Fine tuning your website search engine optimization (SEO) is an ongoing process. Every new one Essential Google Update – as recently as August 2024 – can cause significant fluctuations in keyword rankings and traffic.

Maintaining top positions in search rankings requires SEOs to systematically review and adapt their practices to the ever-changing online search environment.

Here are seven advanced SEO strategies to help you grow yours search visibility going to 2025, after Google's latest update.

Related: Here's the SEO combination you need to win Google's algorithm

Focus on topic groups

To begin with, there is a key strategy worth its weight in gold, given Google's Helpful content guidelines in particular — structuring your content into topic groups.

According to Google's guidelines, your website must demonstrate experience, authority and expertise in your niche to achieve top spots in search results. One way to do this is to develop a coherent strategy to structure your content and provide a great experience for your website visitors.

Say you run a business that provides graphic design services and have a blog to attract new clients and showcase your skills and expertise. Instead of posting about different topics throughout the year, you can build your posts around key concepts or carefully selected target groups.

For example, you could write a long piece of cornerstone content on how professional graphic design can help startups develop a coherent brand identity. You can then publish a series of shorter “satellite” posts in which you dive into aspects like the nuances of company logos and website color schemes.

it group approach helps you ensure that you provide complete information to one target group before moving on to the next.

Eliminate poorly performing content

Another advanced SEO strategy is to eliminate poorly performing contentor by updating or removing it from your site.

Having content on your site that is obsolete or doesn't resonate with your audience can have detrimental SEO impacts. At the very least it can significantly increase your bounce rates, which sends a negative signal to Google's algorithm.

To solve this problem, you need to go back through your posts and pages and do a deep dive into analytics to gauge their performance. Which one sees no traffic at all? Which one used to perform well but has since fallen off? And which ones cover topics that are simply no longer relevant? What does the backlink situation look like for each of them?

After performing this analysis, take time to decide which pieces of content to take offline and where to invest time in updates. Cutting out dead wood takes time, but it's definitely worth it.

Related: 9 Top Tips to Help You Get the Most Out of Your Link Building Efforts

Use different visuals

Next, a third SEO strategy for your website content is to diversify your visuals. Most SEOs know that properly optimized images (think alt text!) are an asset when it comes to driving traffic.

It's time to take it a step further and mix things up. GIF and video content can be even more impactful when it comes to grabbing the attention of your website visitors. This increases time on site and increases click-through rates – all positive signals for the algorithm.

Let's take the example of cloud communications provider Nextiva. In their blog post Unified CXMthey link to their YouTube channel and an explainer video that dives deep into all the different aspects of the topic that are of interest to customers.

This is a great way to not only increase your engagement and overall SEO, but also clearly demonstrate your niche expertise.

Optimize for zero-click searches

Moving up a notch, there are some recent innovations in the way Google displays results that you should incorporate into your advanced SEO strategy.

Most importantly, you need to optimize your pages for zero-click searches. In recent years, Google has fine-tuned its search results pages (SERP) to display all the information needed to answer specific queries. This eliminates the need for users to click through to sites – but there are still opportunities here.

For example, let's take the question below, asking how old the business tycoon is Warren Buffett it is. As you can see, SERP answers this question in abundance. It is unlikely that anyone will click further.

However, you can still optimize your content for zero-click searches. For example, you can target the “People Also Ask” section by adding FAQs to your articles, or using questions that appear in SERPs to structure sub-sections of your website content.

This increases the likelihood of appearing in a prominent position. Even though people's original questions have been answered, many will follow because their curiosity is piqued.

Assign separate snippets

Another essential approach is to target the prime SERP real estate provided by featured snippets.

Featured parts appear at the top of search results. Unlike other forms of zero-click searches (AI answers, for example), they often encourage people to click through for more information.

Let's take the example of video editing agency Tasty Edits — and their blog post ranking the best video editing services in 2024. They have optimized their content for this particular featured snippet by placing a summary table at the top, making it easy for Google's algorithm to assimilate the data.

In addition to strategically placing tables, you can also maximize the likelihood of benefiting from featured snippets by using subheadings that target individual snippets, as well as utilizing structured data schemas such as those for instructions or recipes.

Related: Eliminate competitors in your niche with these SEO fixes

conclusion

SEO work is never done and never cleaned up. To keep your site consistently ranked in the top places, you need to constantly update and adjust your strategy.

By following the advanced SEO tactics outlined above, you'll be able to secure your position as a top contender in 2025. Use topic groupings and different visuals, optimize for zero-click searches and featured snippets, and eliminate underperforming content.

This way, you will be able to provide an outstanding experience to your website visitors and win over Google's algorithm.