How to Utilize YMYL in the Website Promotion Process
Updating algorithms is the standard action taken by search engines to improve the search process itself and to ensure higher quality results. Today, we will discuss the new updates in algorithms, how they have affected ranking in Google, and you will also learn about the YMYL criteria and how to effectively optimize your site.
Details About YMYL and E-E-A-T
The acronym YMYL describes website content that has the potential to impact a person’s financial stability, health, or safety. “Your Money or Your Life” is exactly how this abbreviation is interpreted. It originated in 2014 but gained popularity in 2018 when more websites began to fall out of favor in search rankings for medical topics. At that time, a significant number of sites with information on healthcare started to rank lower in the search engine results. Measures had to be taken.
In the summer of 2018, a new patent emerged (which relates to all algorithm changes). This neural network specializes in distributing web resources depending on thematic relevance, authoritativeness, and other priority quality indicators. Since then, Google has repeatedly revised its guidelines regarding updates.
So, what is E-E-A-T? These four letters form the core concept behind YMYL, referring to quality assessment criteria, specifically:
- Experience
- Expertise
- Authoritativeness
- Trustworthiness
By utilizing these attributes, web resources are assigned scores reflecting their quality level. E-E-A-T indicators play a significant role for search engines as they select only beneficial and high-quality material.
Which Sectors are Evaluated with YMYL?
There are specific instructions for assessors regarding sectors that are evaluated under YMYL criteria; this theme often elicits misunderstandings. Categories belonging in this realm include personal safety, medical and health content, shopping, as well as financial and legal topics. However, when considering the subcategories, not all of them directly affect health and general well-being. For example, information regarding presidential elections is significantly more relevant than news on a football match.
All sectors for better clarity have been divided into three zones. Thus, every individual can readily grasp how much influence YMYL factors have on their site. The listed zones are:
- Red zone: Electronic trading, firms engaged in real estate, sales of medical equipment, sites related to medical and financial content.
- Orange zone: News about significant identities, legal sites, research, projects, publications.
- Green zone: Culinary, hobbies, sports information, fitness, and healthy lifestyle content.
As you can see, practically all directions fall under YMYL. Especially if it’s taken into consideration that specific site content, though not necessarily showing a direct impact on human safety, could indirectly lean towards a certain action. When evaluating a site, content quality is often a major criterion. For instance, although sports news does not fall under YMYL, it still needs to be truthful and fresh.
Details About E-E-A-T
Now it’s time to take a closer look at the E-E-A-T criteria to aid in quality analysis of web pages.
Experience
The addition of experience into the factors indicates the degree to which the content’s quality can also be evaluated through the creator’s experience in the specific field.
By modifying the E-E-A-T concept, Google states that trust is central to this concept and is the most critical factor of E-E-A-T.
Expertise
This refers to the level of expertise the author possesses in the subject they are writing about; in other words, their qualifications and domain knowledge. Expertise is essential in any area; take, for instance, that unverified information in articles about health or finances can be detrimental to people’s health or result in financial losses. If a medical site claims that a serious illness can be cured with a particular therapy, the reader certainly will be harmed.
To validate expertise in a given field, it’s necessary to provide readers with credentials or supporting documentation (diploma or certificate), or to cite reliable studies on the subject.
Authoritativeness
It’s important to note that authority is not synonymous with expertise. Just because an author is an expert does not mean that they are widely recognized by the public. For instance, an article may be written by an excellent lawyer whom many respect in his field, but if he is not known by the broader internet community, he does not carry authority for them.
Material from a well-known and authoritative individual is immediately perceived as true, informative, and useful. It wouldn’t do to place unfounded and illogical data on a popular site, which tends to feature credible and substantive content. Establishing authority in the internet context is relatively difficult, which is a reason for such people being in the minority across various fields.
Trustworthiness
Trust refers to the accuracy and current relevancy of information. Even if an article is written by a recognized authority with expertise, if the information is outdated, its position in rankings may significantly decline. This includes not only the news, which generally is relevant for several days or even hours. Such outdated material is wholly inappropriate in all areas– today a certain medicine might treat one ailment, while tomorrow its effectiveness may be proven otherwise, and thus it becomes something different.
To attract readers, information should be consistently updated and modified.
Optimizing Web Resources Considering New Algorithms
Search engine guidelines previously offered little explicit feedback on the evaluation of strong projects. Thus, webmasters often relied on their own experience, while also considering examples from their peers. Fortunately, instructions for assessors have now been written more clearly and detailed regarding the evaluation process. For optimizers, this information is vitally important, even though initially it was created for evaluators.
We present a list of actions for adapting your web resource to the new algorithms.
