What is YMYL Content? (And Why You Should Pay Attention)

What is YMYL Content? The acronym YMYL literally means Your Money or Your Life. This means that these are the kinds of content where readers would invest either their money or their time in reading (and believing). If you think that your content will affect your readers’ happiness, lifestyles, financial stability, and mental state then your blog can be considered as YMYL content.

Why is it important to identify if your blog is YMYL or not? Well, Google Algorithms take special care in monitoring these kinds of content. The algorithm makes sure that only trustworthy websites are ranked on SERP making only credible information available for readers. If you don’t take extra precautions, you can have your website unknowingly de-indexed.

Usual YMYL Content you will see online

Here are some of the best examples of YMYL content we all see and read online:

Law and government websites
News and current events
Health, fitness, safety
Finance websites
Generally, advise blogs that could influence “big decision making” (shoppinig, job search, etc).

Three SEO tips for YMYL Content

When writing YMYL content, the first thing to do for SEO is to remember this word – E. A. T.

Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness – These are the three main indicators Google uses to identify whether or not to index your content for ranking. In all honesty, E.A.T is not only important for YMYL content but for all kinds of content when it comes to ranking for SERP. Google algorithms will identify whether your content could significantly impact readers’ lives, and by how much.

So, that leaves us with the question – how do we optimize for YMYL content? Here are a few tips:

Invite genuine experts to write for your blog

If you are running a YMYL website but feel like you do not have enough expertise for the matter, it is good to invite writers who are. This establishes authority in your content and readers will have a basis on whether to believe your content or not. One question that arises from this is – how would readers know if your writer truly is an expert? There is a simple solution; invest in building up your online profile.

If you want to be more involved in your blog but do not have the expected “expertise”, why not build upon experience so you yourself could create content for your blog. Take up classes, take on more work for experience, or train as an apprentice under the guidance of an expert.

Build up an online profile

Building a strong online profile is one of the best ways to establish credibility. One of the most common ways to demonstrate your writers’ expertise on a website is through author bios. You can feature relevant content they published from other trusted websites. Or, you can also link their social media pages on your “about page”.

Another way to build up an online presence is to get to know people. It could be great to get to know professionals and experts in the niche you are writing for. In this case, you can even invite them to guest post on your blog. Another way to get to know people for the niche and industry you write for is to join groups and actively participate within them.

Factual accuracy is key

Now that misinformation and fake news is prevalent online, keeping factual accuracy is key to maintaining trustworthiness and authority for your blog. Research is the best way to produce high-quality, credible content. It would be best to include links and citations to your content is a great way to establish a factual basis.

Also, it is best not to offer advice for topics that you are not qualified for, especially if you know that it will seriously affect your readers drastically. This may include financial advice, health, and law.