My speech from Sheffield DM where I spoke about creating an effective Digital PR strategy using YMYL principles!

1. Creating An Effective SEO &
Digital PR Strategy Using “Your
Money Your Life” Principles.
@amandajwalls
Amanda Walls

2. Let me take you back a few years to 2018…

3. In the world of SEO, we had this…

5. In August 2018 Google rolled out an algorithm update
just one week after updating its 200 page quality rater
guidelines.

6. Source: Barry Schwartz / SERoundtable.com

7. It made SEOs stand up and take notice of the Quality
Rater Guidelines and for people with websites that fell
into the YMYL category, they became infinitely more
aware of how important having a good quality website
was.

8. What Did We Learn?

9. We learnt how much Google heavily values the
reputation and expertise of websites …

10. …so much so that it created an algorithm update which
targeted it.

11. Websites which had been hit by the update found it
difficult to recover.

12. And the concept of E-A-T and Y-M-Y-L became SEO
buzzwords (still are)

14. In July 2022 Google updated its Quality Rater Guidelines
again, it refined what makes a high quality page, what
YMYL was and it also introduced a “Helpful Content
Update”
Then again a week ago it started rolling out its September
2022 Core Algorithm Update

15. YMYL or not - there has never been a more important
time to get your on-site content and website reputation
right.

16. What Is YMYL?

17. The concept of Your Money Your Life was designated by Google to
highlight websites which fall into a specific category; that is
websites which either impact your money or your life. As these
websites are deemed to have a substantial impact on a person, the
pages on the website and the website as a whole are held to a
higher standard within the Quality Rater Guidelines as if there is an
issue with them they can have more of a detrimental impact on an
individual.

18. This concept was updated recently to include the word
“significantly” impact.

19. With two main reasons why:
● The topic itself is harmful or dangerous
● The topic could cause harm if the content is not
accurate or trustworthy

20. YMYL is now predominantly broken into four segments…

21. YMYL Health or Safety
Topics that could harm mental,
physical and emotional health, or any
form of safety such as physical safety
or safety online.
YMYL Financial Security
Topics that could damage a person’s
ability to support themselves and their
families.
YMYL Society
Topics that could negatively impact
groups of people, issues of public
interest, trust in public institutions
etc…
YMYL Other
Topics that could hurt people or
negatively impact welfare or well-
being of society.

22. How Do I Know If My
Website Falls Into YMYL?

23. Source: googleusercontent.com / searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

24. Regardless of whether you think your website is YMYL
or not - adhering to Google’s quality rater guidelines
is a great way to ensure that Google views our
websites as high quality and ranks them accordingly.

25. Source: googleusercontent.com / searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

26. EXPERTISE
Expertise focuses on demonstrating
the knowledge of your website.
Google loves knowledgeable sources
so great content & on-site trust signals
as well as expert profiles can all help
to boost your website’s expertise.
AUTHORITY
Authority focuses on highlighting your
website as an authoritative source of
information. This can include building
high quality backlinks from other
authority websites & improving your
external linking profile.
TRUST
Trust is key in Google understanding
that your website is trustworthy to
users. Trust comes in different forms
from combining great backlinks & on-
site content to testimonials, reviews &
case studies - on-site & off-site trust
signals.

27. USER INTENT
User intent is key across content on
YMYL websites - we need to be giving
clear information & expertise early on
in the content to help prove our YMYL
status & give reassurance to users (&
Google) throughout the piece.
PURPOSE
Does the website have a clearly
defined purpose? Can the user easily
reach the information they need & can
they contact someone if they need
help? Is the content up to date and/or
frequently updated with the most
relevant/important & accurate
information?
AUTHORING
Who has created the content? Are
they an expert? Are they trustworthy?
What are their credentials? What is
the website’s overall reputation?
(Reviews are key here) & how is this
reputation displayed to the user &
shown to Google?

28. How Do I Optimise My
Website For YMYL?

29. Optimising Content

30. The quality of the MC is one of the most important
criteria in Page Quality rating, and informs the E-A-T
of the page.
- Section 4.2 Google Quality Rater Guidelines

31. So how do we create great content…?

32. 1.Create a “satisfying amount of high quality
content”

33. Factual accuracy is key - is your page factually correct,
regularly refreshed and supported by trusted (external)
links or reviewed by an expert?
Does the length of the page give enough information to
inform the user and answer their questions?

34. “Posting daily or at any specific frequency for that matter
doesn’t help with ranking better in search results”
- Google

35. It’s about ensuring that the content you have is factually
correct and that you have enough factually correct
content to answer the users questions, purpose and
intent.

36. You also don’t need to create new content… you can
simply update existing content to keep it factually
correct.

38. Implement FAQs either on-page or sitewide - if your users
have questions, answer them, showcase your expertise.

39. Mark them up with FAQ Schema to help Google and users
understand that you are answering user intent

40. Add external links to trusted sources which backup your
information.

42. Test that the functionality works:
● Does the shopping cart function?
● Does a video play?
● Does a game play?

43. 2. Match your user intent

44. Why is a user coming to your website?
Give them what they need early on in your content -
make clear what the purpose of your page is and match
their intent.

47. 3. Ensure Your Website Has “Clear And Satisfying
Website Information”

48. About Us means what it says on the tin – tell your
audience about you and why they should buy a product
or use your service.

50. Give your audience the ability to contact you easily –
phone number, email, online chat… or all of the above!

52. Authoring

53. Source: googleusercontent.com / searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

54. Out of five key points in Google’s Quality Rater
Guidelines, Authoring is referred to in two of them,
that’s 40%.
We know when it comes to authoring that this is
something that’s important to Google.

55. Source: googleusercontent.com / searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

56. Author your pages – highlight who the content is written
about or reviewed by.

58. Then build out an author page for that individual to
showcase to Google what the reputation of that
individual is - why do they have the expertise?

60. Check your reputation

62. Reputation information plays a key part in the quality
rater guidelines document - and luckily Google gives us
guidance as to how they evaluate reputation.
Start by identifying the homepage of the website.

63. Undertake a brand search without your site included:
Check for any external reviews (Google values external
reviews highly):

64. Google also gives us some guidance as to what could be
“positive” and “negative” reputation information…

65. Source: googleusercontent.com / searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

66. Source: googleusercontent.com / searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

67. Digital PR

68. Digital PR is a great way to build reputation and trust into
your website with high quality links and two of the most
popular ways to do this are through Thought Leadership
and Data-Driven Campaigns

69. Thought Leadership - Establish your reputation and build
credible links to your site

70. Answer journalists’ requests for experts either through
databases or on social media.

72. Newsjack an event that’s happened or is about to happen
with your expertise.

75. Create great content and approach journalists with it -
they are always looking for ways to add value.

77. Data-Driven Campaigns - Back your PR up with effective
data and analysis.

78. There are so many free data sources out there to help you.

80. Take the data, analyse it and create a great press release
with a hook that journalists will love

83. A simple piece of data, well-analysed and related to your
website - a data-driven piece of Digital PR and a whole
bunch of great quality links.

84. Key Takeaways

85. 1. Show Your Expertise – Google wants to know why
you’re an expert and why it should send users to your
website.

86. 2. Create great content, author it, use external links and
make it relevant to your user

87. 3. Showcase the reputation of your website and the
content creators

88. 4. Trust is on-site and off-site - find the perfect
combination of both.

89. Thankyou!
Amanda Walls
@amandajwalls