Google EAT: A Quick Guide for Recruiters

As a recruiter, one way to set your business apart from the competition is to provide your prospects with quality web content. Considered a vital digital marketing strategy, content creation enables you to generate traffic for your recruitment site. It also helps you boost your credibility, showcase your recruitment expertise, and earn employers and candidates’ trust. 

Content creation is also a critical component of search engine optimisation (SEO). It helps you rank well on Google, which, in turn, enables you to establish better brand awareness and a more significant online presence. 

But how exactly do you create quality web content? One way to do this is to ensure that it meets the search giant’s EAT guidelines. 

Google EAT Explained

EAT means “expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.” It is from Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines, a list of standards that helps the search giant’s human quality raters gauge the quality of search results. It was published in 2013 and designed to help site owners understand what makes a Google-friendly webpage. 

Meeting EAT standards is essential when creating content for YMYL or “Your Money or Your Life” topics. As the name implies, YMYL topics can have a considerable impact on a person’s quality of life, including their health, happiness, safety, and stability. 

As someone who helps candidates find jobs that suit them and assists employers when filling in job placements, your advice or recommendation can significantly affect their career or business. This is why you should show your expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness in your web content. 

Measuring EAT

Expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness are concepts that may seem similar to each other at first glance. However, they could never be more different. Understanding what each of them means can help you create content that will comply with Google’s stringent guidelines. 

1. Expertise

“Expertise” means having substantial knowledge and skill relevant to your industry. As a recruiter, you should possess the qualifications or experience required to provide your audience with the information and services they need. 

2. Authoritativeness

“Authority” points to your reputation and popularity, especially amongst other recruiters. If your website is frequently cited as a reliable source of industry news, advice, and information, then you can call yourself a recruitment authority. 

3. Trustworthiness

“Trustworthiness” refers to the credibility and legitimacy of your recruitment business. It also determines the accuracy of your site and its contents. 

Building Your Site’s EAT

As a recruiter, building your expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness is more important now than ever. With Google moving towards providing its users with more accurate and relevant results, meeting its guidelines means higher search rankings and better online visibility. At the same time, it enables you to establish trust with your audience. 

Here are some practical tips on creating web content that complies with Google EAT standards. 

1. Create a better link building strategy

Having quality backlinks can help show your site’s authoritativeness. As we have explained earlier, you are considered a recruitment authority when many related sites link to yours. Therefore, make sure to create web content that many people, especially members of the recruitment industry, would want to use as an online reference. 

Also, pay attention to the websites linking to yours. Google webmaster trends analyst Gary Illyes revealed that the search giant knows and understands which link matters. This is why you should always build high-quality backlinks instead of settling for low-quality ones. 

2. Keep your content fresh

Information can change rapidly. Thanks to the Internet, it is now easier to know what’s happening around us in real-time. Therefore, make sure to update your content, especially older blog posts and articles. See to it that they contain the latest information to protect your audience from outdated data. Otherwise, it could hurt your site’s trustworthiness.

3. Fact-check your posts

With fake news and manufactured data being prevalent these days, it’s vital to ensure that your web content is accurate. Fact-check your news articles, blog posts, and other pieces of web content before publishing them online. Also, use only reputable and legitimate sources of information when creating content.

4. Ask former clients and candidates to review your site

Google’s quality raters check online reviews to verify a site’s reputation. Because your reputation has a bearing on your authoritativeness and trustworthiness, you should encourage clients and candidates to leave you online reviews or testimonials. The more positive reviews you got, the better your chances of receiving a higher search ranking from Google and earning your prospects’ trust. 

It is also an excellent idea to join trade organisations for recruitment businesses, such as the Association of Recruitment Consultancies and the Association of Professional Staffing Companies. These trade organisations can be a good source of high-quality backlinks, as many of them have an online directory of members. Besides helping you comply with Google EAT guidelines, being a member of a recruitment trade association can also give your business more prestige and credibility. 

Start Demonstrating Your Site’s EAT

Creating web content that showcases your recruitment site’s expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness is a great way to earn excellent Google rankings. At the same time, it gives your credibility and reputation a considerable boost, which can have a significant impact on your recruitment business. For this reason, you should start optimising your site for EAT. 

At Recruitment Traffic, we can offer you the SEO solutions you need to meet Google’s standards. Please get in touch with us, and we’ll create a content creation and optimisation plan just for you.