E-A-T & YMYL: How to Boost Your On-Page SEO

Back in 2015, Google officially released a document called “Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines.” This guideline shows how search engine identifies high and low-quality websites.

The concept EAT and YMYL originally came from this Google document. There exists a debate about E-A-T and YMYL. Some people believe that to succeed in SEO, these are the most important factors, and some have inverse perceptions. 

You may also have this dilemma for why do we give value to E-A-T or YMYL? Do they actually carry out much importance? Does EAT directly affect the page’s ranking? Or does google use EAT as a factor of Google’s Algorithms?

There are so many never-ending questions that you may be wondering about. But, you don’t need to worry, through this article, you will get all the answers and also get relieved from your confusion.

So, let’s discuss EAT and YMYL and how you can boost your On-Page SEO by incorporating them.

What is E-A-T?

E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google uses these factors to rate your website based on how much qualitative content you have and how trustworthy it is.

Google wants to reward sites with top-ranking which produce high-quality content instead of those which create low-quality content. 

Now, let’s have a look at the three different factors of EAT in detail. 

Expertise:

So, the first one is expertise. From Wikipedia’s definition, an expert is someone who has broad and in-depth competence in terms of knowledge, skill, and experience through practice and education in a particular field. Simply put, with specialized knowledge about a specific topic, an expert can provide in-depth information through the content.

The knowledge can be specialized or general. You needn’t have extensive expertise in writing all types of content. But for some like medical, financial, legal, you need to demonstrate your specialization.

For example, when a lawyer writes an article about some legal terms that will be more trustworthy than those who are not.

Another example is, suppose you’ve owned a medicine website. But if your content gives wrong information about the dose of some particular medicine, it will prove that you are not an expert in this field. That affects your site.

Inversely, your content will be more useful and trustworthy if you show expertise through your content. Also, Google will more likely to provide links to websites that publish useful, comprehensive, accurate, and relevant content. 

Authoritativeness:

Before talking about authoritativeness, let me ask you a question, “suppose you’ve decided to buy a car. Now to get much authentic information, what will you do?”

Most likely, you ask your parents, friends, or neighbor who has already purchased a car and have good knowledge about it.

That’s similar when it comes to the web; people also want an authority who will ensure them that the information they search for on the internet is authentic and trustworthy.

Here google acts as the authority and measures how the site’s content performs? Are they producing authentic and specialized content? How is their brand’s reputation? And many more.

So, authoritativeness is the way to demonstrate that your sites are trusted, the content you create is accurate, and your products perform well. And the best way to ensure authority is getting quality links. Links are considered as votes, so the more quality votes you get, the more authoritative you are. 

So, when you create great content with expert knowledge and skills you will automatically get links, even people will share, mention, and give reviews about it. This way, you can build the authority of your site. 

For achieving it, you need to follow some more things:

• For the medical, legal, or financial-related content, mention the author’s name, job title, and relevant experience.
• Keep the focus on the users. Do the users like your content? Are they given positive reviews? Etc.
• Ensure that experts recommend your content.

Trustworthiness:

Trustworthiness indicates the ability to be loyal in this level that the audiences think you are honest and a true taller. The information you provide them should be 100 percent accurate so that they feel willing to endorse or purchase from you. 

For becoming a trustworthy site, users should follow the mentioned things:

Provide Accurate Information

The searchers want precise information about their queries. If it proves that the information you give through your content is wrong, this will create a negative impression on the users. This will lead them to lose their trust in you and won’t revisit your site. So make sure to always provide accurate information to achieve the faith.

Backlinks

The backlinks are like votes for your website. The link back from the authoritative and relevant site gives a positive signal to the search engine about you. The users also relied on your site and perceived that you would be a trustworthy source. For example, if your website is linked with trusted and frequent sites like linkedin.com, adobe.com, it will be a trusted site and assume much quality.

Keyword-Match Content

The searchers search the keywords and want to know the information about these keywords. If the content information doesn’t match with the keywords, it will be annoying for the searcher. For example, using keywords like Toyota Allion Car but talking about Avanza in your content will create nothing but bother the users.

Highlighting the Credentials

You can increase the trustworthiness by highlighting the credentials like awards, testimonials, endorsement, and any other thing that will impact the trust factors of your content creator. Also, you can provide the credentials of your website. This way, people can trust you more with all the information.

Google always wants to give the exact information that can satisfy the searcher. Suppose a searcher searches for the process of applying for a visa to the USA.  For this query, the searcher needs the exact information and processes. In this situation, Google uses E-A-T to provide the user with accurate information.

Now move to the next section which is YMYL. 

What Is YMYL?

The term YMYL stands for “Your Money or Your Life.” According to Google, any site that sells products, services, and produces content that can affect someone’s health, happiness, safety, or financial stability is categorized as YMYL.

