E-E-A-T for trades: proving your expertise to Google and AI search
Quick answer: E-E-A-T is short for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. Google’s quality raters use it as a yardstick for how reliable a page is. You won’t find it listed as one ranking factor, but making it obvious, with real named people, genuine jobs you’ve done, accurate facts with sources and open business details, gives Google and AI assistants good reason to trust what you publish.
Few SEO terms get quoted as often, or misread as badly, as E-E-A-T. Some people sell it as a tick-box list that will push you up the rankings. Others wave it away as abstract theory with no practical use.
We see it differently. For a plumber, electrician or roofer, E-E-A-T is mostly a written-down version of what makes a customer pick up the phone: proof you’ve done the work before, you know what you’re talking about, other people vouch for you and you’re a genuine, contactable business.
Key takeaways
- The idea started in Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines. It’s a picture of what quality looks like, not one ranking factor.
- Trust sits at the centre. Experience, expertise and authority all feed into it.
- It carries most weight on subjects that can affect someone’s health, finances, safety or wellbeing.
- AI search tools lean on similar signals when picking which websites to cite.
The four parts of E-E-A-T in plain English
| Part | What it means | How a local trade might show it |
|---|---|---|
| Experience | You have done or used the thing yourself | A heating engineer in Dundee writing about a boiler swap they fitted last month, with their own photos of the job |
| Expertise | You have the relevant knowledge or qualifications | A guide to consumer unit upgrades written or checked by a qualified electrician |
| Authoritativeness | Others recognise you as a go-to source | Mentions from a trade association, the local paper or respected local websites |
| Trustworthiness | You are accurate, honest, safe and dependable | Full contact details, facts backed by sources, secure payment pages and genuine reviews |
The extra “E” for experience arrived in December 2022. Google added it because, on many subjects, having actually done something can count for as much as holding a formal certificate.
Does Google score your E-E-A-T?
No, there is no hidden E-E-A-T number attached to your site. What Google does is combine lots of signals that tend to match what a person would see as experienced, expert, authoritative and trustworthy.
Quality raters read the guidelines and grade sample results. Their feedback lets Google check whether its systems are doing a good job. The raters themselves cannot move your site up or down.
Which subjects get the toughest scrutiny?
Google applies a higher bar to “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) pages. These cover areas like health, money, legal matters and safety, where bad advice could do real damage to someone.
Plenty of trades brush against safety: gas work, electrics, structural building work and roofing at height, for example. If your content strays into that territory, visible expertise and trust stop being a nice extra and become essential.
Practical ways to build E-E-A-T into your site
Put real people’s names on your content
- Give every article a named author and a short bio covering the experience that makes them worth listening to.
- Set up author pages showing qualifications, trade memberships and other work they’ve done.
- On technical or safety topics, add a “checked by” line naming the qualified person who reviewed the page.
Prove you have done the work
- Use photos from your own jobs, your own figures and your own examples in place of stock images and generic tips.
- Explain what you did on a job, how it turned out and what you would do differently.
- Publish case studies with genuine outcomes, but only where the customer is happy to be named.
Earn recognition away from your website
- Win mentions and links from respected local publications, trade bodies and suppliers you work with.
- Offer to speak at local business events, contribute to trade reports or comment to the press.
- Keep your LinkedIn profile and listings on relevant directories consistent and up to date.
Leave no doubt you are a genuine business
- Display your full trading name, registered address, phone number and company number.
- Have proper About, Contact, Privacy and Terms pages, plus a complaints or guarantee policy where it fits.
- Back up any facts or figures with a source, and show the date each page was last updated.
- Show real reviews from independent platforms, and reply calmly and professionally to any poor ones.
How does E-E-A-T carry over to AI search?
AI assistants don’t publish how they weigh sources, but they share Google’s core challenge: working out who to believe. Pages written by named experts, supported by sources and in line with what other trusted sites say stand a better chance of being quoted in an AI answer.
Frequently asked questions
What is E-E-A-T short for?
Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. You will find the term in the quality rater guidelines Google publishes.
Which of the four matters most?
Trust. Google’s guidelines put trust at the top, with the other three all helping to build it.
Do I need certificates to prove expertise?
Not for everything. On many subjects, hands-on experience is enough. Where a page gives financial, legal or medical advice, it is strongly advised to have formal qualifications or a qualified expert review.
Can content written with AI still show strong E-E-A-T?
Google looks at the quality of content, not the tool used to write it. Even so, pages lacking real human experience, expert checking or original insight tend to struggle to show E-E-A-T, whatever produced them.
Sources and further reading
- Google Search Central: how to create helpful, reliable content that puts people first
- Google Search Central Blog: the December 2022 quality rater guidelines update adding experience
Want help with this? We help trades and local service businesses build author pages, case studies and trust signals into their content. See our content marketing service or Get in touch.
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