7) Writing with Expertise, Authority, and Trust
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:
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Expertise:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Authority
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Authority refers to the ratings the website and its content get on the basis of genuine ratings as well as content relevance.
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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.
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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.
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A Wikipedia Page Boosts Authority: A Wikipedia page for the brand, organization, or even people in a company helps boost authority.
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Brand Authority Matters: A signal to authority is when users search your brand name for their content needs.
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Trust
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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.
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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
@SoulfullyAButterfly Thanks for sharing!
@SoulfullyAButterfly When thinking about EAT on an individual, I think the Trust factor is something difficult to establish for new content writers. While the website’s credibility may be high, new content writers will have to work towards ensuring their write-ups match up with those of the more experienced writers on the site.
As new writers, I feel it is also important to find a balance when it comes to
how many external sources are backlinked in their content. Too many backlinks
might not help with the Authority factor.
@Huriya those are great insights. It is great to have a trusted platform like 7 Cups to publish work on but yes, we do need to find balance in the content we write out in terms of relevance, etc. We are all ready to help edit and mentor/support new writers and so I love the growth and learning part in all of this.
@SoulfullyAButterfly
This a genuinely informative and a helpful post and I think whatever that have been said here are the prime points when it comes to content writing . It indeed is extremely important to do quality research work , hardwork , sufficient practise and also proper awareness as to keep in mind the areas of the subject and what content readers would expect to read and know. Thanks a lot for sharing this post as there is no end to learning and improving ourselves !
@SoulfullyAButterfly
Expertise, Authority, Trust
This is so useful, I will bookmark this so I remember it for the future, thank you! <3
@SoulfullyAButterfly
i didnt really understand the wikipedia part. Was it stating to add wikipedia links within ? Also the keyword search makes so much sense bc under the google links when you search my keywords show not in those articles and i dont even have to click on it to waste my time so that makes alot of sense now why we really need to use those keywords! Alot of awesome info that i knew but needed elaborated on and stuff i actually had no idea about!!! Thank you so much
@magicalOcean594 thank you for your feedback! A Wikipedia Page helps boost authority. It isn't necessary but if an organization or company etc do have a Wikipedia page, it will add an authoritative factor to their content. So no, you don't have to add any Wikipedia links. I hope this clears things but let me know if not.
@SoulfullyAButterfly thank you for sharing this article, I have a much better understanding of high quality content.
@SoulfullyAButterfly I think it’s important that professionals follow guidelines outlined here when creating content. I know for me personally when I am reading articles, I want to know the expert knows what he is talking about and their is documented research on the subject to support the information in the article.
I have thoroughly reviewed the E.A.T methods and understand clearly, it's a very useful and efficient method to combat harmful information from spreading online. It's a huge and honorable responsibility to make sure that content around mental health is accurate and useful
@SirenOfSerenity
Yes. We need to have expert insights throughout our content - like the therapists that work here. I wonder if they keep blogs.
My opinions on EAT
Expertise
I wondered what back linking is, so I looked it up: Backlinks are links that connect an external website to your site. Also, "It’s better to have anchor text placed on a phrase like “best Thai restaurant” or “how to build a website” than on words like “read here” or “check out this blog.” It gives your work more credibility and higher ranking in a Google Search.
Authority
While I may not be an expert, writing on 7 CUPS add brand authority to the content I produce. I am reading about EAT on other websites. Here is an intersting quote about Google Search Results: "Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (SQEG) only give us clues, not definitive answers, on Google’s ranking factors. We can only analyze and infer what it all means."
Trust
Be honest and true to those closest to you - our peers! Thanks for this!
