Mastering Link Building With E-E-A-T Principles

With 68% of online experiences starting with a search engine, it remains crucial for businesses to have a strong presence on search engines. Link-building is one of the most effective SEO strategies involving building a strong backlink profile that signals to search engines that your website is relevant and authoritative. In order to master link-building, it is important to have a strong understanding of Google’s E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) principles. This post will tell you all that you need to know.

What Are E-E-A-T Principles?

E-E-A-T are principles that Google uses to assess the quality of online content and its creators. E-E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor, but it is a guideline that human quality raters use to evaluate the overall quality of search results. Data from these evaluations are used to improve search algorithms, so it can indirectly improve search performance over the long term.

These principles are:

Experience: Content that demonstrates first-hand experience of the topic.

Expertise: Content showcasing expertise and deep understanding of the subject matter.

Authoritativeness: Having recognition and reputation in the industry or niche.

Trustworthiness: Reliable and safe information for users from a trusted source.

E-E-A-T Overview

Google uses E-E-A-T principles as a key part of its assessment when evaluating the quality of content, which means that they play an important role in search engine ranking. Websites that showcase strong E-E-A-T principles will be looked on favorably and backlinks from relevant and authoritative websites can boost these attributes.

Google added “Experience” as a principle most recently. The Guidelines say the following on this addition:

“Consider the extent to which the content creator has the necessary first-hand or life experience for the topic. Many types of pages are trustworthy and achieve their purpose well when created by people with a wealth of experience.

For example, which would you trust: a product review from someone who has personally used the product or a “review” by someone who has not?”

Google also states that trustworthiness is the most important principle. This is “Because untrustworthy pages have low E-E-A-T no matter how Experienced, Expert, or Authoritative they may seem.”

Therefore, it is vital that you know how to create E-E-A-T-friendly content that will encourage Google to surface your content for relevant queries.

Creating E-E-A-T Friendly Content

So, what can you do to create E-E-A-T-friendly content? The key to this to focus on each principle during the content creation process:

Experience: You can demonstrate that the content creator has first-hand experience by discussing personal experiences within the content and/or by including an author bio that highlights their experience with the subject matter.

Expertise: Expertise can be demonstrated with content that is carefully researched and backed up by data, statistics, facts, and quotes.

Authoritativeness: Building authoritativeness can be challenging. You will want to become a thought leader with unique insight and ideas, as well as consistent publishing of high-quality content. Coverage, links, and mentions from trusted sources can also help to build credibility.

Trustworthiness: As established above, trustworthiness is the key principle to focus on. To showcase your trustworthiness, you should follow ethical practices, provide information that is useful and safe, be transparent about the content creator, and provide clear contact information.

By focusing on these areas during the content creation process, you can create E-E-A-T-friendly content that will improve your search engine ranking. Not only this, but you will also provide content that will be relevant, interesting, and reliable for your target audience, which will keep them coming back for more and improve your reputation. This should help you attract backlinks that will further boost your SEO efforts.

Building A Strong Backlink Profile

Following this, the key to success in link building is creating a strong backlink profile. By collecting backlinks from websites that are relevant and high authority, you can further boost your E-E-A-T signals and climb the search engine rankings.

Therefore, it is important to take the time to identify the blogs, website owners, influencers, and online forums that are trusted by your target market. You can use tools like Moz to identify the best link sources - look for websites with a Domain Authority (DA) of 60+ as these are high authority websites.

Once you have identified the best publishers in your niche, you need to reach out to collaborate and secure backlinks. This could include creating a guest post with a backlink naturally integrated into the content or asking the publisher to include a link to your website in their content.

AI & E-E-A-T

Of course, AI has had a huge impact on content creation in recent times. While the use of AI to create content is not against their guidelines, AI-generated content will always struggle to satisfy the E-E-A-T principles as there is no first-hand experience. Additionally, experts have noted that Google is focused on rewarding original, high-quality content and pushing low-quality, AI-generated content.

Therefore, it is best to avoid using AI tools to generate content for SEO purposes. AI can be used as a useful tool to assist the content creation process, but the writing should always be completed and edited by a human with real-world experience.

Monitor & Audit Backlink Profile

Finally, an important element of link building is monitoring and auditing your backlink profile. You want to remove backlinks from spam or irrelevant websites, as this can harm your credibility. This will help you adhere to E-E-A-T principles and maintain a strong backlink profile that will give you a strong position on SERPs.

In order to master link building and improve your search engine ranking, you need to have a strong understanding of Google’s E-E-A-T principles. These principles are used to evaluate the quality of content, which means that they can have an impact on your search engine ranking. By focusing on these principles during the content creation process, you can demonstrate the value of your content while also improving the user experience and attracting backlinks from trusted sources.