Does your content embody Google’s E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) helpful content system?
If so, you’re likely in a position to get cited by LLM-powered tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
Why is that?
It’s because Google’s helpful content system and LLM (large language model) preferences share a lot in common.
Granted, LLMs and search algorithms operate in different ways, but they value a lot of the same signals.
In 2022, Google released its Helpful Content Update along with a revised version of its classic E-A-T (experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) quality rater system.
Thanks to the update, the acronym gained an extra E, which stands for experience.
It was Google’s way of ensuring it rewarded truly helpful, high-quality content with high search rankings.
Now that AI-powered search tools are here, brands are eager to appeal to LLMs AND search engine algorithms.
The good news?
Following Google’s helpful content guidelines will cover almost everything.
Producing high-quality content that answers questions and provides first-hand experiences will rank well on Google and get cited by LLMs.
The main difference is that Google wants to rank helpful content, while LLMs want to cite it.
In this article, we’ll teach you how to merge LLM quality standards and Google’s helpful content guidelines to enjoy the best of both worlds, so stay tuned!
What ‘Helpful’ Actually Means in 2025
Google’s Helpful Content Update first emerged in 2022, but it was later integrated into its core ranking system in March 2024 (while making the whole thing more sophisticated).
It was the birth of the double-E acronym, as Google began to value first-hand experiences in content. This came about because Google noticed many reviewers were writing reviews for products that they had never even touched.
Because of this, Google wanted to see proof of experience. This applies not only to reviews, but also to content in general.
Here’s what Google’s official blog says about producing ‘people-first content’:
As you can see, Google wants to see that your content exhibits first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge on the topics you cover.
The Helpful Content Update also actively penalized what Google viewed as ‘content created to manipulate search rankings, not assist users.’
It was also sitewide, so if a website had some high-quality content but lots of spam, ALL of its search rankings would decline in an effort to reduce its organic visibility.
This update had a devastating effect on some sites that were relying on ‘black-hat’ SEO tactics like:
- Keyword stuffing
- Thin, surface-level posts that only existed to rank
- Rewriting trending news stories without adding anything original
- Using article spinning software (pre-ChatGPT)
- Building links from link farms and private blog networks (PBNs)
Essentially, Google unveiled the Helpful Content Update to ensure its search results were high-quality and (mostly) free of unhelpful spam posts.
Here’s a breakdown of the E-E-A-T acronym that still applies today:
- Experience – Google wants to see first-hand experiences and original insights.
- Expertise – Your content should share demonstrable expertise in your field.
- Authoritativeness – Content that’s authoritative contains external source links (to validate claims) and backlinks coming from trusted domains.
- Trustworthiness – A combination of high-quality content and authoritative backlinks builds trust. Proper site security is also a must (like SSL certificates).
These are the characteristics that comprise high-quality content in Google’s eyes.
Next, let’s take a look at the content quality preferences of the LLMs that power tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews.
LLMs Love the Same Signals
It turns out that LLMs value a lot of the same signals that Google’s algorithm does (thanks to the Helpful Content Update).
They also want to see content that exhibits expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness – although there are a few tiny differences.
Let’s run through the acronym again to highlight the similarities:
Experience
LLMs prefer content that contains original insights and lived experience.
They’re fine-tuned through human feedback to favor experience-rich, original content. That’s why content that just regurgitates information from other articles is largely ignored by LLMs.
Expertise
Topical authority reigns supreme in terms of establishing expertise on LLMs.
If a brand consistently publishes high-quality, detailed content covering the same topic (or topics), it has the potential to become the ‘go-to’ voice in that area of expertise for LLMs.
This is a great position to hold since it increases brand exposure and builds trust with target audiences.
Authoritativeness
A brand’s perceived authority (how related domains view them) also matters to LLMs, it just takes a different form.
Where Google assigns authority to backlinks, LLMs base their concept of authority around entity recognition.
If other relevant entities (brands, websites, organizations, etc.) frequently cite your content and recommend your brand, LLMs will start to recognize you as an authority figure in that field.
