Most brands are misunderstanding E-E-A-T principles. Here’s a practical approach to leveraging and showcasing genuine subject matter expertise.

 

SEOs have followed Google’s guidelines regarding expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). It’s not just about the content; it’s about who creates it and where it’s published.

While it’s possible to create content with E-E-A-T in mind and ensure a brand’s website displays these signals, building and maintaining genuine, meaningful author-level E-E-A-T at scale is a different challenge. I bet that it’s not readily achievable.

Don’t get me wrong—author E-E-A-T is real and vital. When done correctly, it significantly impacts content visibility across Google’s ecosystem. However, SEO “experts” often oversimplify this process, suggesting that just creating an author profile page is enough to establish E-E-A-T. This is a misconception.

Google requires much more effort to understand an author’s reputation. Most people will never achieve true author-level E-E-A-T. It requires personal motivation and ongoing dedication to becoming a subject matter expert and maintaining that reputation.

Brands can only manufacture such a reputation for their authors at scale with the authors’ active involvement and personal investment.

 

Why Real Author E-E-A-T is Important to Google (and Hard to Game)

 

Google has to be selective these days. With an influx of AI-generated content and the usual keyword-targeted SEO spam, search results are increasingly cluttered, and indexing most articles is no longer feasible.

That’s where author E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) comes in.

Author E-E-A-T serves as a signal for both visibility across Google surfaces and for indexing. By focusing on content from credible sources, Google can allocate its resources very efficiently and prioritize quality content.

Google determines an author’s credibility by querying their name in the Google Knowledge Graph and reviewing their knowledge panel. Please consider the Knowledge Graph as Google’s digital Rolodex, which helps assess an entity’s relevance based on its established reputation in a particular topical area.

More effort is required for authors unknown to Google. Google uses named entity recognition (NER) to identify the author based on their digital footprint. This machine learning approach is less likely to find evidence supporting author E-E-A-T.

If you want to delve deeper into this topic, I recommend reading Olaf Klopp’s excellent article on evaluating authors through E-E-A-T.

 

Tactics to Build Author E-E-A-T and Why They Commonly Don’t Work

 

There are many legitimate tactics to build and showcase a writer’s reputation to Google—essentially corroborating what you say about the author on-site with third-party evidence off-site.

But most brands need help with execution. The decision power to implement these tactics often lies outside their control; they’re frequently reliant on the author and constrained by people, processes, and technology.

On-Page: Author Bylines and Profiles

Comprehensive author biographies linked from the article byline can be powerful E-E-A-T amplifiers. They provide a platform to showcase the authors’ qualifications and industry clout.

However, some brands do not use linked bylines and rely solely on a profile box at the base of the article. Even when bylines are used, most author bios are bare-bones: a name (or only part thereof), a poorly cropped picture, a few inane sentences, and a grid of posts. This content exists because the author was told to fill it in, with little guidance on how or why. As a result, these pages often need more quality. Fields for relevant education, accreditations, or awards must frequently be filled in because the author needs to include such qualifications or is disinclined to provide the information.

So technically, an author bio exists. But does it build E-E-A-T? Certainly not.

To positively influence Google’s assessment of E-E-A-T at the content creator level, author pages must include:

• Professional name and title: e.g., “Joe Wright, Technology Journalist at XYZ Publication.”
• Headshot: High-quality, professional, and polished.
• Active social profiles and a personal website: Showcasing online influence.
• Topical credentials: Relevant background, industry activities and achievements, notable certifications or awards.
• Author bio: Includes a persuasive explanation of why this author is uniquely qualified to write about a particular field. Marking this up with comprehensive “Person” structured data can further strengthen the impact.

Why Not Just Fake It?

Because it doesn’t work. Author E-E-A-T does not rely on taking your word for it. Google uses many other signals beyond author profile pages and Person structured markup, including signals from external parties.

 

Off-Page: Corroboration Sources

An author bio is just the starting point. To achieve E-E-A-T, authors need a clear digital footprint that confirms their legitimacy and notability.

Social media profiles directly attributed to the author through sameAs structured data might seem like a quick win. However, for influence, these social profiles must be topically relevant, actively posted, and have an engaged following. This is uncommon in the professional sphere. Moreover, using personal profiles for work can range from taboo to liable, necessitating compelling reasons or contractual obligations for authors to use their social media profiles for professional purposes.

