Advanced SEO Tactics to Try Now (Become an SEO Expert)

According to the latest research, 91% of traffic begins with a search query.

Even with a high number of searches being performed, the large majority of users don’t ever scroll past the first page. If you want to get their attention, you need to be on that first page!

To help you with this, we’re diving into the most important trends for search engine optimization in 2023. You need to know how to keep an eye on SEO and how you should be using them for your website. This list takes into account all the latest updates, so start reading our advanced SEO tactics for 2023.

What to Know About the State of SEO

SEO in 2023 is a different beast, which is why advanced SEO tactics are key.

It has an increased focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and voice search. With 73% of internet users accessing the internet mobile-only by 2025, all web content must be optimized for mobile.

Incorporating video into your content strategy is a must. And everything from semantic keywords to social listening will see additional push this year.

Plus, SEO and content experts can’t forget expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness—Google’s EEAT principles.

Advanced SEO Trends Taking Over in 2023

1. No More Accelerated Mobile Pages

There was a time when you couldn’t have an SEO strategy without an accelerated mobile page (AMP). Not anymore! We’ve taken them down from our site and Search Engine Land did, too. In fact, they said that they’ve been able to achieve more accurate data from Google Analytics since turning it off.

AMP was brought onto the scene back in 2015 when mobile internet usage was exploding. It was a way to help develop user-first and mobile-friendly websites.

But now that so many users are accessing the web on a mobile device, everything is mobile-first by design, making AMPs unnecessary.

Still having AMP isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it’s an unnecessary step that you don’t need to take anymore. Focus that time you would spend on AMPs on something more beneficial.

2. Video Is More and More Important

Video has been becoming increasingly central to web content for years. In 2023, more videos are showing up on Google.

Plus, specific video schema markup is coming out. This can help you get even more visibility for your videos from search. Two of these markups are called seek and clip video markups. Both of these allow you to call out key moments, specify URLs, and do more with your videos.

As a bonus, Google’s machine learning has been unleashed on YouTube. Now, Google is using AI and machine learning to crawl YouTube videos and figure out exactly what’s going on with that content.

Google can now identify facial expressions, specific moments in videos, and other important content. It has come a long way from six or seven years ago when Google could only identify an object. Now, they can identify every little expression on someone’s face and all of the content in the video. Google brings this data in for indexing.

If video content and video schema markup aren’t in your SEO strategy, it’s time to fix that.

3. Think About MUM: Multi-Task Unified Model

The Multi-Task Unified Model (MUM) is another advanced SEO trend

you should pay attention to in 2023.

Introduced in 2021, MUM took the place of BERT and was said to be 1,000 times more accurate and powerful. Since then, it’s only gotten better.

MUM aims to answer complex questions by synthesizing information across the web into one coherent response from Google. It can even pull answers from other languages!

For MUM, the goal is simple: Fewer searches, better information, quicker.

People doing SEO for their websites should cater to MUM’s skillsets. MUM can search 75 languages, generate an understanding of multiple content elements, and serve a multimodal, multisensory world. Use this to your advantage.

 

4. Passage Ranking

Formerly known as passage indexing, passage ranking is Google’s way of understanding the context of a passage, not just the whole page. This way Google can rank the same piece of content differently for separate queries.

Passage ranking has become really important when it comes to ranking zero.

We’re going to see more and more passage indexing. This means Google is not just showing search results for certain articles, but specific parts of articles that answer questions.

This has been really important in the past for ranking zero.

What is ranking zero? A term we use to describe ranking above the normal search engines and getting called out inside of Google. For example, this could be in a SERP (search engine results page) feature.

Here’s how to optimize for passage indexing.

1. Write a question and answer it within 40–100 characters of text.
2. Mark up that passage with schema.

It’s also helpful if you’re ranking on the first page of Google and the search engine already thinks that page is credible.

5. Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals is a free report from Google that will help you ensure that you’re providing the best possible site for your viewers. If you want to keep them happy, make sure that you’re passing all of the Core Web Vitals scores. Make sure you have good mobile visibility and fast page speed.

