How Topical Authority and E-E-A-T Collaborate to Boost Rankings

Want to know how to rank well on Google for loads of keywords related to your niche?

You need to master the powerful one-two punch of demonstrating E-E-A-T to build topical authority. 

E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) is your jab, softening up the opponent and paving the way for topical authority, which is your hard right hand.

Achieving topical authority for a subject on Google is an extremely advantageous position. This means that Google views your website as a reliable and trusted source of information for a particular topic. 

The results?

Higher rankings for hundreds of keywords related to your products and services! 

Since Google views you as a high-quality source, its algorithm will start favoring you in the rankings for your niche’s keywords. 

In fact, sites with strong topical authority can even outrank behemoth competitors with sky-high domain rating (DR) scores. This is because Google wants to provide its users with the most accurate, in-depth information and topical authority is the metric it uses to determine a website’s level of expertise on a given subject. 

Over the years, Google’s algorithm updates have consistently focused on bringing topical authority to the forefront. 

For instance, adding an extra E to the E-E-A-T algorithm in 2022 and integrating the Helpful Content System into Google’s Core Ranking System in 2024 are two examples of the company strengthening the impact of topical authority. 

In this guide, we’ll teach you how to use E-E-A-T and topical authority in tandem to boost your rankings for tons of important keywords, so stick around to learn more! 

Understanding Topical Authority and E-E-A-T 

First, let’s formally define both concepts so that you can understand:

1. How they’re similar 
2. How they’re different
3. How they work together to boost your SEO 

Let’s start with topical authority. 

What is topical authority, and what does it have to do with search rankings?

On search engines like Google, topical authority refers to the amount of credibility and expertise your website is perceived to have on a particular topic (or topics).

If you consistently touch on a topic through lots of high-quality, interlinked content, your topical authority will increase. Keep this up, and Google will start ranking you higher for related queries to your area of expertise.  

The idea behind topical authority is that Google wants to present its users with the highest quality, most accurate information on any given subject. The best way to do this is to reward expert-level websites with high rankings for keywords related to their field of competence. 

For example, imagine a fitness blog that features extremely informative posts written by a personal trainer with 20 years of experience and a degree in kinesiology. The blog covers trending fitness topics in lots of depth, and there are always pictures and videos to back up every post. 

Now imagine a user eager to get in shape. 

They search for a few fitness keywords on Google, and the aforementioned fitness blog ranks in the top 3 for every single one, even above mammoth sites like Amazon and other fitness sites that have more backlinks. 

Why are they ranking so high?

They are because they’ve earned strong topical authority by consistently publishing top-tier fitness content. 

It makes perfect sense when you think about it from Google’s perspective. Ranking the in-depth fitness blog above, say, an Amazon page selling fitness equipment is more beneficial to the user. 

How did topical authority come about?

Topical authority wasn’t always a thing. 

In the early days of search engines, Google only ranked content according to keywords, backlinks, and a few other ranking signals. 

That all changed with the introduction of the Hummingbird Update in 2013. It aimed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites that added no value to users by paying more attention to the meaning behind user queries. 

As the years went on, Google incorporated sophisticated AI and machine learning algorithms that were able to better understand the context behind user searches. This began with the introduction of BERT in 2018 and continued with MUM in 2021. 

However, the exact way in which Google measures topical authority is a mystery. 

This is because they haven’t publicly shared this information, which isn’t unusual for Google. They have a habit of keeping virtually all their ranking factors a secret from the general public.

Why?

It’s to safeguard the Google search algorithm from site owners eager to game the system and achieve high rankings for subpar content. 

However, SEOs and digital marketers have pretty much figured out how the system works due to experimentation and years of experience. We’ve determined that Google measures topical authority by:

• Content clusters. A content cluster is a series of web pages that cover the same topic but in different ways. A cluster consists of a pillar page (which covers the main topic) and cluster pages (which go into more detail). The cluster is connected with internal links, which helps Google’s algorithm understand the connections between the content. 

• Internal linking. Internal links are how Google’s crawler bot finds new content on your site, and they also provide context to the content on both pages (and how they’re related). Interlinking similar content will help build topical authority. 

• Keyword coverage. Lastly, Google will check to see how many keywords your site includes in its content. If you include lots of semantically related keywords that cover the same topic, it will help build topical authority. 

What is E-E-A-T, and how does it affect SEO?

E-E-A-T is an acronym that Google teaches to its human team of quality raters. This team then grades websites based on how well they exhibit the E-E-A-T factors, which are experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. 

Contrary to popular belief, E-E-A-T is NOT a ranking factor. Instead, it’s how Google gauges the overall quality and trustworthiness of your website. 

Whenever Google’s algorithm ranks a website, it looks at its IS (Information Satisfaction) score, which is informed by Google’s quality rater ratings (which use E-E-A-T as a guide). That’s why E-E-A-T is so important to your SEO (in a nutshell, anyway).

