EEAT Your Lunch: Experience

So you want to rank your content on Google? Before December 2022 all you needed to do was appear to be the trusted authority in your particular industry, easy right? Well not any more, now you have to back it up with experience. Google has upped the requirements to be seen as trustworthy in the almighty algorithms’ eyes. Bye bye EAT, hello EEAT (experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness) – who doesn’t love a good acronym ruining update?

So you know what youre talking about eh? Prove it with experience

Your content makes it clear that you know what you’re talking about, your credentials appear to back it up and others in the same industry as you agree that your content is worth sharing. Before December 2022 you’d be all set, but now you have to show that you’re not all talk, that you actually have experience with the subject you’re covering.

Generally speaking, trust is hard to gain, people will be naturally sceptical of what they read online (or maybe that’s just me), showing that you have experience in what you’re talking about will drastically improve the quality and reliability of your content. Show me the results from the last investment guide you created, show me that you actually used the product you are reviewing. Little things like this go a long way.

Ok, but how important is it to have experience?

Let’s put it this way, would you get a chartered accountant to rewire your house? No, probably not, not unless your accountant moonlights as an electrician. It’s the same for content, especially content that has real world consequences. Would you take online investment advice from someone who has no investment experience? I’d hope not, you’re just going to lose your money. Quality of content boils down to trust, trust that the information is accurate and unbiased, trust that your platform is a safe place and nothing bad is going to happen. Experience cements that trust.

Can I still rank without experience?

There will of course be cases where you just don’t have experience in the subject you’re covering but still have expertise, perhaps you’re a building surveyor who knows how a house should be built safely but you’re not laying the bricks yourself. In situations like this it can help to collaborate with people who do have the necessary experience, if that’s not possible then the best way to ensure the quality of your content is to really establish yourself as an authority and provide accurate information.

To summarise

• Get first hand experience with the product or subject and talk about it
• Collaborate with people who do have experience
• Share results of any studies or surveys you have produced
• Avoid AI generated content (AI doesn’t have any real world experience)

Hopefully now you have a good idea of what you need to do to prove your content is trustworthy with experience, so use that extra E to really seal the deal on becoming the most trusted authority in your sector.