Core Web Vitals has four elements:

1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Page load speed. If your page loads in 2.5 seconds or less, Google considers that good. It needs improvement between 2.5–4.0 seconds. Anything over 4.0 seconds is poor.
2. First Input Delay (FID): Interactivity. A score of 100 ms or less is good. It needs improvement between 100–300 ms. Anything above 300 ms is poor.
3. Interaction to Next Paint (INP): User interactivity. A score of 200 ms or less is good. Between 200 and 500 ms needs improvement and if you’re coming in at more than 500 ms is poor.
4. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Visual stability. A score of 0.1 or less is good. A score of 0.1–0.25 needs improvement. Above 0.25 is poor

As part of Core Web Vitals, make sure you own your brand in search. When you search your brand name, look to see if you have a good presence on everything that ranks there.

But that’s not all. You also want to own your knowledge panel. Make sure your Google Business Profile is set up and optimized. You’ll want it to call out the products and services that you listed. Update your page with the best photos and videos so you can have the best possible presence.

6. Use the Plugin Strategy

This is the main strategy in our rundown of advanced SEO tactics that are going to help you rank in Google in 2023.

Whatever keyword you want to rank for, look at the results inside of Google. Look at what the HTML returns, what videos, photos, and other specific types of content you get. I call this the plugin strategy.

How can you make all of the most important pieces of content that would plug specifically into what Google is already serving in their search results?

What is the exact intent? What is the exact media? What is the exact content and structure?

Build that for yourself and then create an even better version. For touch queries that people search daily, update your landing page or another type of content as much as weekly if possible. If the queries are not as tough, you can do monthly or quarterly.

Consistently build links to that page through good public relations, outreach, and a cohesive external linking strategy.

In short: Analyze what Google returns for keywords you want to rank for. Then, figure out what content you can “plugin” from your site, to show up in Google’s search results. Build this page by linking and refreshing your content as often as possible.

If you can do this, you’re going to get those coveted spots for ranking number one.

7. Search Intent in SERPs

Tools like Answer The Public or SEMrush will give you the insights you need to see what your target audience is searching for.

Questions make excellent long-tail keywords, as they generally encompass the exact words users are typing into Google. Let your audience know that you have the answers to their questions by dedicating content to them.

Once you understand the kinds of questions your audience has, you can better build content that matches their intent. If they ask “How do I merge my Instagram account?” they probably aren’t looking for a full starter guide on how to set up and promote an account. Their query was very targeted, and your answer should be as well.

Now, you’ve likely heard that longer content produces better results in the SERPs. But the truth is, Google is primarily concerned with finding content that best matches a user’s intent. If it only takes 500 words to fully answer a question, then 500 words is the perfect amount. However, pillar-style guides should also be a part of your content strategy.

8. International Optimization for a Connected World

Use hreflang and canonical tags to help Google identify your international content. For brands with audiences who speak different languages, you may need page versions for each region or language you’re targeting.

Hreflang tags let you produce duplicate pages for each region you’re targeting.

Canonical tags define the primary page Google should revert to. Google crawls canonical URLs more often than duplicate pages.

9. Site Security and Credibility

Adhering to Google EEAT (experience, expertise, authority, and trust) principles is a proven advanced SEO tactic.

EEAT breaks down the framework necessary to determine your place in the SERP. It prioritizes content from trusted and credible sources while ensuring that it is engaging and serves a purpose. It aims to deliver results that line up with end-user intent.

These reasons are why it’s important to make this framework a cornerstone of your strategy and one of the advanced search engine optimization tactics you always employ.

Two factors that heavily play into EEAT are:

1. Site Security
2. Credibility

Make sure your site is secured (with https being just the start) and you’re not doing anything that gets you flagged by Google. Over time, build your credibility with an external linking strategy and consistent content results.

10. Paid Search as an Advanced SEO Tactic

Paid search is expanding. It’s no longer reserved simply for the bottom of the funnel marketing. Now, it’s a part of all buyer’s funnel aspects.

This plays in with the growth in video centralization, too. Video ads will become increasingly crucial for paid search.

