The December 2023 update to Google’s EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) guidelines offers substantial opportunities for content creators to enhance their authority and improve rankings in search results. Lee Agam, CEO of Nytro Systems, shares strategies to leverage these changes effectively, focusing on optimizing content creators and utilizing new SEO approaches to align with Google EEAT standards.
Why Optimizing Content Creators is Critical for Google EEAT
Google’s emphasis on Google EEAT places individual content creators at the forefront of its ranking criteria. While optimizing the website as a whole is important, enhancing the credibility and visibility of individual content creators can have a more direct impact on SEO performance. This approach is vital for improving SEO EEAT Google performance and aligning with EEAT guidelines.
Lee Agam explains: “Optimizing content creators, rather than just focusing on the website as a whole, helps establish topical authority and build trust with both Google and users. This is essential for achieving long-term success in SEO.”
Phases of Content Creator Optimization for Google EEAT
To optimize content creators effectively for Google EEAT, it is essential to follow a structured approach that includes understandability, credibility, and deliverability.
- Understandability
Establish clear relationships between content creators and reference pages that Google can use to verify facts. This involves:- Developing comprehensive profiles on the creator’s personal website and employer’s “About” page.
- Utilizing trusted third-party sources such as Crunchbase, Wikidata, and LinkedIn to create a well-rounded digital presence.
- Implementing structured data to connect these references with the content they produce.
- Credibility
Strengthen the connection between content creators and the material they produce by:- Ensuring all authored content, such as articles, videos, and podcasts, is linked to the creator’s profile.
- Highlighting guest appearances, interviews, and media mentions to build a more credible digital footprint.
- Deliverability
Expand the content creator’s presence by:- Producing new, high-quality content that is relevant and topical.
- Using the creator’s personal website as a central hub in a hub-and-spoke model, linking to all other content pieces, thereby enhancing SEO Optimize EEAT signals.
Building Topical Authority with Google EEAT
Topical authority is a critical element of SEO, particularly under Google’s updated EEAT guidelines. Establishing topical authority involves creating strong URL-to-entity relationships between content and the topics it covers. This is crucial for SEO E-E-A-T and for ensuring that Google perceives the content creator as an authoritative source on specific topics.
Key Benefits of Establishing Topical Authority:
- Increased Recognition: As you build topical authority for a content creator, Google may assign a specific subtitle like “Content Creator (Topic).” This is a clear indicator that Google recognizes the individual as a primary content creator with authority in that field. However, having a subtitle is not the only measure of topical authority; strong topic-to-URL relationships can also signify authority even if a specific subtitle isn’t assigned.
- Impact of Knowledge Graph Updates: A recent Knowledge Graph update in September 2023 recalibrated topic entities, reducing their numbers by 4.82%. This reduction, particularly for topics linked to Wikipedia pages, highlights the growing importance of independent verification and diverse sources for establishing topical authority
SEO Strategies for Enhancing Authority and Boosting Rankings
- Develop Robust Author Profiles
Create detailed author profiles that include professional qualifications, experience, and links to published works. Use structured data to ensure these profiles are recognized and indexed correctly by Google. - Focus on High-Quality, In-Depth Content
To enhance EEAT Google SEO, produce content that provides comprehensive coverage of specific topics. This includes well-researched, updated articles that address user queries effectively, backed by credible sources. - Leverage Technical SEO
Implement technical SEO best practices, such as structured data and Core Web Vitals optimization, to improve site performance and user experience, which are key components of EEAT criteria. - Build and Strengthen Topic Relationships
Focus on creating content that consistently covers specific topics, helping to establish strong topic-entity relationships. This is essential for building topical authority and improving your site’s visibility for related search queries. - Monitor and Adapt
Regularly review site performance and content quality to ensure alignment with the latest EEAT Google update. Use tools like Google Search Console to track changes in visibility and adapt strategies accordingly.
Practical Method to Check Author Recognition in Google EEAT
To see if Google recognizes an author as authoritative:
- Search for the title of an article authored by the individual.
- Click on the three dots next to the search result.
- If Google shows the author’s name and a brief description, it means the relationship between the author and the content has been established in Google’s algorithms.
This method helps verify whether Google’s systems have correctly attributed the content to the intended creator, indicating the level of authority assigned to them.
Google’s December 2023 EEAT update presents significant opportunities for content creators and businesses to build authority and boost search rankings. By optimizing content creators through understandability, credibility, and deliverability, and focusing on topical authority, businesses can enhance their SEO performance and align more closely with Google EEAT standards.
