It's common knowledge that you can leverage search engine traffic to drive the right readers and leads to your business.
This is why a lot of companies are focusing their efforts on search engine optimization (SEO). Whether you’re a startup, SaaS, or Fintech brand, having a solid SEO content strategy will enable you to increase organic traffic, drive qualified leads, and grow your revenue.
However, although SEO can bring great ROI to your business, ranking on top search engine results pages (SERPs) is very competitive. The higher you rank on SERPs, the more people click on your content to read. In a study by Advanced Web Ranking, content on the first three positions of Google gets over 61 percent click-through rate (CTR).
This explains why brands are heavily investing in SEO services and new strategies that will help them outrank their competitors on SERPs. That being said, ranking on top search engines pages requires more than doing keyword research and adding keywords to your content.
To have a better chance at outranking your competitors, you must have more than a basic understanding of SEO and equip yourself with advanced search engine optimization knowledge.
In this article, we’ll be walking you through what advanced SEO is, some of the benefits of advanced SEO, and, more importantly, how you can implement it on your site for better SEO results.
What Is Advanced SEO?
Advanced SEO is the understanding of how search algorithms operate on a deeper level. It involves having in-depth knowledge of the technical concepts and ranking factors of SEO to have a better chance at optimizing your website for search.
To drive quality traffic that converts to leads and customers, you need to understand how search engine bots rank. And in an industry where there is fierce competition for organic traffic, having more than a basic knowledge of SEO will increase your chances of ranking on the top pages.
5 Best Advanced SEO Techniques
There are many ways to implement advanced SEO. But in this section, we’ve handpicked some of the best techniques you can use to get better SEO results.
Create Topic Clusters
Topic clusters are multiple interlinked blog posts that cover a particular subject topic comprehensively.
Instead of creating standalone pieces of content about different topics with different target keywords, you create a central page (the pillar page) that links out to related content. The pillar page provides an overview of the topic, while the other topic clusters pages cover a certain sub-topic more extensively.
A good example of a topic cluster is Be The Keynote's "The Ultimate Guide to Giving Virtual Presentations on Zoom." This resource is a pillar page that contains six clusters pages that comprehensively cover all the questions that readers have about Zoom presentations. Each topic cluster targets a specific keyword, which optimizes it for SEO.
With topic clusters, you can demonstrate authority to your target audience by providing them with all the essential information about a subject. And by covering a subject in-depth, you’re sending a positive signal to search engines that you’re an authority on the particular topic.
And since top search engines like Google have changed their algorithm to favor topic-based content, it will increase your chances of ranking on SERPs.
Match the Right Search Intent
Another important metric that search engines pay close attention to is search intent. Search intent explains the main reason behind a search query.
When someone searches for “SEO services,” do they want to learn about SEO? Or are they looking for an agency that offers this service?
A great way to know is to look at existing content. The SERPs give a good idea of what type of content is popular with readers because the search engine only ranks what people find relevant.
The SERPs for the keyword “SEO services” reveal that readers want to find agencies offering SEO services and not a blog post on the meaning and benefits of SEO services.
Search intent is very important in driving the right leads and keeping them on your page. When you create content that provides answers to their query, they will remain on your page, thereby increasing the time spent on your website.
Spending more on your website is a positive signal to search engines that readers find your content relevant. In turn, the search engine will reward you with a higher ranking so more of its users can find your content.
Find Content Gaps
Content gap analysis is the process of evaluating existing content to identify missing content that would align with your content strategy.
By conducting a content gap analysis, you are doing an inventory of content that already exists on your website and figuring out topics ideas that you haven’t covered but are relevant at a stage of your buyer’s journey.
Content gap analysis is geared toward helping you bridge the gap between your company and your prospects. And by bridging this gap, you’ll be able to provide your ideal customers with all the information they need to make a decision.
Potential buyers can stay longer on your website, which in turn sends signals to search engines that people are spending more time reading your content. A content gap analysis also allows you to uncover high-value ideas and keywords that you can possibly rank for but don’t.
Trying to identify gaps manually is a near-impossible task. Therefore, it is advisable to find gaps in your content using SEO tools like Ahrefs or SEMRush.
Optimize Your Pages for Crawling and Indexing
Asides from conducting content gaps, you should pay more attention to your website's architecture. Having a great website makes it easy for search engine robots to find and crawl website content.
Once a search engine discovers one of your page URLs, its bots crawl the page to see what's on it. After it analyzes the text and non-textual content, the page is rendered and indexed to appear in search results whenever someone searches for them. URLs, if optimized well, help crawlers to find your webpage and understand its content. If your URLs are hard to understand, on the other hand, the search engines crawlers are going to have a hard time crawling and indexing your website content.
The easier engines can understand your site’s content, the better they can return it as a result for people’s queries. Here are some other quick tips that will help improve the indexing of your site:
- Remove, redirect, or canonical duplicate content.
- Ensure that all pages and resources (images, CSS files, etc.) meant to be indexed are accessible to search engines.
- Create mobile-friendly and responsive web pages.
- Use a robots.txt file to prevent engines from crawling specific folders, pages, or files.
Pay Attention to User Experience (UX)
UX and SEO go hand in hand. After all, Google’s SEO policies are designed to help the user find the content they need.
Google wants pages that have a clean and easy-to-navigate user interface. Therefore, it’s important to pay close attention to UX if you want to rank on SERPs.
An advanced marketer always thinks of the user’s needs before anything else. Here are a few common practices of UX optimization to follow:
- Use clear headings.
- Provide easy navigation.
- Ensure pages load fast.
- Make your website pages mobile-friendly.
- Use well-written metadata.
Need Help with Advanced SEO?
SEO is a high-stakes game that is constantly changing. Brands are forced to engage if they want to compete. While you might be tempted to tackle this on your own, it’s wise to consult with an inbound marketing agency for their expertise.
Inbound marketing and SEO experts provide a better ROI on your investment in advanced SEO services. First Page Strategy can boost your SEO and boost your confidence, so the next time you're asked how confident you are in your website's SEO, you can answer honestly.
