E-A-T The New Author Authority Metric
What is Author Authority?
Author authority is Google’s way of determining the trustworthiness of the content written by a particular author regarding the topic, they are writing about.
What is E-A-T and what does it have to do with Author Authority?
Do you remember several years ago when Google leveraged Google Plus photos of writers who wrote content and pull them into search results? Google was working on a way to tie content to real people and while Google Plus has died, Google continues to try and validate content written on the web.
What does E-A-T stand for?
- Expertise – Someone who knowledgeable in a particular field
- Authoritativeness – Speaking from experience or knowledge on a particular topic.
- Trustworthiness – is someone who’s “word” or content is truthful
These are metrics Google is using to determine not only the quality of the content but the person behind the content. Google is working to understand the author’s qualifications so that it can associate a person as an expert on certain topics.
Why is Author Authority Important?
Have you ever wondered if the content you read online is written by an expert or by someone who has just conducted some research online? OR, was the content written is accurate.
Google pride’s itself on delivering relevant results and the more accurate and relevant the result is the better experience searches will have and this keeps allows Google to hold it’s title as the most used search engine.
How Do You Establish Trust?
The internet has created a way for anyone to publish content regardless of who they are, their education or their background. This creates problems with knowing if the content was created by a reliable source. There are many ways to establish yourself as an expert in any field, but it will take some work and time.
- Writing guest posts
- Self-publish an ebook or book
- Increase followers on social media
- Get interviewed by bloggers, Youtubers and podcasters
- Get mentioned in the news using a free service such as HARO
How Do You Increase Your Author Authority?
I receive requests for help on a daily basis from news sites that are having issues with news stories showing up in Google news.
Many of them lack the “trust” factor as news stories aren’t written by a real person, but by the site itself. In cases where content is written by reporters, there is still a missing component that sites overlook.
Who is Writing the News Stories?
Google is trying to determine who is writing the news stories and what are their qualifications and background. It’s important to have bios of all your authors that explain their background, education, specialty, etc. You should also link to their social media profiles.
This is an important step because Google is going to look for verification that this person exists and social media profiles are one way they will do that. This can impact your site’s ability getting into Google news.
About Your Organization
Visitors who read the content on your site want to know the organization behind the content. What do you stand for? What is the goal of your content? What’s your purpose and vision? While this is great for Google to know it is also important for readers. This doesn’t just apply to news organizations, but to anyone who writes content on the web.
Searches you come across your site will ant to know who is writing the content. Especially if they are seeking advice or tips on solving certain. issues. Your “about us” page should address…
- Who are you?
- What makes you an expert?
- Why visitors read your content?
- What’s your background and experience?
You don’t need to be a certified expert. However, answering these questions is important so that users know your experience with the topic. Authors who have been noticed as experts have seen increases in rankings where sites where authority is unless rankings have dropped. What have you seen on your sites?
