What Is E-E-A-T & YMYL - What We've All Been Waiting For

Google wants people to find helpful and meaningful content.

According to the big guys at Google HQ, its ranking systems are ‘designed to present helpful, reliable information that's primarily created to benefit people, not to gain search engine rankings.’

BIG Changes Coming From Google

And low and behold, earlier this month, Google announced that it would be making some pretty big changes to its ranking systems in search to make it easier for people to find good content.

Effective SEO is more important than ever if you’re looking to boost sales and grow your business. Getting to grips with E-E-A-T and YMYL and how they affect your content, is key to ensuring that it meets users’ needs.

What Is E-E-A-T? (Hungry Anyone?)

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.

Although not a direct Google ranking factor, Google wants to give users results that are E-E-A-T-rich.

Content that covers these four components will drive up online traffic and make your business one that can be trusted:

1: Experience

Demonstrating first-hand experience with a particular topic reassures users that both the creator and their content can be relied on.

2: Expertise

Semrush explained: ‘Search quality raters must determine whether authors have topical expertise.’ A creator with the right knowledge and qualifications will further improve the authenticity of their content.

3: Authoritativeness

This leans heavy on what people in your industry think of your company. If they think highly of you, you’re more likely to be seen as a source of reliable information.

4: Trustworthiness

Users need to be able to trust your content.

Semrush advises creators to “be clear about who wrote your content, edit for factual accuracy, cite trustworthy sources, and avoid hiding content behind a wall of ads.’

What Is YMYL?

YMYL stands for Your Money or Your Life and refers to topics that could potentially affect readers’ health, well-being, safety or financial security.

Common YMYL topics include finance, healthcare and current events.?

Google recommends that quality evaluators decide for themselves whether a page should be considered YMYL content. These pages need to show the highest levels of E-E-A-T, so YMYL SEO is dependent on E-E-A-T.

6 Easy Ways To Improve Your Website's - E-E-A-T

Semrush recommends six principles that creators should keep in mind when producing content that Google likes.

1: Only ever use content written by a person (not a robot).

2: Reveal the author. People like to know who wrote what they're reading.

3: Reference trusted websites and resources like you're back in uni.

4: Take online reputation management seriously.

5: Don’t be afraid to embrace user-generated content. After all, it’s content created by a real person, for real people.

6: Build backlinks - they're a green light for Google.

Bonus Points:

Sharing linkable content assets, like infographics or videos, with other sources to link to build on your reputation.?

E-E-A-T, YMYL and AI

You may think AI copywriting will save you time and effort, but when it comes to Google rankings, it’s doing you more harm than good.

What Semrush makes crystal clear is that Google loves authentic, quality and authoritative content. These are three things that AI content is not – your users don’t like it, and neither does Google.?

Read my earlier post to find out more about how AI copywriting can end up hurting your business.

Ready To Smash The E-E-A-T and YMYL Updates?

If people trust you, they'll buy from you and that's the bottom line.

E-E-A-T and YMYL are tangible tools that can be used to ensure that your content gets to the right users, increases online traffic and increases conversions.?

With over a decade of experience in SEO content marketing, I am now offering clients consultations regarding the new updates alongside online business strategy.

For SEO content marketing & PPC, OR to arrange a consultation call, - [email protected]