These contents are crucial to users. When people get accurate information, it will be beneficial for them, but it will negatively impact them if they get something wrong or misleading.

For the YMYL types queries, Google wants to provide more accurate and expert content that won’t affect its health, safety, or financial stability. That’s why Google prioritizes and holds these types of sites at the highest standards. 

You will get in-depth knowledge from the following YMYL page’s example:

• E-commerce Site: A we all know, through the e-commerce site, users purchase products of their needs. In this case, they need to pay for the product. Here google rates the sites to express how much it is secured for financial transactions.
• Financial Services: The users search for some queries like where they can get secured investments, get a loan in low interest, or any information like taxes, insurance, paying utility bills. The web pages which provide these types of information are financial information pages.
• Medical or Medicine Related Page: The medical or medicine-related web pages provide the information or give suggestions about the health, any diseases, or the task of a specific drug and its uses instruction.
• Law-related Pages: Through their content, the law-related pages provide information or advice about any legal issues or topics like criminal law,  power of attorney, making a will, applying for citizenship, divorce, etc.
• Above all these, the following pages require considering high EAT-
  1.  Journalistic news articles,
  2.  Information pages on scientific topics,
  3.  Shopping information,
  4.  Content on people particularly about ethnicity, race, religion, nationality, sexuality, etc, 
  5.  Advice pages on high stake topics like home remodeling, parenting, etc, and
  6.  Pages on hobbies like playing guitar, photography, sharing recipes. 

Through the above points, you may get a clear understanding of YMYL pages. Now, you think that if the users get wrong information about their medical, financial, or low related queries, how much it will create a negative impact on them! Therefore, Google is so cautious about providing the most accurate information on such types of queries.

How to Optimize the Site for YMYL?

We have already earned much knowledge about the YMYL and its importance for your site.  So, let’s check out some factors that can help you to optimize the website for it properly:

• First, you need to determine that your pages and content are considered YMYL.
• Produce your content by people who have specialized knowledge in these fields.
• Mention the name, job title, and relevant experience of the author.
• Ensure that the information you provide to the users is 100 percent accurate.
• Make sure that the outbound links will provide accurate and resourceful information to the users.

Above all, you need to make sure not to take any unethical tactics to gather much attention on your site because it will affect the users as well as the site when it proves wrong.

The Importance of  E-A-T for SEO?

The users, as well as Google, want the qualitative content. In fact, there is a clear relationship between high-quality content and Google’s top search ranking.

However, the indication of qualitative content can vary to the users.

Some people perceived that the content is written by the author, who has specialized knowledge in this field to be qualitative. And Some believe that if the content is linked with the popular website, it is also qualitative.

The website’s reputation is also a subject of matter for producing qualitative content. The users think that since the site has much reputation, all its content also are qualitative. So, if you produce content through a skilled writer, make it authoritative and trustworthy to the user, it will create value for your sites.

Google also updated its algorithms to provide users with the most relevant, qualitative, and informative results. So when the sites passed through the E-A-T factors, they have more possibility to take place in the Google organic search results. So the E-A-T has much importance today for your SEO.

Well, from the beginning of this guide, I’m talking about high-quality content. But, do you really know when talking about high-quality content, what I actually mean? 

Let’s figure it out in the next section.

What is high-quality Content?

When it comes to creating content you must remember that each content has a purpose. Every content of yours should benefit your customers, clients, users, or readers. As per the search quality evaluator guideline, to create high-quality content you should focus on considering YMYL, EAT, and beneficial purpose. 

• As I mentioned above, your content should have a purpose, and ensure accomplishing that purpose to benefit the users. The top priority should be creating content for your target audience and offering value to them. 
• When you create content it needs the right expertise behind it. Consider inputting higher levels of EAT on YMYL pages than others according to the subject matters. 
• Gooogles’ standards are constantly changing for ensuring a better user experience. Therefore, it is crucial to keep updated with the changes and ensure that your content is relevant and updated. 

If your YMYL pages come in the highest possible EAT, these can be able to have a direct impact on the reader’s life, livelihood, and happiness. 

How to Boost Your Website’s E-A-T Ranking Score?

Now that you have enriched your knowledge with the E-A-T and its importance for your website from the previous discussion still a question arises, which is how can you boost up the E-A-T ranking score?

Through the discussion, you will get ideas of the best practices to improve the website’s E-A-T. Let’s take a clear look at them:

Use Proper Byline and Bio:

Bylines are used to mention the author’s name, published date of the content, its views, or even more. It is the text that took place below the post or article title. Today bylines are considered an essential factor for SEO.

Bylines make the first impression on the users. It is an effective and speedy way to demonstrate your professionalism and gain trust from the users. This content can attract users and convert them to their customers with great bylines.

