A new company without case studies can still show experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust by making the people behind it visible, publishing work that demonstrates what they know, being transparent about methods and limits, and earning early independent signals such as reviews and mentions. The founders’ prior experience counts: E-E-A-T is about who creates the content and whether they know the subject, not only about the company’s age. What does not work is borrowing credibility that is not yours.
What E-E-A-T means for a new company
Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines describe experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust, with trust as the most important. Raters look at who created content, their experience with the topic, and the reputation of the site and creators. A new company has little reputation of its own, but its people usually have years of it.
1. Put the people first
- Name the founders and key people on the About page and on every article they write.
- Describe their prior experience factually: years in the field, previous roles, specialisms.
- Link to LinkedIn and other profiles that confirm it.
- Connect them with Person structured data to the company and their articles.
See writing an About page that builds trust.
2. Show expertise through work you can publish now
| Instead of case studies | Example |
|---|---|
| Tests and experiments | Build something, measure it and publish the method and results |
| Free tools and templates | A calculator, checker or checklist people can use |
| Detailed methods | Explain exactly how you do the work, step by step |
| Analysis of public data | Original analysis of data others have not looked at closely |
| Corrections of common myths | With evidence, sources and reasoning |
This site took that approach: in its first weeks it published a render test with reproducible code, a free AI crawler checker tested against several scenarios, and scripts that found and fixed a real canonical problem on this site.
3. Be transparent
- State what you have done and what you have not. Honesty about being new is more credible than inflated claims.
- Label your own frameworks and methods as yours, not as industry standards.
- Cite sources for every statistic, and link to them.
- Explain limits: what your service or test cannot show.
4. Earn early independent signals
- Ask your first clients for reviews on independent platforms, with their permission.
- Complete profiles on the directories and review sites your buyers use.
- Contribute expert comment to industry publications and communities, under your own name.
- Speak at events or webinars and publish the material afterwards.
See digital PR for AI visibility.
5. What not to do
- Displaying logos of companies that are not your clients, or clients of a founder’s previous employer presented as yours
- Fake or purchased reviews
- Unsourced statistics or invented “studies”
- Claiming titles such as “leading” or “number one” without independent evidence
Each of these can be checked, and being caught costs far more trust than being new ever does.
6. Let trust compound
Publish consistently, keep facts accurate, update pages when things change, and add case studies as soon as clients agree. Within a year, a new company that follows these steps can show more verifiable expertise than many older firms with vague websites.
Frequently asked questions
Does a new domain rank more slowly?
New sites often take longer to build visibility, because they have fewer links, mentions and history. Clear expertise and useful content shorten the time.
Can we show work founders did at previous companies?
Describe it as the founder’s experience, with the previous employer’s permission where needed. Do not present it as work the new company did.
How soon should we publish case studies?
As soon as a client agrees and there is a result worth describing. Anonymised examples are fine if they are real.
Sources
- Google, Search Quality Rater Guidelines (E-E-A-T)
- Google Search Central, “Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content”