of those sites belonged to the YMYL category.<\/b> The reason? An update of <\/span>Google’s guidelines for quality raters<\/b> concerning <\/span>the EAT score<\/b> and <\/span>beneficial purpose.<\/b><\/p>\n

Wait. What?<\/span><\/i> You’re right. Let’s sort these concepts.<\/span><\/p>\n

What are Google’s guidelines for quality raters?<\/h2>\n

We begin with the guidelines because they introduce all the other terms. Their official name is <\/span>Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines<\/span><\/a>. Google made them circulate in 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n

The document contains instructions for <\/span>quality raters<\/b>. They are a team of people dedicated to perform searches and verify that the highest-ranked websites provide quality content. If what they find is quality, the algorithm works.<\/span><\/p>\n

The guidelines provide quality raters with <\/span>the criteria that make excellent content<\/b>. For this scope, they introduce three key concepts:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. EAT<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. YMYL<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Beneficial purpose<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    What is EAT rating?<\/h2>\n

    EAT stands for<\/b> Expertise, Authoritativeness<\/i><\/b> and<\/b> Trustworthiness.<\/b> These are the three main factors that determine page quality.<\/span><\/p>\n

    EAT guidelines outline the <\/span>principles content creators must stick to if they want to get a good ranking.<\/b><\/p>\n

    Expertise<\/h3>\n

    It refers to the content creator. It means <\/span>you are an expert of the topic<\/b> you are dealing with and you have the credentials to prove it.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Authoritativeness<\/h3>\n

    It refers to the content creator, the content itself, and the website on which the content appears. It means that <\/span>the readers recognize you as an authority in your industry<\/b>. As a consequence, your production is considered quality content, published on a quality website.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Trustworthiness<\/h3>\n

    It refers to the content creator, the content itself, and the website on which the content appears, too. <\/span>It means that people trust your content to be accurate and with solid bases.<\/b><\/p>\n

    What does YMYL mean?<\/h2>\n

    YMYL stands for <\/span>Your Money, Your Life.<\/span><\/i> It refers to content (and websites) that deal with <\/span>sensible topics for both Google and its users.<\/b><\/p>\n

    Things like:<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Medical information;<\/span><\/li>\n
    2. Financial, legal and fiscal advice;<\/span><\/li>\n
    3. News;<\/span><\/li>\n
    4. Science.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      With Google’s EAT algorithm update in June 2018 (nicknamed the <\/span>medic update<\/span><\/i> because it affected websites with medical content), <\/span>the YMYM websites experienced dramatic changes in their ratings.<\/b><\/p>\n

      What happened? <\/span>Google started to apply to them stricter quality criteria, based on the EAT guidelines.<\/b><\/p>\n

      What is Google’s Beneficial purpose?<\/h2>\n

      The key concept behind this update is <\/span>Beneficial Purpose.<\/b> It means that Google <\/span>intends to protect its users from low-quality information that<\/b> could have a negative impact to their life.<\/b> To do that, it judges content not only by quality but also by correctness.<\/span><\/p>\n

      How to improve your EAT score<\/h2>\n

      How to increase your expertise to improve your EAT Score<\/h3>\n

      The first thing you should work on is<\/span> your reputation as an author<\/b>. Here are a few things you can do.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Find out what people want<\/h4>\n

      To be recognized as an expert, you must know your stuff, sure. <\/span>But you must also know what people want to know<\/b>. <\/span>Make a keyword search<\/span><\/a>. Then, you must know <\/span>how to make your content engaging<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Update your content<\/h4>\n

      Another thing you can do is to <\/span>update your content.<\/b> Older content can undermine your image as an expert. It can be outdated, or you were not that good when you wrote it. <\/span>Refresh it with new<\/b> information<\/b>, or consider deleting it (but remember to work on <\/span>redirects<\/span>!)<\/span><\/p>\n

      Focus on quality<\/h4>\n

      To improve your EAT score from the Expertise point of view<\/span> keep on producing quality content<\/b>. And we are sure you were already doing that. If you weren’t, your problem isn’t EAT score. It’s SEO.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Work on your image as an author<\/h4>\n

      If you want readers to recognize you as an expert, you should act like one. Work on your <\/span>about page,<\/b> fill it with information like <\/span>awards<\/b> you got, the <\/span>experience<\/b> you have, your <\/span>titles, press<\/b> that writes about you.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Also, <\/span>create an author snippet on WordPress<\/b> and <\/span>use the structured data<\/span><\/a> so that Google can extract information about you to show to the users right on the SERP.<\/span><\/p>\n

      How to increase your authoritativeness to improve your EAT Score<\/h3>\n

      Building your authority is not a thing you can do alone. <\/span>You need people to<\/b> recognize you<\/b>. You can <\/span>work on offsite SEO<\/b> to increase your authoritativeness.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Get good inbound links<\/h4>\n

      Make people talk about you, and your work, getting <\/span>inbound links<\/b> from other sites. Of course, <\/span>they must have proper domain authority<\/b>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Get mentions<\/h4>\n

      A more effective way to increase your authoritativeness is to <\/span>get mentions<\/b>. In this way, Google can recognize you as an expert in your industry.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Shares on social media<\/h4>\n

      Build up the buzz around you by producing content that is shareable on social media. In this way, you’ll get a lot of inbound links and many mentions.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Guest posts<\/h4>\n

      Try to end up on valuable blogs as a guest author. It helps building your image as a leader in your industry with inspiring things to say.<\/span><\/p>\n

      How to increase your trustworthiness to improve your EAT Score<\/h3>\n

      Forget inspirational quotes. <\/span>You should pay attention to what people have to say about you<\/b> if you want them to trust you.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Deal with negative reviews<\/h4>\n

      Reviews could be your best ally in building your trustworthiness<\/b>. But also your worst enemy. Deal with negative reviews as soon as they come. Both on your website and review platforms such as <\/span>Tripadvisor<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Other tips<\/h4>\n

      Also, there are a few other things you can do:<\/span><\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Be easy to get in touch with;<\/span><\/li>\n
      2. Add a physical location of your business;<\/span><\/li>\n
      3. Update your privacy and Terms & Conditions pages;<\/span><\/li>\n
      4. Buy an HTTPS certificate.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

         <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        What are Google’s guidelines on page quality? Find out in our new article!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[131],"tags":[],"acf":[],"lang":"en","translations":{"en":1996,"it":1989},"pll_sync_post":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seotesteronline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1996"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seotesteronline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seotesteronline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seotesteronline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seotesteronline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1996"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.seotesteronline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4544,"href":"https:\/\/www.seotesteronline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1996\/revisions\/4544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seotesteronline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seotesteronline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seotesteronline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}