You’ve Heard of Double E-A-T, Meet Triple E-A-T: Incorporating Empathy Into Your Legal Content
Summary:
- Google’s E-E-A-T asks for content to incorporate quality, emphasizing anecdotal evidence which is particularly useful in law-related content.
- E-E-A-T comprises Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
- Site Social SEO has added an additional E to Double EAT, making it Triple EAT with the addition of Empathy.
- Empathy is crucial in legal content, helping to connect with readers facing traumatic experiences.
- E-E-E-A-T is crucial to successful law firm content.
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. E-E-A-T was created by Google as a way to identify quality content. Previous to 2023, it was simply EAT.
The second E was added recently to encourage writers and website owners to include more anecdotal research. This allowed Google to more easily identify content created by people with experience in certain areas.
For a law firm, that would look like including anecdotes about previous cases and clients that the firm has helped. However, at Site Social SEO, we felt that E-E-A-T was missing something crucial: Empathy.
What is Double EAT?
In Google’s content guidelines, they provide the following information about EEAT:
- Experience: Consider the extent to which the content creator has the necessary first-hand or life experience for the topic. Many types of pages are trustworthy and achieve their purpose well when created by people with a wealth of personal experience.
- Expertise: Consider the extent to which the content creator has the necessary knowledge or skill for the topic. Different topics require different levels and types of expertise to be trustworthy.
- Authoritativeness: Consider the extent to which the content creator or the website is known as a go-to source for the topic. While most topics do not have one official, Authoritative website or content creator, when they do, that website or content creator is often among the most reliable and trustworthy sources.
- Trust: Consider the extent to which the page is accurate, honest, safe, and reliable.
Let’s break that down further.
Experience
To put it simply, you want your content to be written by someone who has experience in what they’re talking about. Unfortunately, in law firm writing, that can be difficult. Oftentimes, lawyers don’t have the time to write their own content.
However, you can create experience in your law firm content by incorporating key information. For example, you should include anecdotes about previous clients and how their case was resolved by the law firm to showcase the experience the firm’s lawyers have in a specific area.
Case results, settlement payouts, and other information from case studies can be excellent for both experience and expertise.
Expertise
Without expertise, content is nearly useless. Would you read an article from someone who has absolutely no expertise in the subject? Us either!
In all content, but especially when writing about law, you should be thorough in your research and fact-check as much as possible. You should also include external links to authoritative sites, such as government websites or research-specific websites.
Including statistics is another great way to increase your expertise, but make sure to link to your source!
Authoritativeness
When writing content, you want to establish credibility. Are you the go-to source for this information? Why should someone read about car accident liability from your blog?
To answer these questions, you’ll want to have an author page that lists information about you, including licenses, awards, and other information that backs up your credibility.
Backlinks are another great way to build authority and credibility for your website. If high-level websites are linking to your blog as a source of quality information, that’s a great sign in Google’s eyes!
Trustworthiness
Trustworthiness is built on top of experience, expertise, and authoritativeness. None of those things matter if your readers don’t trust you. So, how do you establish trust?
First and foremost, you should make sure that your website is safe and secure for readers to navigate. A spammy, unsafe website just won’t reel in readers.
Within your content, you can continue to showcase your trustworthiness by providing readers with high-quality factual information that has been double and even triple-checked.
What is Triple EAT (E-E-E-A-T)?
Triple EAT is the idea that—in addition to Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness—empathy is crucial to writing useful, effective, and well-ranking legal content.
Why Is Empathy So Important in Legal Content?
Now, let’s talk about Empathy. In the legal field, content is nothing without empathy. Many readers have recently experienced something traumatic, and they’re looking for answers.
Think about it. If you were just injured in a car accident, would you want to read an article written without an empathetic tone? It’s vital to connect to your readers to make them feel heard and understood. Most importantly, you want them to feel like you’re on their side.
When looking for a lawyer for their case, your readers are most likely looking for someone to champion them to ensure they get the biggest payout possible. You want to get that message across in everything you write.
How to Incorporate Empathy in Your Content
Here are some examples of how we use empathy in our law firm content at Site Social SEO:
- No one should ever have to deal with the tragic death of a loved one due to another’s negligence or misconduct.
- We understand just how much it can affect a person to go through a severe injury, and we’re here to help every step of the way.
- Truck accident injuries are no joke. Oftentimes, they can bring huge changes to one’s quality of life. Our team is here to ensure that you get the full and fair compensation you deserve for those changes.
Writing with an empathetic tone takes practice. Put yourself into the shoes of your readers, of those who have recently experienced injuries or other trauma. Think about what they’re going through and bring that empathy into your writing—your content will be all the better for it.
Better Content is Better; Amazing Content is Best
Double EAT is a set of necessary guidelines you’ll need to follow for Google to see your content as “high-quality.” However, why settle for just better content when your content could be the best?
By adding Empathy to Double EAT, your content will stand out to Google and readers alike.
Don’t have time to create a content strategy and write amazing, people-first content? That’s okay. Site Social SEO is here to help. Our small but personable team has experience crafting high-quality, triple EAT-compliant content. We know law firm content and we are damn good at it if we do say so ourselves.
Contact us online, by booking an appointment on calend.ly, or by calling us at 407-712-0494.