Have a look at the following features; they will help you in writing great bylines:

• Author Name: Mention the author’s name of the article.
• Published or Updated Date: Below the author’s name mention the published date of the content. But if you update the article, don’t forget to mention the revised date.
• Credentials: If the author achieved any degree like Ph.D., MD, RD, mention those.
• Photo of the author: It’s optional for you. But it is better to attach a photo with the author’s name. That looks more trustworthy.

Although bylines are the text only, they can bring more trust to your sites.

Create Author’s Profile:

If you create an author’s profile on your site, it will be easier for the readers to know more about the writer. The profile should carry out the following things:

• Name of the author along with a photo
• The credentials they have like Ph.D., MD, RD, etc.
• Their profession.
• Which fields they have specialized knowledge.
• How much they are experienced in this field.
• If they have won any awards or delivered speeches in any conferences
• Their social media profile.
• Another article by the author.

It is better to link the writer’s profile with the name that is mentioned on the bylines. By clicking the link, the users can get much more information about the author. Also, make sure to link the about us or contact us page either in your main or footer navigation. 

When the users know that a professional writer writes the article, it will be more trustworthy to them.

Properly Optimized the Contact US Page:

When users prefer any content or products or services, they wanted to know more about the business and the contact info for taking further action. Besides, E-A-T evaluates not only the site’s content but also the site as a whole. So if you want to make your site create value for the users and Google, you need to optimize your contact us page properly.

Here are some tips for you on how you can adequately optimize your contact us page:

• Right Placement: You should place the contact us page on the right track. It would be better to put it on the top navigation bar to make it easy to find.
• Question Box: Make a question box so that the users can ask their questions. You also need to explain how much it will be helpful for them.
• Manage Users’ Queries: Since they will get their solution of their problems through the chatbox. So encourage them to put their question without any hesitation.
• Add the Company’s Address: In this section, you would mention the address of the company. If there are multiple locations, you should also mention these. And don’t forget to put your parent company name if has.
• Add contact info: Here, you will include the phone number and the email address so that they can quickly communicate with you when needed.
• Mention the Social Media Account: You linked the site with your active social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and mention them on this page. Through these, the users can know more about you, your activities, and your perception of you among the customers. It also acts as a way to engage the users with your business.

Optimize Your  Content:

If you properly optimize the content, it will increase the performance of your sites automatically. Here are some tips for you that you should follow to optimize your content for E-A-T:

Employ Skilled Writer: The person who has specialized knowledge about a specific field is much capable of writing more informative and accurate articles than those who haven’t.

As discussed earlier, the content written by experts will be more authentic to the users. So, employ skilled writers to make the content.

Update the content: Users want the updated information. For some sites like news, technology, medical, and medicine, you continuously need to update the content. The information about them is changing continually. So the users won’t be interested in those content that aren’t valid anymore.

Besides, It’s also vital for google ranking.  If you update the articles with new information and do it regularly, it will imply that your sites are up-to-date. So along with the useful and relevant information, you need to ensure that your content is always up-to-date.

Remove Low-Quality Content: After a specific period, your site’s content doesn’t perform the same. Some perform better, but some will be too low to be no longer useful for the site. So it is better to remove those.

Avoid Grammatical Mistake:  If the readers notice any grammatical mistakes or spelling errors in the article, it would be bothering to them and leave the article without completing it. So, always ensure the accuracy of your content.

Focus on Qualitative Inbound Links:

Inbound links also refer to backlinks. It is like voting for your site. But you should focus on the quality of the links, not quantity. As before, which had more backlinks also ranked higher.

But after the Penguin update of Google, the concept isn’t valid anymore. According to Google guidelines, the sites with high-quality backlinks get a better E-A-T score. So the links from irrelevant and low-quality sites add nothing to the sites.

For example, your website is about steel supplies, and if you get backlinks from the steel industry websites, it will ensure the quality of your site and trustworthiness.

Keep Your Site Secured

The security of your site is also considered a significant factor of E-A-T.  You have the most relevant and useful article, inbound links, expert authors, but your site is insecure; it will create a negative impact on your E-A-T score.

You may tell the users to create an account. For this, they need to give information like name, mail address, or even more. And if your site is e-commerce, they need to give their credit card information for making purchases.

So if the user thinks that the information they provided is not secured, they won’t be willing to put it and even purchase from your site. So, ensure a secured website. And also, explain to the users that you know the value of their information and why the information they provided remains 100 percent safe and secured.

Conclusion

At the end of the discussion, I hope you get the answer to your question.

This discussion provides you with lots of information about E-A-T and suggests many actionable ways through which you can increase your website’s E-A-T.

Don’t consider the E-A-T only a ranking factor. For a while, just forget about E-A-T. If you produce your content that is not written with expertise knowledge, irrelevant to the queries, wrong information, get backlinks from irrelevant and low-quality sites, unsecured websites, do the users like your content, it will be trustworthy to users?

Obviously, No!

So, do everything for the audience. You will be able to achieve their interest as well as good ranking by google.

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