Additionally, social media now demands more visibility and engagement, primarily video content, which is more time-consuming to produce. The business issue is that brands will likely see an immediate return on this time investment if the author is already a noted subject matter expert. Most authors do not fall into this category. And if they build up a following, it becomes an asset the content creator owns, not the brand. When the author leaves, the followers go with them.

Even with active social media engagement, Google requires more corroborating sources for strong author E-E-A-T, such as:

• Additional author profiles from other third-party publications.
• Press coverage: Being quoted in publications or included in “best of” lists.
• Directory listings: Profiles on Crunchbase or Muck Rack.
• Podcast or webinar presence: As a guest or host.
• Speaker profiles: From relevant industry events.
• Books authored.
• Awards, associations, or accreditations: Verifiable and notable.
• Wikipedia presence: As a mention or dedicated page.
• Google searches: For their name, ideally in combination with relevant topics.

When aligned with what’s said on the author’s bio page, third-party evidence like this increases the chances of the person becoming an entity in the Google Knowledge Graph, establishing the author as a subject matter expert within the industry.

The Crux of the Matter

Brands often do not control the evidence of an author’s reputation. They can enable it with work hours, make authors the face of the brand’s PR efforts, and use the brand’s influence to open opportunities. But ultimately, the author needs to decide to build their reputation. Most people will not take advantage of offered opportunities, and for those who do, many will never become notable as there are few experts in any industry.

Even if one author has the talent to rise to the top, which is rare, what about the rest of your writers? The crux is that there is no practical way for brands to build author E-E-A-T at scale. Brands can support one or two key personnel to establish reputations but can only demonstrate existing E-E-A-T for the remainder.

 

Rethinking Author E-E-A-T: Build vs. Buy

 

Let’s face the reality of author-level E-E-A-T. For many brands, especially those not in the media industry, buying expertise may be more effective than trying to build it.

Instead of relying on in-house “SEO content writers,” brands should prioritize hiring subject matter experts and training them to be content creators. This shift brings in genuine E-E-A-T and allows the brand to focus on curating existing credentials rather than trying to build them from the ground up.

For brands that can’t hire subject matter experts—such as in cases where employing a doctor as a content creator is impractical—transform the in-house role from writer to editor. Instead of churning out generic content, their focus shifts to:

• Identifying subject matter experts: Find and build relationships with experts in the topical area.
• Collaborating on content: Work closely with experts to shape their knowledge into SEO-friendly, engaging pieces.
• Publishing with E-E-A-T in mind: Secure the expert’s approval and publish in the expert’s name (if the expert did much of the writing) or under the editor’s name, clearly crediting the expert as a key contributor.
• Distribution: Use the brand’s channels and the expert contributors’ network.

 

However, this strategy has its challenges:

1. Limited Pool of Experts: Few notable, digitally active subject matter experts worldwide exist, and this pool shrinks further if your content needs to be written in English.
2. Cost of Expertise: These experts often know their value, so be prepared to pay accordingly. Reallocating the link-building budget might be a wise move to afford their services.

By leveraging true experts rather than cultivating in-house authority from scratch, brands can better align with Google’s E-E-A-T principles and improve the credibility and visibility of their content.

 

A Realist’s Author E-E-A-T Strategy

 

The theory behind author E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) is sound. An author demonstrating a topically relevant reputation in a way that Google can understand will positively impact organic visibility.

However, the current SEO narrative oversimplifies the process, suggesting it’s as easy as marking up an author profile page. When writing is a profession rather than a passion, authors are often unwilling to display their social media profiles, engage the industry, or earn additional credibility from third-party sources.

This results in insufficient information for Google to know the writer. Without a deep understanding of the author, Google can’t effectively disambiguate individuals with the same name, leading to a lack of author E-E-A-T signals.

Ultimately, it comes down to the content creator’s talent and continuous effort to become a subject matter expert. A brand cannot build this on behalf of its author.

 

The proper role of brands in author E-E-A-T is to:

1. Find Expertise: Hire or collaborate with subject matter experts with an established digital footprint in the field, or be ready to invest significantly in the right person to build it.
2. Enable Growth: Foster a company culture where content creators have ongoing opportunities to grow or showcase their E-E-A-T within working hours.
3. Connect the Dots: Communicate the content creators’ existing E-E-A-T through comprehensive author profiles and structured data incorporating off-site corroborations. Ensure this information is regularly updated.

This approach leverages the power of the author’s topical influence while bolstering the brand’s credibility through association.

 

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