Are you the brains behind an Orange County business website? Do you consider yourself an SEO expert?

If you said yes to both those questions, then you should know everything about what Google wants to see from websites, as well as what it doesn’t want to see. This includes E-A-T, a metric on which the search giant has been putting more and more emphasis lately. But what exactly is E-A-T, and why does it matter so much in determining your site’s ranking?

E-A-T as a Focal Point

E-A-T stands for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. If you look at the Google Quality Rater Guidelines, then you will see that those three factors have always mattered to the search engine. However, not long ago they updated the algorithm again, as they often do, and this time they put even more emphasis on E-A-T.

If you look at that section, you can see how to take advantage of that part of the algorithm as it relates to your content, and also what to avoid. If you’re an Orange County SEO expert, then you’ll notice how they want the content creator to have some expertise in their field. Ideally, the writer should be seen as an authority on the topic about which they are speaking. This relates to their trustworthiness and that of the site as well.

By contrast, you can also see in that section what it is that gets bad marks from Google. The algorithm doesn’t like pages or sites that don’t seem to serve any immediate purpose. If no attempt is being made to help users, that’s going to hurt your site in the SERPs. You’re going to sink even faster if the site spreads any controversial opinion, deceives users, misinforms them, or causes harm in some other way.

Using E-A-T Guidelines

If you’re writing for a business website, then the chances are remote that you’re going to be writing anything controversial, deliberately harmful, etc. However, this section should serve as a reminder that content which could in any way be interpreted in those ways shouldn’t have any place on the company’s blog or anywhere else on the site. Instead, you should only be putting out content that informs, answers questions, and everything else that Google appreciates.

As for your authority and that of the website, maybe you’re a known name in the industry about which you are writing, but perhaps you aren’t. It’s possible that you’re just starting, in which case your name is not going to be known, or maybe you’re ghostwriting for the site, in which case you are not going to be given a publishing credit anyway.

Since you have virtually no control over that, all you can do is write the most exciting content that you can. In time, hopefully your website and brand will start to be recognized as a trustworthy authority, and Google will appreciate that as much as your visitors will. Only then can you genuinely regard yourself as an Orange County SEO expert.