In 2022, Google added an extra E to the acronym, as it was previously E-A-T. The extra E was for experience, which is an extremely important factor to demonstrate in your content. 

Google was having trouble with fake reviews at the time (i.e., reviewers who weren’t actually using or interacting with the products and services they reviewed), so they introduced expertise as a quality rating factor. 

Here’s how each letter of the acronym impacts your SEO:

• Experience. You should always recount first-hand experiences in your content to show Google that you actually know what you’re talking about. Providing pictures and videos as visual evidence is also beneficial. 

• Expertise. Google wants to rank expert content in its top organic positions, so you need to demonstrate expertise in your content, too. The best way to do this is to always publish accurate, high-quality content written by credible experts with visible qualifications (i.e., an informative author bio). 

• Authoritativeness. In order to build authority on a subject, you have to demonstrate both experience and expertise. Besides that, the most important factor is the quality of the backlinks pointing at your content (they should come from reputable websites in your niche). 

• Trustworthiness. Trust is the most important factor in all of E-E-A-T, and you build it by demonstrating the other three factors. Also, you should keep your content up-to-date, make it easy for users to contact you (this is a trust signal), and provide plenty of positive testimonials and reviews. 

Here’s how Google visualizes the E-E-A-T system:

As you can see, they’re all interconnected, and trust lies smack dab in the middle, reinforcing that it’s the most important factor. 

How Topical Authority and E-E-A-T Work Together to Enhance SEO 

Here’s a chart that breaks down the differences and similarities between topical authority and E-E-A-T:

Differences 

Similarities

So, while there are some differences, both concepts validate each other, making them the perfect SEO tactics to target in tandem. 

Case Study: Using Topical Authority and E-E-A-T to Elevate a Travel Blog

Want to see how effective using topical authority and E-E-A-T together can be for your SEO?

Let’s take a look at how Moz’s SEO consultant Dani Leitner used both to catapult her modest travel blog to the top of Google’s search results.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, she decided to follow one of her passions and start a travel blog. While global interest in travel was rapidly decreasing at the moment (since everyone had to stay home), there was one thing that she had to her advantage – and that was lots of time. 

She put her spare time to good use by writing extremely in-depth travel blogs that primarily dealt with interrail travel in Europe. 

Already we have two aspects of topical authority and E-E-A-T emerging in full force: 

• E-E-A-T. She took the time to demonstrate her expertise and first-hand experience with interrail travel around Europe – complete with pictures, recommendations, and helpful advice (all of which prove her experience and expertise). 
• Topical authority. She began publishing numerous articles that all touched on a similar subject: interrail travel. By writing multiple interlinked articles that cover interrail travel, she effectively created a content cluster on the topic. As a result, these proved to be her most successful articles on her entire blog. 

Her hard work paid off, as it didn’t take long at all to start seeing results:

That’s right, it only took one day after publishing the post to start ranking in the #1 organic position on Google, and the reason why is due to the topical authority she built by demonstrating E-E-A-T. 

Also, she clearly touched on a popular topic that her audience was eager to learn about, which is why the post generates consistent traffic to this day. It’s a perfect example of how creating exceptional, fleshed-out content can lead to big rewards online. 

Remember, her flagship post took four entire months to write, so there was clearly a ton of effort put into it. You’ll need to put similar amounts of effort into the E-E-A-T content you create, but the results will speak for themselves. 

Top Strategies to Strengthen E-E-A-T and Topical Authority

Okay, now let’s learn how you can start implementing E-E-A-T into your content to achieve strong topical authority. 

Our favorite methods include:

• Developing content clusters 
• Establishing author credibility 
• Strengthening off-page signals with digital PR 
• Improving the trust signals on your website 
• Optimizing for user intent and engagement 

Let’s take a closer look at each one. 

Developing content clusters to build topical authority 

In our experience, content clusters are the quickest way to build strong topical authority for a website. 

As mentioned before, a content cluster is a series of content pieces that cover the same core topic, but in distinct ways. 

The pillar page provides an overview of the main topic while linking out to cluster pages that dive into more detail for each subtopic. 

Here’s a visualization of what that looks like:

As you can see, the pillar page links to all the cluster pages, and they all link back to the pillar page. 

An example of a content cluster would be a legal website creating a structured content hub centered around personal injury. The pillar page would overview personal injury, while each cluster page would handle a subtopic (types of personal injury cases, what to do after an injury, etc.). 

This will provide a comprehensive deep dive into everything related to personal injury, and the potential to rank for dozens of legal keywords. 

Why is this approach so effective for building topical authority?

There are a few reasons why:

1. Content clusters enable you to target lots of keywords related to a topic, increasing your chances of generating more traffic. 
2. The internal links help Google’s search bot understand the relation between your pillar page and cluster pages, which will help build topical authority. 
3. Content clusters are also very valuable to your users, as they get the chance to dive deep into a topic (and remain engaged in your content loop for longer). 

