YMYL stands for “your money your life”. And it’s how Google qualifies content that can impact your life, health, finances, or day-to-day living. It’s a broad topic that can hold a lot of weight and influence a person’s life. So it’s understandable that Google would put a lot of weight into this kind of content to ensure it’s accurate and helpful.
In this article, we will go into exactly what is YMYL content, why it matters to Google, and how to rank well when your website revolves around this type of content.
Examples Of Different Forms Of YMYL Content Include:
- News or current events could affect the well-being of individuals. These include news articles, podcasts about current events, videos, and other types of content that talk about current events that could potentially impact a person’s daily life.
- Civics, government, and law could deal with civilian well-being (such as voting, local politics, etc.). This also could include some current events. But politics, elections, and voting play heavily into this category.
- Financial content that gives advice or information regarding investments, financial planning, loans, etc. This has a lot of stake in someone’s well-being and literally encompasses the “money” part of YMYL.
- Shopping that gives research about shopping habits, e-commerce, etc. This can also include advice on better managing your retail store, trends, and innovation, or recommendations on what to wear for certain body types or occasions.
- Health and safety such as information on medical issues, emergency preparedness, lifestyle choices, etc. This is probably the biggest YMYL category. Google wants to make sure those writing about health and well-being have enough authority and knowledge to make good recommendations for people to follow.
- Groups of people that are involved through religion, disability, age, nationality, etc. Consider this information that directly impacts certain demographics of people.
- Decisions can be life-changing, such as choosing the right college, health plan, housing options, etc. This can also include financial or health articles. But consider this the life advice section of YMYL.
Google has larger expectations for YMYL content due to the effect it can have on individuals. And rightly so. This type of content directly can impact many people, so you should be writing it with authority and with research to back up your data.
How Does YMYL Affect SEO?
Google has repeatedly told us that the way to improve your ranking on the results page is to have helpful, informative, and easy to interact with. In 2015, Google released a rare look into its ranking content online with its Quality Search Rater Guidelines. Normally Google holds that information pretty close to the vest, but these Guidelines give beneficial information into what you need to include in your content to rank. These guidelines also evolve and update as new changes to the algorithm get made. But consistently, Google places heavy emphasis on YMYL and E-A-T.
Neither YMYL nor E-A-T have specific guidelines you need to follow to rank high. You need to have an SEO strategy behind your content and follow the guidelines to rank well for this type of content. Google specifically says, “YMYL websites demand a high degree of trust, so they generally need satisfying information about who is responsible for the content of the site.”
So that means you need to establish yourself and as an industry authority if you’re going to write on a YMYL topic. If you work in that industry, show your credibility with high ratings on Google My Business and other related platforms. Customer testimonials and case studies will dramatically improve your E-A-T on your website and help improve the ranking of YMYL content. For your content, make sure it is accurate at every step and demonstrates the authority you have on a topic.
What Do I Need To Do If I Write YMYL Content?
Keep the following in mind as you plan out your content strategy and do keyword research for your website.
1. Accuracy
YMYL content needs to be as accurate as possible, which means you’ll be docked or even reported as fraudulent if your content is found to be deceptive, untrue, inaccurate, or just plain false. So if you work in a YMYL industry, make sure you do your research and show your expertise on the subject. We’re not saying to write an academic paper or anything like that. But, for example, if you’re talking about a medical topic as a podiatrist, cite your authority and how you know what you know about the subject.
2. Keep content fresh/up-to-date
Especially for current events and news topics, it’s crucial to deliver fresh and new content. Content that displays the most recent information or latest updates on a topic is crucial for YMYL websites. But even if your content is more evergreen, visit it every little while to ensure the content is not outdated or irrelevant with new trends and innovations.
3. Meet the Needs of Your Readers
Clickbait doesn’t play well for E-A-T or YMYL content. People click on something, thinking they’ll get an answer to a question. Ensure that what you promise in your title or meta description is what you actually talk about in the article. YMYL content is meant to be helpful. So make sure you do that at every step. This also plays into your SEO strategy. Understanding the search intent behind your main keywords and knowing your target audience is crucial. High ranking for any article, but especially YMYL-related content starts with understanding why someone would want to read your article in the first place.
4. Be relatable with your audience
Good content starts with a connection with your audience. You want to know WHY someone would read your content and then answer the question. Take a step back and put yourself in your reader’s shoes. Did you answer all their questions? Did you meet the reason why they came? If you’re not sure, find a purpose in creating content. All YMYL content should have a reason behind why it was created. And generally, that is to help people and to answer their questions.
Small Business In YMYL Industries
So what can you do if you’re a small business working in one of these areas? For example, financial planners, dentists, contractors, HVAC service, car repair, or anything else falls in these categories. It can be a lot to create good content relevant to your industry, show off your authority on the subject, and be highly informative. These kinds of guides take a lot of time!
Here are a few ideas on what you can do to improve your YMYL content:
- Adding content to the homepage that explained who they were, what users would gain by visiting their site, and why the site’s authors were experts.
- Adding supplementary information to the “about” page.
- Clearly stating information on terms, conditions, payments, exchanges, and returns.
- Improving product pages to make descriptions unique and meaningful.
- Adding appropriate references and keeping content up-to-date. This was especially beneficial for medical and scientific sites since Google requires these to have a higher degree of expertise.
If you want some help to improve your website E-A-T and create YMYL content, we can do that at GREENstick. We specialize in small business SEO services and can help your website rank in these YMYL industries. Contact us today to get started!