Additionally, automation will become a bigger part of paid search. That means your paid ads (including branded ads) should cater to the algorithm more than anything else.“This year should be a ‘catch-up’ year where the various groups learn to blend human ingenuity, insights, and strategy,” Adalysis co-founder Brad Geddes told Search Engine Journal.

11. Adopt an Internal Linking Strategy

External linking is super important for building credibility. However, don’t forget about internal linking going into 2023.

A good internal linking strategy can help increase dwell time on site, the number of pages visited, and the number of conversions.

Good site architecture is still a crucial factor in a website’s overall ranking statistics.

PRO TIP: Find all of the top linked-to pages on your website using a tool like Majestic.

Once you know the most linked to pages, go to those pages and change the internal links to the pages you want to boost.

12. Check for Broken Links

There is nothing more frustrating when you’re researching something than coming across a link you need that doesn’t work.

To check for and clean up broken links, you can use online tools such as BrokenLinkCheck.com, SEMRush, or Screaming Frog. These tools will crawl your site, locate your broken or rotten links, and give you the opportunity to manually correct them.

Broken links, 301 redirects, or 404 errors not only impact how your consumer views your authority but it impacts your SEO, too. If you have these errors on your site, fix them fast! Resolving issues such as these can lead to positive results quickly — sometimes as quickly as two weeks!

13. Remove Underperforming Content

A periodic content audit is instrumental in ensuring your site is up to snuff.

Each and every page needs a reason for being on your site. If the content is thin or outdated, it needs to go. It serves no purpose for your site and will only hurt you in the SERPs.

You’ll likely find that over time you accumulate multiple pages on the same or similar topics. Take the time to run analytics on each page and find which one is performing better. Then, either combine all content on that page or redirect the underperforming page to the one with better results.

SEMRush recommends separating all content into three categories: keep, improve, or merge.

To find content that needs improving or removal from your site, you can use SEMRush’s content audit tools.

Check out this step-by-step video guide to help you remove or redirect your underperforming content!

14. Repurpose & Refresh Old Content

Databox founder John Bonini is a big fan of repurposing and refreshing old content—and for good reason. Databox increased web traffic by 75% just by updating old content.

When you update old content, Google returns to crawl your site. This gives you a better chance of reviving traffic and ranking. Your content can return to page one of SERPs without you having to publish brand-new content. It’s less work on your part and allows you to increase your content output more efficiently.

15. Advanced SEO Geotargeting (Local SEO!)

Produce more local-specific content.

This will boost your local ranking and provide valuable indexable content. More indexable content leads to more search results appearances.

Even if you operate across multiple states or countries, showcase the areas you have worked in. Create local pages that speak to users directly in one of your target locations. For example, we operate on a national level but have separate pages dedicated to some of the major cities we work in.

In addition to creating more indexable content, you’ll also be showing your local customers that you’re dedicated to promoting and improving your local community. Incorporate local keywords, lean into local events or festivals, or work with other local businesses to boost your presence in the community both in real life and online.

Keeping up with your Google Maps listing and social media content will show your community that your business is alive and kicking – and here to stay.

16. Use the Pillar-Cluster Model

If you’re looking for a great way to build out a content strategy to match Google’s EEAT guidelines, pillar pages are what you’re looking for.

Pillar pages use one central “pillar” as your main hub for a particular topic. They allow you to cluster your content with clearly defined hierarchies and internal linking. Internal linking is great to gain traction with Google’s algorithms.

It not only improves your SEO, but also improves your user experience by making your website easier to navigate. Pillar pages build an information architecture around certain topics and make it easy for users to click through your content to find what they’re looking for. This advanced SEO tactic makes it easier for search engine algorithms to crawl through your site and find more indexable content.

17. Add Structured Data

Google’s algorithm and machine learning do a lot of work. However, there are ways you can help it. One of those ways is structured data.

According to Google, “Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content; for example, on a recipe page, what are the ingredients, the cooking time and temperature, the calories, and so on.”

Video structured data (like Seek markup and Clips markup) is especially helpful in a video-centric web.

18. Improve Time to Value

People have short attention spans. If you want to connect with them, you need to make it quick. Not only does your time to value matter to your reader but it also matters when it comes to SEO.