Increase the level of expertise on your web site content
Yes, to find a truly skilled specialist in any specific area requires time and persistence, but the results of this work will surely advise you. It is especially worth getting involved if you plan on developing a larger project and invest five, ten, or more years of your life into it. The quality of the content of your site needs to come first.
Try to find individuals who not only excel in their specific area but are also passionate about their work. Individuals like these are always evolving – they monitor news, participate in courses, engage with their colleagues, and collaborate with them. If you notice that they are not capable of creating quality content precisely for the site, retain the editors, and allocate this portion of work to them.
The optimal variant is to find an expert in the field you need, already popular on social networks. Such individuals can be engaged for long-term work. Their readers know and love them, so from the very start you will have a good audience which will consistently grow.
Invite your readers to trust themselves and the content
Any content placed on a site must unequivocally be truthful and current at the moment. The reader must be convinced in a couple of minutes that the text is unique or merely a rewrite.
Each text should be supplemented with details about the author; for this raises the level of trust. Briefly narrate about the author – who they are, what they have achieved, and why they should be trusted. Additionally, there must be pages dedicated to the general activities of the company. Here you should provide details about the owner, the team, and main goals. This will prevent users from having to hunt for contact information about various questions; place it there.
To ensure readers immediately perceive the information as valid, include links to the sources from which you derived it. Is it essential to state that these sources must be authoritative? Even if there are such projects, they are still present in every industry.
Use additional tools
Informational and useful mechanisms positioned on your site significantly increase user interest. This could be, for example, calculators that allow users to compute costs for a taxi ride in Turkey or how much they might spend on servicing a particular machine.
It is also necessary to allow visitors to register on the site, which can enhance these capabilities. They can comment on read articles, participate in rankings. Other ideas adding value can be taken from your successful competitors, and do even better! Such tools significantly boost user interest, and traffic will undoubtedly rise.
Add affiliate links
Placing ads on the site is a normal and natural process. Nonetheless, Google does not restrict this when it is ensured that monetization is native. Today, there is no clear representation of how precisely should affiliate links be placed on sites, thus in this regard disputes often arise.
Google carefully monitors the use of affiliate links. For instance, many projects using referral links were among losing projects during the January Core Update. The winners in that update were those projects that applied native features.
Eliminate intrusive advertising
Intrusive and unpleasant advertising is something Google has long aimed to eliminate. Users are strongly put off by ads, especially full-screen ones that cover up the main content of the site. It may serve as a reason for imposing sanctions on a web resource. However, native blocks typically produce no such reactions from Google.
Increase the speed of page loading
As of spring 2020, Google introduced global transformations regarding how much the speed of page loading affects ranking. All data on crucial parameters can be found in the Search Console report. These help to understand the speed level functioning of a web site, although their updates happen infrequently. Fast-loading sites tend to enjoy much greater popularity in Google.
Maximize traffic
Dedicate all efforts and time to internal optimization, but do not forget about the importance of external – as the site can function well only in the presence of a high-quality backlink mass. Standard links from less quality sites today lose their popularity, while authoritative ones with high-quality and logical spaces take their place.
The most advantageous way to increase a site’s popularity is the natural variant. The ideal scenario is when links to your site are freely placed on authoritative web resources, while visitors share information about you on their social networks. Of course, for this to happen, your resource must contain valuable content and be comfortable to use.
Summary
Thus, to increase the recognizability and popularity of your site by applying YMYL factors, it is crucial to execute several steps. Let’s summarize the points mentioned above in a brief algorithm. You will need to carry out the following actions:
- On the site, provide general information about the company and its activities, while also indicating what interesting proposals you may have.
- Create separate pages with information on the guiding team, team structure, work specialties, and partnerships. It is essential to also provide contact information and forms for communication there.
- Personalize each article, adding general information about the author and their achievements.
- Create a page where you can list all your collaborators with an overview of their work.
- To demonstrate credibility, leave links to authoritative resources.
- Create a microdata specifying the publication date or the update of the articles.
- Add content details that help better perceive the information. This can include various rankings, lists, compilations.
- Revitalize comments, ensuring their timely verification and responses.
- Use only native affiliate links.
- Avoid employing masked referral links.
- Ensure accessibility to the site via mobile devices.
- Eliminate intrusive advertising that annoys users and interrupts familiarity with the content.
- Enhance the speed of loading resources and all its pages.
- Use authority. For instance, the platform Authorith may provide you with thousands of quality spaces across various themes.
- Ensure presence in social networks for increasing traffic to your site’s users.
The message from this article is clear: E-E-A-T must receive due attention, no less than the technical aspects of your site.
