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7) Writing with Expertise, Authority, and Trust

SoulfullyAButterfly February 26th, 2021

As discussed before, several best writing practices help ensure content that is valuable for awareness and support.

In this discussion, we will understand how to ensure quality content alongside best writing practices through incorporating expertise, authority, and trust within the content.

Background

The internet is a primary place where users worldwide look for information and support. The topics searched up include those that fall into the health, safety, or financial domains. Consequently, false information or content that has quality problems such as those that violate best practices can be potentially damaging to significant levels thereby negatively impacting a user’s happiness, health, or wealth. To buffer this, the Google algorithm (and Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines) used to display top content pages considers factors that include: Expertise, Authority, and Trust to ensure protection from low-quality content. These factors are commonly known as EAT in short.

As mental health is part of the health domain and is a significant area searched, the EAT factors are vital to consider when developing content.

Since 2018, the EAT factors not only apply to a website’s main content pages but are also considered when reviewing the content creators (i.e. authors).

EAT and How To Incorporate EAT into Website Content:

  1. Expertise:

  • When considering the expertise factor for website content, expertise refers to the extent to which the website or organization is known and has the suitable credentials and any expertise supporting factors such as awards or external recognition.

  • Expert Content is Researched Based: consider stepping into the shoes of your audience and perform a keyword research whilst thinking about their needs. Through your keyword research, grasp why the audience has searched for those keywords (topics). Knowing the intent of the topic queried helps you guide content on solutions and helpful information that can not only meet but exceed the user’s needs.

  • Expert Content is Comprehensive yet Digestible: Try to ensure your content is simple and has good formatting, avoid confusing structures or things that are too difficult to understand unless you break down and explain difficult concepts.

  • Expert Content is Supplementary: After answering the main intent of a searcher’s query or possible needs regarding a content topic, supplement your content by thinking about further supporting/supplementary content that could further enhance and support the topic: this is when back-linking comes in handy! Audit your existing content and identify which of your published pages can be backlinks to the new content piece. Think of what further topics/content pieces can be branched from existing content and include them on your content development agenda.

  1. Authority

  • Authority refers to the ratings the website and its content get on the basis of genuine ratings as well as content relevance.

  • Authoritative Content is Cited: External pages rely upon and cite the content as their sources of information. Citations include external back-linking as well as mentions on the news or social media.

  • Authoritative Content is Widely Shared: This is where marketing can help boost the content to build authority. Content with authority is regularly and widely shared and mentioned across social media. Engagement efforts can help drive this factor.

  • A Wikipedia Page Boosts Authority: A Wikipedia page for the brand, organization, or even people in a company helps boost authority.

  • Brand Authority Matters: A signal to authority is when users search your brand name for their content needs.

  1. Trust

  • Trust refers to validity - a website can have validation pages such as an About Us page or other main pages. Trustworthiness is also determined through positive reviews and user support.

  • In terms of content, trust can be boosted through the inclusion of an author's biography as well as external sources being cited, especially if they are other authoritative sources.

Feel welcome to share your opinions on each of the EAT factors or ask any questions!

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This post is brought to you by the Content Development and Marketing Program, find out more information about the program here

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emotionalCurrent5586 October 25th, 2021

@SoulfullyAButterfly these are all noted and great learnings!!! TRUST is a must :D

1 reply
SoulfullyAButterfly OP October 25th, 2021

@emotionalCurrent5586 thank you!

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WhiteRoses25 November 7th, 2021

I have been told throughout school that Wikipedia is not a valid source to use because it is not scholarly. Would it be okay to use at 7cups?

1 reply
SoulfullyAButterfly OP November 7th, 2021

@WhiteRoses25 I would also personally not encourage you to use it as a source, unless you want to read it for a quick overview before verifying/researching further on topics.

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MarinaLecubet November 10th, 2021

I understand you want us to incorporate in our writings the best provedure that'll get te beste exposure to help and reach more people.

I'll do my best to study and keep the EAT in mind.

2 replies
SoulfullyAButterfly OP November 10th, 2021

@MarinaLecubet thank you!

1 reply
MarinaLecubet November 10th, 2021


@SoulfullyAButterfly


You're welcome, sorry for the typos. Not sure what happened.

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amazingNutella24 December 7th, 2021

@SoulfullyAButterfly

This is so highly informative, Soul 💜 Thanks a lot for sharing this with us! Loved reading through this!

optimisticMoment4139 December 20th, 2021

really interesting , thank you for sharing .

KatePersephone December 27th, 2021
such useful information! could help many. thank you
Zahraa000 December 30th, 2021

Thanks for the amount of important information.In my oinion, the most important factor is the trust factor through the authors’ CVs and knoweledge of their content and its importance and credibility.

GoldenRuleJG January 24th, 2022

@SoulfullyAButterfly Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us soul. Mindmapping and knowing the sub-themes of a topic is super crucial as well as not making your work too flowery with so much detail :) Will keep these in mind

SoftForestHSP77 January 31st, 2022

@SoulfullyAButterfly

Trust:

Validity is found within Trust. There is great importance to web pages such as the About Us page or other essential pages. In conclusion credibility plus positive reviews and user support.

Expertise:


I learned that the word expertise refers to the extent to which the website or an organization is known and has suitable credentials such as awards and other external recognition. I found it interesting the importance of the author’s biography has on an article as well as the other forms of external recognition.

Expert writing is research-based: Consider being in your audience’s shoes. Use keyword research thinking of others' needs. Next, continue to understand fully why your audience's intent. Knowing the intent of the article is helpful.

Expert content is thorough yet consumable and simple. Remember good formatting. Avoid confusing structures that are complicated to understand. Expert content is supplementary you may enrich the piece if you back-linked the article.

Authority:

The website’s content gets rated, and the relevance of the piece is determined.

I don’t quite understand this?? Authoritative Content is Cited: External pages rely upon and cite the content as their sources of information. Citation's include external back-linking as well as mentions on the news or social media.??

Authoritative Content is Widely Shared: Marketing is used to boost content and build authority. Content with authority is widely used across social media.

A Wikipedia Page Boosts Authority: Adding a Wikipedia page for a person, organization or brand helps boost authority.

What does this mean?? Brand Authority Matters: A signal to authority is when users search your brand name for their content needs.??

1 reply
ouiCherie February 5th, 2022

@SoftForestHSP77

Hi Soft, great thought! In my understanding, in this discussion, we are exercising the EAT factor for an article. Therefore, authority here refers to both the authority of the writer and the content.

Can be because the writer has background education, or they have a long personal experiences about the subject, or the content is based on reliable sources.

The stronger the authority, the more trusted the content can be.

Hope it helps a bit 💜

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marvelloustree1111 February 9th, 2022

@SoulfullyAButterfly

Wow thanks a lot for the info on EAT. 💗