E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust)

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust. It is Google's framework for assessing content quality, particularly for Your Money Your Life (YMYL) topics, and financial advice sits squarely inside YMYL.

Experience means first-hand knowledge of the topic: an adviser who has actually run pension transfers writing about pension transfer pitfalls, not a generalist copywriter. Expertise means formal qualifications and demonstrable subject-matter depth: Level 4 Diploma, G60, CISI, STEP, named FCA permissions. Authoritativeness means the broader field recognises the author and firm as an authority: trade press citations, guest commentary, speaking slots, professional memberships. Trust is the aggregate of everything else: the firm is clearly who it claims to be (FCA register entry, named SMF-approved senior managers), the content is accurate and up-to-date, the site is secure, reviews are genuine, and disclosures are prominent.

For regulated adviser firms, E-E-A-T is not optional. Google's 2023 and 2024 core updates have repeatedly down-weighted adviser sites that publish generic finance content without visible author credentials, FCA affiliation or review evidence. Conversely, firms with per-author bio pages (credentials, CV, LinkedIn, sameAs markup linking to the FCA register), named reviewer bylines on every article, visible last-reviewed dates, and clear firm identity information have gained share on informational queries.

Practical E-E-A-T implementation for an adviser site: Person schema on every author, linked to an author page with FCA reference; Organization schema on the homepage with founding date, address and same-as links; Article schema with author, publisher, datePublished and dateModified on every content page; and visible reviewer byline in the UI.

See also: YMYL, Person schema, author page, FCA register.