In SEO, you want to make sure it doesn’t take long for your reader to get the value they’re looking for. Keep your time to value short.

If it takes too long for your readers to get what they’re looking for, you’re going to have a higher bounce rate and a lower session duration. These stats are going to impact your SEO in a negative way. 

To improve your time to value, put your important information above the fold. Make it easy for users to find what they’re looking for.

19. Improve Anchor Text

In SEO, your anchor text matters. Be sure to use descriptive words and include the primary keyword you want the page to rank for.

Anchor text also impacts your page rank. Page rank is the part of Google’s algorithm that ranks linked websites in order of importance. You want your page rank to be as close to 10 as possible. Pages with a PR10 are considered the highest authority on the topic and pages with a PR0 are the lowest quality possible.

Your anchor text is one of the things that affects your page rank so pick your words carefully.

20. Implement FAQ Schema

A really great way to increase your SERP ranking is by adding FAQ schema to your page. 

Look at the first result in the example above. Do you see how much space it takes up because of the questions after the snippet? That’s because Grammarly uses FAQ schema.

Not only does it add more informational content for the searcher but it also takes up more physical space and draws more attention to the result. People are going to be more likely to click on it than other results.

21. Featured Snippets

Looking to grab a prime spot on the SERP? Check out Featured Snippets. These special boxes are used to showcase descriptive snippets before the rest of the SERP results.

See how the featured snippet takes up the majority of the page? The goal is very similar to the goal of using FAQ schema: take up space and draw attention to itself.

It helps increase your page’s authority in two ways: it provides quick information to the searcher without them having to click on anything and it draws attention to your page while showing that Google also trusts your page.

22. Keyword Cannibalization

Keyword cannibalization sounds like it’s about keywords, right? It’s not though. It’s about intent.

When you have two or more pages on your site that target the same keyword, that’s keyword cannibalization. It causes your pages to compete with each other for the same SERP ranking. 

If you’re struggling to increase your page’s rank for a particular keyword or the wrong page ranks for a particular keyword, it’s pretty possible that you’re suffering from keyword cannibalization. There are also tools, such as Semrush’s Position Tracking tool, that can tell you if cannibalization is a problem.

The best way to avoid this, or fix it if it’s already an issue, is to redirect or remove cannibalized pages, reoptimize them, or merge them.

23. Monitor Crawl Budget

If log file analysis isn’t on your SEO checklist, it should be!

When you analyze your log files, it can show you places where you could optimize your crawl budget, identify crawl errors, or find pages that need help being found by Google’s crawlers.

Your crawl budget is the number of pages Google crawls each day. This is a problem because if you are trying to get a page to rank and Google isn’t crawling it, it’s never going to happen.

This isn’t a huge problem, since Google is really good at finding, crawling, and indexing pages, but it could become one if you have a lot of redirects, you’ve just added a bunch of new pages, or you run a large site of 10,000 or more pages.

The best way to increase your crawl budget is to increase your page speed, use internal links, limit duplicated content, avoid orphan pages, and use a flat website architecture. 

24. Mobile First

Google uses something called mobile-first indexing, which means you need to get familiar with it as well. 

Since most people view websites on their mobile devices now anyway, you should already be making your pages mobile-friendly. But putting more effort into this will also go a long way with Google.

Be sure to give your site a responsive design, dynamic serving, and separate URLs. This will ensure that your site looks the same on all devices and makes it easy for Google to crawl your site, both on a desktop and a mobile device.

Bottom Line: Advanced SEO Tactics Are Always Evolving

SEO best practices are always evolving. By keeping up to date on the latest trends, you’ll make your website more visible. On the internet with billions of websites, this is crucial.

Now, it’s time to put these advanced SEO tactics into action. Got questions? Ignite Visibility has a complete on-page SEO checklist and tons of other search engine optimization resources to get you ranking.

Ready to Take Your SEO to The Next Level?

SEO can seem overwhelming but really doesn’t have to be. With these advanced SEO tactics and others that you’ll find periodically on our blog, you can start to learn about what it takes to become skilled in advanced SEO!

If you want more detailed and personalized help, you can always reach out to us to schedule a consultation with one of our advanced SEO experts.