Since the internet has evolved, users have come to terms with the fact that not all websites are created equal. Some websites are a lot more trustworthy than others. However, not all users are akin to this way of thinking. This becomes troubling if a user were to believe incorrect information in a more sensitive niche such as health or finance. This is why Google created the term Y-M-Y-L.
So, what is YMYL and why is it important for SEO? YMYL stands for Your Money or Your Life and, in Google’s words, refers to “pages or topics that could potentially impact a person’s future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety”. It’s important for sites within YMYL niches to show expertise, experience, trust, and authoritativeness, otherwise it’s less likely users will trust the website.
Read on for more information about YMYL and its importance, and what you should do to help your SEO in this area.
YMYL has been used in Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines to specify websites that have pages or topics that have the potential to impact (whether positively or negatively) a person’s happiness, health, financial stability or safety. It was originally called “Your Money or Your Life” for the reason that untrustworthy websites that tried to con users out of their money were looked at as Highwaymen who wanted to take your money and/or to cause harm.
However, since its inception, Your Money or Your Life should now be considered as Your Money or Your Life, Your Health, Your Politics, Your Religion, Your News, Your Ethnicity, Your Sexual Orientation, and more. As these are sensitive topics with a large amount of disinformation around them, Google is being more careful about showing websites within these niches to users.
YMYL is used in conjunction with another SEO acronym known as EEAT (known formerly as EAT). EEAT stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. A website must show these with as much information as possible if their content is considered to be within a YMYL niche, otherwise they have less chance of being promoted on Google’s search results.
Read our recent blog, What is E-A-T in SEO & Why Is E-A-T Important? to learn more about why EEAT is so important in SEO, particularly for YMYL niches.
Considering whether your website classes as YMYL is very important for SEO as it means you have to rigorously optimise for EEAT across the website. Google has specifically stated this within their Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines.
Many users automatically trust the search results on the first page of Google, therefore it is important that Google ranks the most trustworthy sites higher than the rest. Google will be even more careful about sites within YMYL niches, and therefore it’s important to consider YMYL for SEO.
YMYL websites will need to be optimised by applying EEAT throughout the site pages. There are many different methods to do this, but the main thing to understand is that Google doesn’t want to rank websites created by people or businesses that have no idea what they’re talking about. Therefore, when applying EEAT throughout your website you have to think “how can I make my website look like it’s created by someone with experience, expertise, trustworthiness, and authoritativeness within my niche?”
We have many ways you can do this and have outlined them below:
Creating an About page for the business or website is a great way to help your users understand how your website can help them. This is where you should put information about why the website or business was founded, who it was created by, when it was created, along with your mission and values. Basically, give the most relevant information anyone would want to know when considering using your website/business.
While the About page covers the whole business/website, your Meet the Team page should contain general biographies of your staff. It doesn’t have to contain all the team – maybe you only put the senior management team on – but this makes your website/business look more legitimate.
It’s a good idea to add qualifications & experience within the biographies – showing the experience and expertise of your team to users. Don’t forget to add professional photos.
Every blog post should be finished with a small biography of who wrote the content. This shows the user that the information conveyed in the article was created by someone with experience within this area and is therefore trustworthy.
Put your company address and contact details on your contact page and/or in your footer. This shows users and Google that this is a real business with real people.
Adding policy pages to your footer shows that you abide by data protection laws, along with other regulations. It is advisable that every website has a Cookies Policy, Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, and (if the website creates a lot of blog content or news articles) an Editorial Policy.
An SSL certificate shows a user whether the connection on the website is secure, or whether the information a user inputs could potentially be viewed by unwanted parties.
Real, positive testimonials and reviews convey a message of trust and expertise to users. This also improves the chance of a user submitting an enquiry or making a conversion, as they will trust the product or service more.
Make sure blogs are citing other trustworthy sites that back up any claims you make. Otherwise, the content will be considered less trustworthy.
The first thing a user wants to know when they land on a website homepage is “what do they do?” It should be very easy to find out what your business or website does, in layman’s terms, on the homepage.
A structured, professional website will always look more trustworthy than an unstructured, spammy mess. Consider using white spaces, headings, subheadings, and spacing out content. This is especially true for mobile versions of webpages.
Becoming active on social media and linking to these channels from the website shows users that you are a real, active business.
Update your Google Business Profile and try to actively get reviews. Google Reviews help Google and users understand whether a business is genuinely helpful to their clients / customers.
There are many different examples of YMYL niches. Below we’ve included sites within the niches as examples.
If you think your business falls under YMYL niches, get help from our expert SEO content writers at Wildcat Digital. We have experience writing for a wide range of YMYL niches, including healthcare, finance, education, eCommerce and more. Get in touch today to begin increasing leads and conversions through improved search rankings, organic traffic, and a better overall user experience.
