Intro:

Lately, content written with the help of AI has been swarming the internet. That said, content written by humans versus AI is given preferential ranking. It is important that you know how to set your blogs and articles apart from the crowd. Consult PR aka The Digital WOW has the solution.

AI has been the buzzword for the past 1 ½ years. While it may have its backers and naysayers, AI is here to stay and it’s being forced down all our throats whether we like it or not. There is a swarm of low-quality content that is now taking over the internet. Most of this content has been written by people using AI who have little to no experience, expertise or knowledge on the subject matter. Ultimately, this leads to bad writing and poor editorial review protocols. Hence, this “use of AI” in content writing is a problem we expect to persist for the foreseeable future. 

Well, when there is a problem, there is a solution. 

For quite a while, Google’s Quality Raters used a principle called E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) to determine the quality and effectiveness of a user's search results. Quality Raters are real people who provide input to Google's search results in order to meet users' needs based on the search engine ranking factors (Search Quality Rater Guidelines). 

Note: Although the feedback from quality raters doesn't have any direct impact on rankings, it does play an important role for Google in making improvements to its algorithm.

This meant that if the article and the author met the aforementioned E-A-T parameters, then the Page Quality was ranked higher in Google searches. However, with the advent of AI, E-A-T was being circumvented, and a no-win scenario was emerging for writers and bloggers who had spent years honing their writing skills.  In order to level the playing field and to allow credible/quality content to shine through, Google added another E (Experience)to E-E-A-T. 

Why the 2nd “E” in E-E-A-T? Adding Experience to E-E-A-T means that Google places value on the real-life or first-hand experience of the writer of the content. This in turn impacts the quality rating of a page, giving more credibility to a written piece that fulfils E-E-A-T criteria.

E (Experience): The extent of the first-hand experience of the content creator for the topic of the blog/article.

E (Expertise): The extent of the knowledge or skill of the content creator for the topic of the blog/article.

A (Authoritativeness): The extent to which the content creator or the website is known as a go-to for the topic of the blog/article.

T (Trust): The extent to which the information on the page is credible, i.e. accurate, honest, safe and reliable.

The addition of Experience in the rating parameters is a differentiator that mitigates some of the issues that come from the use of AI.  It's now imperative to have an accredited author bio backing your content initiatives. This will result in better positioning in searches. Google however places ‘Trust’ as the most important member of E-E-A-T.

For e.g., if an author is writing a review for an iPhone then they should have actually used the product or if an author is writing about the best restaurants for burgers and fries in New York, then the author should have visited the establishment.

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust (E-E-A-T) -

What does all this mean for authors or digital marketing partners?

To get better page quality rankings, all posted content should now have a link to the authors' E-E-A-T bio page. This page should describe the author's educational background, their experience in the industry and expertise on a particular topic. It can also have links to their personal blog pages, vlog pages, YouTube channels and their social media profiles (if they wish). The page will act as a personal branding for the author, and help establish them (in the digital realm) as an industry expert on the topic. It will also enable them to get more traction on their social media and personal page links, which can indirectly increase traffic. The readers will also see the face behind the article, making it a more personal engagement. 

Also, an E-E-A-T bio page will get some special SEM (Search Engine Marketing) enhancements, i.e. special schema markup and other designations that are technical in nature. That’s actually Consult PR’s secret sauce for this recipe.

Consult PR aka The Digital WOW started offering this service to its clients in late 2023, reach out to find out more.