How do you align your E-A-T with Google's quality guidelines and core updates?

One thing I find really important is auditing the authors. With EAT your author could be a ranking factor, I saw many websites spending time and efforts optimising their authors pages. You need to audit authors qualifications, experiences, previous articles and make sure they are recognised as an expert. For example, your article about “best things to do in London” won’t perform if your author has never been to London.

More sophisticated tools like Clearscope provide better analysis of tone, content gaps, and readability. Technical issues can affect EAT, but there's no substitute for having a seasoned editor and/or subject matter expert audit and review the content that's being generated. Removing content is generally not advised unless that content has had little to no organic traffic, no backlinks, and has issues with being out of date or has low quality grammar, spelling, etc.

Even for eCommerce websites, it's important to properly create pages that document and explain the EAT of your content authors. Make sure on those pages to list any formally recognized credentials, education or industry experience, link to internal articles, and cite any work done for external publications.

User generated content and social proof is key to signal EAT. In general, third party review companies like Trust Pilot that can't be curated / modified by the website or merchant rank more strongly than reviews or UGC that can be curated or edited; however, it's important to have a review system even if it's not a third party. Studies have shown that as little as 1 review can significantly impact conversion and as few as 5 reviews on a product can impact SEO.

Most ecommerce and CMS platforms will include sitewide HTTPS, SSLs, encryption of personally identifiable information, and allow control of cookies to in compliance with states/countries/governmental bodies such as California, Canada, or the EU that have specific regulations. Make sure to create discrete pages for a privacy policy, about us, FAQ & returns policy (if eCommerce), and have a contact form and/or direct contact method prominently displayed on the website.

Google analytics is excellent at monitoring and analyzing traffic origin & acquisition(medium/source), behavior, and conversion. As part of a more robust tech stack, most SEO practitioners also use paid tools like SEM Rush (well known for site audits, backlink management & acquisition, and keyword research), Moz Pro (excellent for keyword research and competitor gap analysis), and Ahref (excellent for measuring domain authority and keyword rankings). For site speed, most veteran practitioners use a combination of PageSpeed Insights, WebPageTest.org, and Lighthouse. PageSpeed Insights is a good tool to understand the overall site speed picture and WebPageTest.org is best in class for diagnosing site speed gaps and addressing them.

Blogs such as Moz, Search Engine Land, and Neil Patell all help to keep up to date on changes in the industry that impact EAT. Websites such as Quora are also very useful to look for commonly asked questions in your vertical to use as ideas for content creation.

One great tactic to help to boost EAT, especially for eCommerce merchants, is to work with local educational institutions like colleges and universities.

To align your E-A-T with Google's quality guidelines and core updates: Demonstrate expertise through authoritative, well-researched content and showcase credentials. Build a strong online presence, earn high-quality backlinks, and position yourself as a trusted authority. Ensure website security, user-friendly design, transparent policies, and accurate information. Optimize content, meta tags, and schema to communicate E-A-T to search engines. Regularly review guidelines and adjust strategy to address algorithm shifts focused on user experience, relevance, and trustworthiness. Consistently focus on these areas to improve your website's E-A-T and align it with Google's evolving quality standards.