Building Expertise, Authority & Trust (E-A-T) with SEO in the Finance Sector

Google values useful content, it doesn’t want to lead users to content that’s misleading or is factually inaccurate.

In Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (SQEG), Google has identified several common Your Money Your Life (YMYL) topics, including: 

• Finance 
• News and current events
• Civics, government, and law
• Shopping
• Health and safety 
• Groups of people

Since content related to finance comes under YMYL, Google has remarkably high Page Quality rating standards for YMYL pages because low-quality YMYL pages could negatively impact users’ happiness, health, or financial stability.

With E-A-T implementations, websites in industries like BFSI & Finance need to demonstrate authority, expertise, and why the user should trust their website.

Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) are industries that can impact your current or future well-being. Taking Financial & YMYL related topics, Google places extra stringent measures to ensure queries related to these topics return the most authoritative and trustworthy sites in Google search.

It is important to understand that while the E-A-T elements are part of Google’s quality guidelines, they are not actively included in Google Algorithm. E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor – your website does not get an ‘E-A-T score.’  

Regardless of whether E-A-T is a ranking factor or not, E-A-T implementations basis Google’s guidelines benefit your visitors’ experience as well as your search engine visibility – these two are big wins.

At Merkle Sokrati, we deploy strategies for optimizing content to deliver a relevant experience. Our team proactively ensures our clients’ sites have top-notch SEO health and are equipped with necessary E-A-T elements as per Google’s guidelines.

Here are some of the tips for optimizing your website for E-A-T: 

• Sanity checks on each article before publishing. 
• Create author pages on your website. 
• Include the author's bio in each article. 
• Ensure your social profiles reflect knowledge in the field. 
• Encourage your clients to leave reviews. 
• Create an About page for your website. 
• Make sure your contact details are easily found. 
• Ensure relevant links for statistics or relevant information. 

Content Strategy

High-quality and well-researched content creation services that are optimized to create a better search experience for the user and generate tangible signals that Google considers while ranking websites.

Social Leadership

Building individual thought leadership of the authors publishing the website content. A strong social profile of the individuals positively impacts the authority of the website content and can impact Google search rankings. 

Industry Collaborations

Collaborating with industry-relevant publications with high domain authority to get backlinks to the website and mentions of the individuals authoring the content.