According to Google, YMYL represents “Your Money, Your Life.” However, these websites and blogs do more than just impact your finances. In fact, a YMYL website may affect your future happiness in some way, perhaps by affecting your health or safety. Pages that include content about your investments or financial stability, for example, are considered to be YMYL pages.
Because of the impact these pages have on your life, Google expects them to be accurate and reliable in the information they report. For this reason, it holds them to high standards. Google wants to make sure when you search for this information, you find what you need, so it holds YMYL pages to higher standards than it does for regular blog posts.
If you are trying to rank high on Google’s SERPs with a YMYL website, you need to make sure you implement Google’s EAT parameters on your website. This article will take a close look at what exactly a YMYL website is and the details surrounding it and how you can achieve success by implementing Google EAT on your website.
What is YMYL?
The acronym YMYL stands for “Your Money, Your Life.” The term was first coined by Joe Dominguez, Mr. Money Mustache, in his book, which was published in 1993. While much of what is included in his book about YMYL is a bit outdated, the concept remains very relevant today, and his advice still holds true.
YMYL sites that fall under this category of “Your Money, Your Life” have a direct effect on the reader’s health, safety, and money. Basically, these websites impact a reader’s happiness.
When you are searching for accurate information regarding your health or money, you may search for relevant and accurate content on the subject on Google. You expect the top search results to lead you to the best information.
For example, if you suspect you have a rash or chickenpox, you will search for these terms on Google, and you will find the Mayo Clinic to be the top result. You know you can trust this source because Google placed it at the top of the search results page. Plus, of course, the Mayo Clinic is a reputable and reliable source of information.
In the above example, the Mayo Clinic is the YMYL website, as it directly impacts your health.
Why does YMYL content matter to Google?
Google wants you to find high-quality content when you enter your search terms in its search box. After all, you rely on Google’s search quality to provide you with what you need. If you are looking for information on treasury bonds, you don’t want to find a blog post on how you can transform your relationship with your mother on its first page.
What is YMYL content?
YMYL content impacts your life. You depend on Google to give you the right content when you search for something important, like a health concern. Good YMYL content provides you with benefits, while bad YMYL content has a negative impact on your life. This is why having accurate and reliable YMYL content is so crucial.
Google understands the impact that YMYL content has on the reader’s life, so it takes the responsibility of giving you the right information very seriously. With YMYL content, Google expects only experts will be reporting the information because that’s what the reader needs. Only an expert has the authority to report on YMYL content.
According to Google, the following areas are considered to be in the YMYL category:
- Government
- Legal Issues
- Social Services
- Medical or Health Advice
- News
- Money
- Current Events
- Reports on People
- Shopping Information
What is a YMYL website?
As mentioned, a YMYL website has content related to people, health, safety, money, shopping, civics, legal topics, government, news, and current events. When looking for information on these topics, you expect to find the right information on Google’s first SERP (search engine results page).
For example, if you were searching for information on the latest news regarding the presidential campaign, you wouldn’t expect to find some random person’s Facebook page with their opinion on who should win to be on page one of Google’s SERP. Instead, you would expect page one to report a news website, such as FOX News or USA Today.
What is Google EAT?
Google EAT stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. It’s another part of Google’s algorithm that affects the expectations Google has of websites and how it will rank them in the SERPs. Google uses search quality evaluator guidelines to ensure you get the information you need as soon as possible.
Expertise
One of the easiest and best ways to achieve success as a YMYL website is to establish yourself as an expert on the topic you are writing about. The best way to do this is to publish a lot of quality content on what you are most knowledgeable about. Make it well-known that you know what you’re talking about, and people will flock to your site like bees to honey.
You can also do this by listing your credentials and degrees on your website. If you don’t have any, you may be able to pass as an “everyday expert.” Google accepts these qualifications, when done correctly, as being an expert on a topic.
Authority
There is a difference between an expert and an authoritative person. Authorities have influence. Once you are an established expert, you need to become an authority on the subject matter you are providing information about.
You can do this by providing reviews or quotes from other people who praise the work you have done for them or mention speaking engagements you have done. You need to show you are well-known and reliable in regards to what you are trying to show your expertise in.
Trustworthiness
The final component of the all-important Google EAT is trustworthiness. You want people to know that they can rely on your information. You want to show that you produce accurate, accessible content – information that’s correct with no errors in it.
This means that even if you are an expert or authority on a subject, you still need to credit the sources where you get the information you are reporting about so that people can refer to that information if they want to know more about the topic.
Don’t forget to check the sources you use to make sure they are reliable and trustworthy! The last thing you want to do is to provide a summary of resources that are not accurate but are just blowing smoke!
Why is SEO so important?
Are you wondering how all of this applies to your blog or website? It all comes back to SEO. SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization, and it affects how your website is viewed by others.
Achieving success with a YMYL website by using Google EAT is directly tied to SEO, so it’s a smart idea to understand exactly what it is. Keywords are a big part of SEO.
For example, if you search for “Indiana’s Tax Expert,” you will find “Sherry Borshoff” as the first item on the search engine results page. This is partly because she is well-known on her website as “Indiana’s tax expert.” She has used the right keywords to achieve this status.
SEO in blogging can be a difficult concept to grasp, but if you want to find success with your website, you probably need to know a little bit more about the concept than is mentioned in this article. Please contact us today to find out more about this and many other important concepts.
To Sum Things Up…
Google expects much of “Your Money, Your Life” (YMYL) websites. It considers YMYL pages to influence your future happiness, your health, safety, or money, so it holds these pages to the highest standards.
Page quality is very important to Google, and the search engine wants to make sure that you find the type of content you are looking for when you enter a term in the search engine. Google knows that YMYL websites affect your life, energy, money, and much more, so it strives to provide you with the correct information.
Make sure you include the features of Google EAT in your YMYL pages so that you can establish yourself as a reliable and good source of information. Google is more likely to want to share your pages or websites with readers if you show a great deal of EAT on your website.
Do you need assistance in getting your website up and running? Are you looking for assistance with your SEO, or do you just want to get a YMYL website up and running?
Whatever your need is, we may be able to help you achieve success here at Angry Ape Creative. If you would like to get your website launched today or need other assistance online, just fill out the form on the Contact page today. If we cannot meet your needs, we can steer you in the right direction, so don’t hesitate to make contact today!
Jay Bilunas is a graphic designer and marketing consultant. He loves helping small businesses succeed with great marketing and design. He also teaches and tries to help up and coming designers.
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