The role of E-E-A-T in an AI world

The original concept of E-A-T was born following the Medic Update in the summer of 2018, with a subsequent addition in 2022 to E-E-A-T (including experience). These were turbulent times for websites operating in the Your Money Your Life (YMYL) industries as many were manipulating their way to the top. Enhancing trust, credibility and user experience has always been important, but with these updates Google more explicitly outlined their expectations, which has helped to inform ongoing strategy for SEOs. 

What does E-E-A-T stand for?

Experience: Firsthand, practical involvement with the subject.

Expertise: Deep, specialised knowledge and qualifications in the field.

Authoritativeness: Recognised credibility and influence within the industry.

Trustworthiness: Reliable, honest, and transparent content and source material.

Nearly 7 years on and there have been significant changes in Search and nothing greater than the integration of AI. This has changed the way we search for, discover and consume information online. In this article, we’re going to review the true power behind E-E-A-T and how harnessing it can help you maximise your brand’s visibility in this new AI landscape.

Being visible beyond Google

Google has long been the dominant source of content discovery and still is, however, other platforms like Chat GPT are appearing as popular  routes to a user’s solution. As AI platforms become routed into our day-to-day, Search GPT has a real possibility of being a more trusted source of information for some. Below is an image of the gradual rise of Search GPT in terms of US market share.

Source: SparkToro 2024

Power of social search

You also need to consider where your audiences are searching and engaging in your marketplace. For instance, the younger generation are actively using social media platforms to find solutions to their issues, especially on TikTok. This is acting like another search engine and completely removes all of the friction that Google currently provides users. Why is this worth mentioning in terms of E-E-A-T? As a brand, you need to ensure you’re proactive across all of your social platforms with your people being at the forefront of your content strategy. 

Large language models (LLMs) are actively using social profiles as an indicator to determine relevancy and general authority on a particular topic, meaning that your brand can be featured in AI platforms like ChatGPT. You may also start to see a rise in referral traffic from these AI bots as your brand or website’s content is being featured more frequently due to the power of your social media presence.

The enormous weight of reviews

Brands care what their audience thinks about their product or service. Showcasing reviews on platforms like TrustPilot, Feefo and more are a vital part of a brand’s front of shop and provides everything a new user needs when they carry out their due-diligence. Why does this matter? Large language models (LLMs) are extensively scanning review platforms and communities to better understand a brand and its impact on their audience and marketplace. It’s also worth noting that reputable review platforms do impact the attractiveness of your brand search result page. New users who are researching a brand may be presented with mixed or poor reviews with no real brand interaction or transparency, causing doubt and affecting their chances of converting. 

An example of a product review being lifted into the AI Overview promoting the product, Inofolic Alpha which serves the PCOS community to increase chances of conception.

Communities like Reddit have recently seen a controversial spike in rankings on Google across 2024 so overlooking this forum would be a mistake for many brands. In Reddit’s defence, the deep conversations around products can present a huge opportunity for brands who are struggling to address their consumer pain points or have potential gaps in their offering. Ultimately, monitoring sentiment about your products in these channels along with maintaining a healthy and transparent review platform needs to be a core part of your brand strategy. 

Source: Rise of Reddit – Amisive

The power of links is still clear

The power of a brand’s voice has never mattered more. Utilising someone’s expertise to provide comment for a campaign will always elevate your brand and help with thought-leadership efforts but with AI, those comments have gained significantly more weight. Brand mentions appear to be one of the most effective ways to generate visibility in AI Search. Google will continue to count links but AI is counting conversations. Another way of putting it, your digital footprint is now measured by who’s talking about you, not just linking to you.

What still matters is uniqueness and originality.. Developing insightful campaigns will continue to support your organic objectives but also allow others to source your data for their own campaigns. This always represents a very well-executed campaign where links are generated naturally without exhausting levels of outreach. Strengthening associations from these campaigns to your brand will enrich further credibility and provide a greater chance of your campaign sources being referenced or your brands being part of a wider discussion about the topics you specialise in.

Diversifying your content offering

Answering a question is the absolute minimum. Users are impatient and they will most likely find what they’re looking for in rapid fashion. For example, for an informational query, a zero click search experience is the most likely outcome i.e. through a featured snippet or through an AI Overview. 

The dial has been turned up and you need to ensure you are covering a topic through various content formats and offering the best experience possible. A good theory that supports this is ‘information gain’. 

What is information gain?

To simplify, information gain SEO is creating unique content relevant to a user’s search intent based on:

• New information about existing topics, and/or
• Covering consensus content with fresh, new perspectives & additional first-party information

Another way of approaching this is thinking, how will your website differ from others and provide something of value to your readership? Ideas that could be explored:

• Leaning on your brand expertise & expert comments
• Use of video to simplify complex topics
• Addressing content gaps in your content whilst analysing competition
• Providing expert perspectives and unique experiences 

Source: Clearscope – information gain

Each piece of content or asset needs to have a purpose. This means understanding which topics would work across not only your website but your social platforms, for example. Achieving some uniformity in your content strategy, especially when targeting specific topics that your brand specialises in will strengthen the associations between your website, Google and AI platforms. With large language models (LLMs) undertaking deeper research methods across online forums, social platforms and more, it’s important to diversify your content across the board but being particular with what topics you can dominate to elevate your topical authority. 

At Distinctly, we’re bringing in more social listening platforms into our overall content strategy approach to ensure our output is agile and we’re maximising our brand’s potential.

In Summary

In an AI-driven landscape, adhering to E-E-A-T principles is crucial for maintaining credibility. By emphasising firsthand experience, specialised expertise, recognised authority, and unwavering trustworthiness, brands can enhance their visibility and reliability across evolving search platforms. This approach ensures content resonates authentically with users and AI systems alike.

We’d also encourage you to use AI platforms to fully understand their perception of your brand and use a wide range of prompts to dig deeper into their thinking. An example of a few prompts you can test out:

• Ask Chat GPT who the best X provider is related to your market
  • Take note of competitors being served hopefully with you being mentioned
• Ask Chat GPT for its sources and how it came to this decision
  • This can instantly identify some gaps in your offering or authority such as not being featured on specific websites where others are featured. 

Utilising Chat GPT’s information can help brainstorm certain tactics for your organic strategy so it’s worth the experimentation.