Tag Archive for: digital marketing google

Google Quality Standards

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Google released their search quality evaluator guidelines back in 2015, which has since then become available for every marketer out there. Today, these guidelines show how google looks at the web pages and how they rank content by high to low quality. Here’s what you need to know about EAT, YMYL, and beneficial purpose in 2022. 

Since its release, the guidelines have been updated 3 times, recently in October of 2021. It’s important to remember that search quality evaluator guidelines can only guide us to where we need and want to go. Think of it as more of a roadmap opposed to an answer key.

Beneficial Purpose

What is the concept of beneficial purpose and what does it mean for us marketers who handle SEO? Beneficial purpose essentially is the purpose of the internet – more importantly, the purpose of websites and web pages. Websites and their respected pages are created to help their users. 

By understanding the purpose of the page you’ll be able to better understand what criteria goes into evaluating that page for quality. The overall goal of this is to ensure that the page is created to help users. Here’s a couple examples of what a high quality “user-centered” web page should look like: 

  • Sharing information about a specific topic
  • Sharing personal/social information
  • Sharing photos, videos and other media
  • Expressing opinions or point of views
  • Entertaining users
  • Selling products or services

Overall, beneficial purpose plays an important role for your users. Your site and content should have some sort of ussr-focused purpose that benefits them at the end of the day.

YMYL: Your Money or Your Life Content

Your Money or Your Life content is the type of information that can directly impact the reader’s happiness, health, safety, or financial stability. When you create a YMYL page with bad advice or misinformation it can affect your users’ lives. Google takes content seriously when it comes to spreading bad advice. Here are a couple of examples of YMYL topics:

  • News and current events – advice and information on  business, politics, science, technology. It’s important to use your judgment and knowledge of your locale.
  • Civics, government, and law – advice and information over voting, government agencies, social services and legal issues.
  • Finance – financial advice and information over taxes, retirement planning, loans, banking, insurance.
  • Shopping – information about goods and services, essentially allowing people to make purchases online.
  • Health and Safety – advice and information about medical issues, drugs, and hospitals.
  • Groups of people – advice and information on groups of people such as race, ethnic origin, religion, disability, age, sexual orientation.

While there are many YMYL topics, the quality evaluators that google uses have to use their judgment to determine whether a page qualifies as YMYL content.

E-A-T: Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness

Once a page has determined its beneficial purpose, its level of E-A-T is considered in terms of whether the content is YMYL. Non-YMYL content doesn’t require the same severity as YMYL content.

The E in E-A-T stands for: Expertise 一 It refers to the creator of the main content on a web page. The expert must have credentials to back up the content on the website. People with relevant life experience in the topics that are being covered on the web page can be considered experts—no formal training or education required. However, this only holds true for non-YMYL content.

The A in E-A-T stands for: Authoritativeness 一 This refers to the content that appears on the website. Authoritativeness stands for people knowing your background and seeing you as a leader. 

The T in E-A-T stands for Trustworthiness 一 This refers to the creator, content and website. Being trustworthy means people can trust the information you provide. You’re credible as a good source for providing information.

Here are a couple of topics that require high E-A-T:

  • Medical advice
  • Journalism/news stories
  • Science topics
  • Financial, legal, and tax advice
  • Hobbies: such as photography, playing piano 

Final Thoughts

In order to create high quality ranking content, you should incorporate Beneficial Purpose, E-A-T and YMYL to your marketing strategy. Like anything else, Google is constantly changing their strategies. To stay on top of the curve, you should be adjusting your strategy along with their changes in order to stay relevant in your industry.

As Google Partners, Onimod Global has over a decade of experience and expertise when it comes to all things SEO, social media advertising, content marketing and paid search. Got questions about Google strategies or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today.

What Google’s Algorithm Adjustment Means for Digital Marketing

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Nearly every digital marketer in today’s society utilizes Google as a primary form of advertisement. With more than 6.5 billion searches being made each day, the need to rank well on Google’s search results page is imperative.

Whether you are optimizing a website to rank well on its own, or spending a few dollars through Google AdWords, the changes coming to Google’s algorithm will have a significant effect on those advertising efforts.

Most Recent Update

Google continually updates its algorithm to show the most relevant results to users as possible. The latest update arrived on August 19th.

There is never one single cause of an algorithm adjustment. Instead, the adjustment is meant to target many different areas in order to improve overall quality of the search results displayed by Google.

Glenn Gabe, columnist for Search Engine Land and Search Engine Watch, investigated the algorithm change and gave his opinions on how he thought it would affect marketers. According to Gabe, Google advertisers should avoid:

  • Use of Deceptive Advertising: deploying deceptive, aggressive, or disruptive advertising can be detrimental to a site’s quality. Instead, gear your site toward the user and their needs. Do not bombard them with full-screen ads and site redirects.
  • Broken User Interface Elements: We have all had an experience where we click on a link and receive some sort of “404 error: Page Not Found” message. Make sure that your site works properly and does not contain any of these pesky UI flaws.
  • Low Query-Based Relevance: This element should be obvious. If a search term does not apply to your site, then it should not be ranking well for that term. Google’s goal is to provide the user with exactly what they are looking for. If your site isn’t helpful to the user, then it’s as good as gone from the top search results list.

Gabe suggests using the following methods to improve advertisements in the wake of the algorithm update:

  • Category (Tag-like) Pages: WordPress sites often include the option of adding a category and various tag to each page. Gabe noticed that even some sites that showed an overall downward trend since the algorithm update still had positive numbers to report for these category pages.
  • Full, Quality Content: Try to fill your site with all of the best information possible. This does not mean that you need to write pages and pages of content, it just means that you need to clearly state what you can do for the consumer and why you can do it best.
  • Open User Experience: Allowing users to add their own comments to content on your site is a great way to add value. This may be in the form of a review or an actual comment on a certain post or news article.

Location Improvements

Google has also shown an increased interest in the prominence of local businesses on their search results page. After all, a restaurant located in New York City will prove of little use to a young woman in Seattle looking for a bit to eat after work.

As Google begins to favor local establishments, it becomes more and more important for all kinds of businesses to make sure that their location is conveniently and correctly displayed across various platforms. For example, you will want to make sure that the address you have listed on Facebook perfectly matches the one listed on Yelp.

Evaluate Your Business Today!

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