YMYL – Your Money or Your Life!
If you work in the fields of health, wellness, or finance, you’re in what SEO experts call a “Your Money or Your Life” industry—an industry where you have to fine-tune the exact right parameters just to rank high in Google’s search results.
But what is YMYL—and how does it affect your SEO strategy? I’ll explore that in depth in this article.
(This article was first published in 2019, but was last updated in August 2024.)
What are YMYL pages?
YMYL stands for “Your Money or Your Life.” It refers to content that can have a direct impact on a person’s life, health, finances, or safety. From financial advice to health information, from legal recommendations to safety guidelines—YMYL content carries a heavy responsibility for accuracy and reliability.
In the eyes of search engines, especially Google, YMYL content is therefore treated with an extra degree of scrutiny. The quality of such pages is rigorously evaluated, with a particular focus on factors such as experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness—also known as E-E-A-T. This means that pages falling under the YMYL category must maintain a particularly high standard of accuracy and reliability in their content.
Examples of YMYL pages
As mentioned, YMYL pages—or rather, the content on those pages—can have a direct impact on a person’s life, health, finances, or safety. Specifically, this includes pages that deal with, among other things:
- Financial services and advice: Covers everything from banking, loans, and investments to tax advice, retirement planning, and insurance.
- Health Information: Includes websites that offer medical advice, information about diseases, treatments, medications, nutrition, and mental health.
- Legal advice: Includes information on legislation and legal rights, as well as advice on matters such as divorce, child custody, criminal law, wills, and property rights.
- Safety and Security Recommendations: Advice on personal safety, home safety, online safety, and fraud prevention. In other words, information that needs to be protected from real threats.
- Major Life Decisions: Information and advice on life-changing decisions such as buying a home, choosing a field of study, changing careers, and making major investments—in other words, decisions that shape people’s futures.
- News and Current Events: Covers important news about politics, the economy, natural disasters, and international events that directly affect people's lives.
- Public and Social Services: Information about social assistance, health care, education, and public programs. This information is essential for navigating the services available in society.
Understanding the role and significance of YMYL is therefore important for anyone who wants to create content that not only informs and engages, but also builds trust and authority in their field. It’s about delivering content that is not only valuable and useful but also serves as a reliable source for those seeking guidance and answers on important life issues.
How to Navigate the YMYL Landscape
A particularly important criterion for a YMYL site to be visible online is to meet Google’s famous “E-E-A-T model.” It is one of the most important keys to success in the YMYL landscape.
In short, E-A-A-T is about being able to demonstrate that:
- That you have a wealth of experience in your field—whether by demonstrating hands-on experience or personal insight.
- Show that you're the expert by demonstrating your professional understanding through well-researched and detailed content.
- That you have the authority to discuss and offer services within your industry.
- That your business and your website are trustworthy and safe to navigate through transparent, honest, and responsible content—for example, through citations and updates.
You can read much more about E-A-A-T in my article on the four criteria.
How to Improve Your YMYL Website
Shouldn't we get to the heart of the matter?
First and foremost, you can never go wrong by treating Google’s guidelines for useful content as your bible. Their quality guidelines are all about improving the user experience for their customers, so a thorough understanding of them can always help.
But in addition to my initial mainstream advice, I’ll now provide specific tips on SEO practices for YMYL pages.
Exude experience and credibility in everything you do
You need to show that you’ve got a complete handle on both the E’s, the A, and the T in E-E-A-T with a killer “About Us” page. In other words: make your experience and credibility shine through! Do you already have an “About Us” page? Then see how many items you can check off on my checklist:
- Show who is behind the company.
- Tell us about your years of experience in your industry.
- A link to the awards you have won and the publications or articles you have written in your field.
- Show that you are a member of associations, member organizations, and whatever else that demonstrates you are an integral part of your profession.
- Tell us about the positive news articles that have been written about your company.
- Also, tell us about the story behind the business—and how it all began...
Service pages are simply not enough
A website should be more than just a showcase for your services. It’s about creating a holistic experience that goes hand in hand with what you offer.
It’s not enough to just have pages that describe your services. We’re talking about adding something extra—something that makes your visitors feel enriched and informed. Think of it as giving a little extra without expecting anything in return. This is where you can really make a difference.
Imagine you own a dental clinic. Obviously, you’ll want to provide information on how to schedule an appointment for a dental cleaning. But what about taking it a step further? What about offering advice to that cola-drinking customer on how to avoid yellow teeth?
These are the kinds of valuable tips that show you go the extra mile for your customers. It’s not just about selling a service—it’s about creating an experience that makes people feel comfortable and well-informed.