The catch is that LLMs assign authority to brand mentions, whether they contain a backlink or not.
They don’t use the link graph (a representation of all the hyperlinked websites online) the same way Google does. Google’s PageRank system assigns authority signals to backlinks, where LLMs only care about semantic relevance.
Think about it this way, in terms of authority:
- Search engines care about links
- LLMs care about words
However, as we’re about to discover in the trustworthiness aspect of E-E-A-T, backlinks still have an indirect impact on LLM visibility.
Trustworthiness
Just like Google, LLMs only want to cite content from reputable, well-established domains.
How do they know which domains to trust?
There are several ways, but this is also where traditional SEO merges with LLM visibility.
Since LLMs pull content from search engine indexes, they cite content that already ranks well:
High rankings on search engines like Google and Bing act as a sort of ‘pre-filter’ for quality.
LLMs also use a combination of factors that we’ve already mentioned, like brand citations and content quality, to build trust.
Essentially, when you optimize your website for E-E-A-T, you’re laying the same foundation that will make your content LLM-friendly.
Other characteristics LLMs value
Before we move on, we should also mention these signals, too:
- Structured data – Semantic HTML and schema markup will make your content machine-readable. This makes it much easier for LLMs to parse and cite your content, so including structured data is a best practice.
- Answer clarity and completeness – LLMs like to pull information from content that has clear answers to common questions. Whenever you present a question in your content, answer it in the next sentence in the most concise way possible.
Content Formatting That Wins in Both Realms
Next, let’s explore some content formats that perform well on search engines and LLMs.
Publishing this type of content can boost your search rankings and improve LLM visibility, so you’ll squeeze a ton of value out of your budget.
Q&A and FAQ posts
Whether you create an entire Q&A piece or include FAQ sections at the end of each blog, both formats are excellent for SEO and AI SEO.
Key things to remember for this format:
- ALWAYS mark these pages (or sections) up with schema and semantic HTML to make them machine readable. This matters for LLMs AND search engines, since Google’s algorithm also uses schema markup to pull Featured Snippets and other SERP features.
- Immediately answer all the questions you pose.
- Be accurate yet concise with your answers. Stick with a few sentences instead of a few paragraphs.
H2-driven structure (ultimate guides and tutorials)
Using subheadings to break up your article will make it A) easier for your target audience to read and B) easier for algorithms and LLMs to parse and cite.
Each article should contain only one H1 heading.
After that, each subtopic should receive an H2, while subtopics within each H2 should receive an H3, and so on.
Checklists and steps
Checklists and numbered steps are extremely easy for LLMs to cite.
For traditional SEO, keyword-rich bulleted lists are a great way to align your content with your niche and improve rankings (assuming the content is high-quality).
They’re also highly shareable and foster audience engagement.
Case studies and real-life experiences
This ties into how algorithms and LLMs favor content that demonstrates firsthand experience.
Sharing real-world case studies, client success stories, and challenges you’ve overcome makes for engaging content that search engines and LLMs value.
These types of posts will build credibility and trust, so they’re way better than making generic claims.
How to Audit for LLM-Friendliness
Tracking your visibility in LLM-powered tools is still in its infancy, but it’s definitely possible.
Here are some of our favorite ways to handle it:
- Manually prompt tools like ChatGPT with keywords related to your niche to see if your brand gets cited
- Use Ahrefs and Semrush to track your visibility in Google’s AI Overviews and other LLMs.
- BrightEdge’s AI Catalyst contains metrics for general LLM visibility (and how well you stack up to competitors)
- Track audience engagement metrics like branded searches, direct site visits, and leads generated in tandem with upticks in AI visibility.
While these methods haven’t been perfected yet, they will at least let you know if you’re on the right track or not.
Final Thoughts: Helpful Content is LLM-Friendly Content, Too
Google’s concept of helpful content ties in almost perfectly with LLM’s quality standards, which is good news for websites that’ve already optimized for E-E-A-T.
However, certain optimizations will make your LLM visibility even stronger, such as including structured data and generating more brand mentions.
Do you want to improve your visibility on search engines AND LLM-powered search tools?
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