This guide goes into more detail on how to develop content clusters for your website.

Establishing author credibility 

Next, you need to signal to Google and your audience that your authors are credible professionals with lots of experience. 

Here are some of the best ways to establish author credibility:

• Write detailed author bios that contain the author’s professional experience and credentials. 
• Include links to the author’s LinkedIn profile (and personal website if applicable). 
• Have your articles reviewed by subject matter experts (SMEs) to provide even more credibility (which is important for YMYL topics). 

Take a page out of our book; we always include detailed author bios at the end of our blog posts:

Strengthening off-page signals with digital PR 

Off-page signals also matter when building topical authority. These are ranking signals that occur outside of your website, and primarily refer to social signals and backlinks. 

When it comes to backlinks, digital PR links are the cream of the crop. This is because they’re editorial backlinks that appear in trusted media outlets and news sites that have sky-high DR scores. 

Our digital PR service is one of the best (and easiest) ways to build super authoritative backlinks that will boost your website’s reputation (and search rankings). 

Besides that, you should also foster a strong presence on social media by posting regularly, interacting with your audience, and sharing your blog content. 

Improving the trust signals on your website 

Remember, trustworthiness is the most important factor in the E-E-A-T system, so you need to ensure you have strong trust signals on your website. 

These include:

• Providing clear contact details. Including easy-to-find contact information for your customers signals to Google that you’re a real business that isn’t trying to scam people. 

• Include customer reviews and testimonials. Strong customer reviews and first-hand testimonials reinforce that you’re a real business that provides valuable products and services to your audience. 

• Provide ample security. Lastly, every website should have an SSL certificate in today’s age, as it ensures safe browsing (and encrypts user information). Also, improve your technical SEO by optimizing your site for mobile and improving your loading speed to boost trust and enhance your user experience. 

Optimize for user intent and engagement 

Also, it’s crucial to create content for your users first, and search engines second. Trying to appeal to Google’s algorithm too much can cause the quality of your content to slip, so focus on providing truly valuable content for your audience first. 

Visual content greatly improves engagement, so include things like high-resolution images (relevant ones, of course), videos, and infographics. 

Topical Authority and E-E-A-T Best Practices and Mistakes to Avoid 

When building topical authority by demonstrating E-E-A-T, you should implement the following best practices:

• Keep your content up to date. Unless your topics are 100% evergreen, they’re going to need some refreshing from time to time. Periodically revisit your content to add fresh insights. Also, keep an eye on Google algorithm updates to ensure they won’t affect your content. 

• Leverage social proof and third-party validation. Include social proof (testimonials and reviews) wherever possible, as well as third-party validation, like media mentions. 

• Monitor your performance and adjust your strategy. Use tools like Google Search Console and Ahrefs to keep an eye on your metrics and adjust your strategy accordingly. 

Conversely, here are some mistakes to avoid:

• Creating shallow content devoid of original insights. Don’t waste your time with corner-cutting tactics like using AI to mass produce low-quality content, as that won’t work. For this technique to bear fruit, you must create truly valuable content. 

• Ignoring off-page signals. Backlinks are incredibly important for building topical authority, so you shouldn’t forget about them! 

• Poor internal linking structure. Remember, internal links are how Google understands the connections between your content, so don’t forget to include them in all your cluster pages. 

Tools and Resources for Strengthening E-E-A-T and Topical Authority 

Before we wrap up, here are some useful resources for using E-E-A-T to build topical authority:

• Ahrefs and Semrush. These are the two leading SEO platforms for a reason, they’re extremely easy to use and enormously effective. You can use them both to track backlinks, rankings, and authority scores. 

• Google Search Console (GSC). This tool is practically every SEO’s home base since it contains useful metrics straight from Google. 

• WordPress + Yoast SEO. If you use WordPress, the Yoast SEO tool is great for improving readability and optimizing schema markup. 

• Source of Sources (SOS). Formerly HARO and then HERO, SOS is Peter Shankman’s latest platform that connects journalists with high-quality sources. Responding to SOS’s daily media queries is an excellent way to generate authoritative editorial backlinks to boost your topical authority. 

Start Ranking Higher with Topical Authority and E-E-A-T 

Here’s a brief recap of what we’ve covered so far:

1. Topical authority is the amount of expertise you hold on a particular subject (to Google, anyway). 
2. E-E-A-T is a system used by Google’s quality rater guidelines that stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. 
3. Topical authority and E-E-A-T both validate each other, leading to higher rankings. 
4. To build topical authority, you should use content clusters, build author credibility, boost off-page signals with digital PR, and optimize for user engagement. 

Are you looking to build topical authority and strengthen your website’s E-E-A-T?

We’d love to help!

HOTH Digital PR and HOTH Blogger are two products that are perfect for bolstering E-E-A-T and establishing topical authority, so don’t wait to get in touch!