Publish articles in reputable professional journals and write guest articles
By publishing subject-relevant articles in recognized professional journals and other types of online magazines, you can truly demonstrate that you are an expert in your field.
If you have any publications from your college days tucked away, you can also use them to highlight your expertise.
Other options include hiring other professionals in the industry with a good reputation to co-author an article—or experimenting with guest blogging on other high-quality websites to spread the word about you and your company.
Make sure your contact information is visible
What could be less trustworthy than a sender you can't get in touch with?
Your contact information should be as easy to find as a shining lighthouse on a dark night. It should be clearly displayed on your website so that your visitors can always navigate directly to it—no matter where they are on the page.
There are also other ways to let Google know that your dental practice has experience, expertise, authority, and is trustworthy. You can use“structured data”in the form of Schema.org. It might sound a little complicated, but it’s not.
Schema.org can be thought of as a “vocabulary” in code, and it’s a way to define and present the content on your site—to help Google understand what your content actually means.
With structured data, you can quickly let Google know how long your business has been in operation, that it is a dental clinic, and who owns it.
You can even go so far as to point out that your dental assistant, who is featured on your “About Us” page, works at your clinic at Strandvej 63, graduated from the Faculty of Health Sciences at Panum, and is the same person who has an author profile on tandlaegebladet.dk.
You can do this by filling in some predefined “markups” with your information and inserting them into the code on your website. For example, you can use this Schema Markup Generator.
Protect your reputation as a bear protects its cubs
Boost your company’s reputation and generate positive publicity! One way to do this is by reaching out to the press. But remember! … There’s a difference between paid press coverage and a journalist writing an article because you’ve actually given him something to write about.
In most cases, Google clearly understands the difference—and does not weigh both equally on the value scale.
Also, make an effort to get positive reviews on Google, Facebook, and Trustpilot—and, most importantly, to write customer case studies on your website, just as we have on our “Success Stories” page.
Positive mentions from sources other than the company itself are a sign of authority. If other people trust the company, it’s easier for Google to trust it, too.
Posts, tags, shares, likes, stories, and so on
Yes, we can’t ignore social media anymore, but a shift has taken place over the past few years. Namely, social media is no longer just a platform for sharing content, but also a unique way for your brand to interact directly with your audience and build a strong, trustworthy presence.
You can do that, for example, by…
- Contests: By running contests on social media, you can encourage customers to share your post or story in order to enter.
- Hashtag: Create and promote a unique hashtag for your brand. This will make it easier for people to find and join conversations about your brand.
- Influencers: Collaborating with influencers can help convey your brand’s message and values to a wider audience.
- User-generated content: Encourage customers to share their own experiences with your product or service. This can be through reviews, testimonials, or simply by sharing photos of people using your product.
Interactive Stories and Posts: Use features such as polls, questions, or quizzes in your Stories or posts to engage your audience and get direct feedback.
Regular interaction: Respond to comments, and share and like content from your followers.
Get rid of anything that might seem shady
Think about it. Are there any features on your site that might seem shady or like spam? For example, are there pop-ups you can’t click away, display ads that make your content jump around, or comment sections filled with spam comments?
Get rid of them all—and that's that.
Show the purpose of your page!
There should be no question at all about the purpose of the website. The purpose must be crystal clear, with no hidden agendas.
When Google's quality raters visit your website, they assess the purpose of your pages—whether it is clear and unambiguous—and whether each page fulfills that purpose.
Keep creating value
Remember to regularly publish valuable content on your website.
By publishing plenty of relevant and useful new content in the form of blog posts, videos, landing pages, and infographics, you show that you’re up to date and striving to create value for your readers. Just as Amplify has done with this article.
For online stores: Are your terms and conditions, refund policy, etc., clear and easy to understand?
If you run an online store, it’s essential to be transparent about information such as terms and conditions, shipping costs, refund policies, delivery information, and so on.
Especially when credit cards are involved, transparency and security must be top-notch.
THAT IS WHY (and for many other reasons) it is important that your site is, of course, SSL-certified.
Zoom in on all the signs of trust
Overall, you should constantly ask yourself why people should trust your company when they visit your website. Are there enough signs of trust?
Signs of trust can include, for example, both internal and external links. Internal links show how much time and effort you’ve put into your website, while external links show that you’ve done your research. These are all things that Google Quality Raters will notice and reward.
Zoom in on all the signs of trust
Are you looking for an SEO agency that can help you strengthen your website's YMYL? Then reach out to Amplify.
You can find our contact information right here.
Thank you SO MUCH for reading!
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