23 Latest SEO Trends that Work Always

23 Latest SEO Trends that Work Always

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    In order to be competitive in the internet market, businesses must keep up with the most recent SEO trends as technology advances and search engines become more complex. To help businesses raise their search engine ranks and increase organic traffic to their websites, we will examine 23 SEO trends in this blog that are anticipated to be successful in the future. These trends are crucial for any company trying to keep ahead of the curve in the quickly evolving field of SEO, from voice search optimization to user experience and content production.

    seo trends

    1. Using Brand Entity Schema to Optimize for ChatGPT Results

     Rise of ChatGPT and AI Based Search Platforms

    Millions of individuals utilize ChatGPT, a well-known language model, to discover information on a variety of subjects. 

    To retrieve the most recent results for each search query, ChatGPT is updated often and trained on billions of data points worldwide.

    Unlike Search Engines, ChatGPT specialised in giving a defined answer to the User’s search query, and it also improves upon it by adding information into relevant topics that might be useful

    Having your business appear in ChatGPT’s search results can help you reach a larger audience and improve your online presence. Using entity optimization is one approach to accomplish this.

    Describe Entities

    Search engines such as ChatGPT identify entities as objects, concepts, or anything with a unique identity. Brand names, goods, places, and individuals can all fall under this category. You may make your brand more likely to show up in ChatGPT’s search results by optimizing its entities.

    How to Describe Website Entities?

    Schema markups are arguably the best way to define things in your content from a technical SEO perspective.  Schema markups, which also show up as different elements in SERPs, are improved descriptions of particular items or information on the page.

    Schema Markups can be used to define entities by connecting them to particular identifiers. Additionally, it can be utilized to establish semantic connections between various items.

    Once defined, entities can be added to Google’s knowledge graph by utilizing schema markups to link them to different items.

    The search engine knowledge graph helps search engines provide context for the data they crawl by defining a web of information for Google that connects different pieces of information on the internet.

    How To Define Entities on The Website?

    Using The Main Entity Schema

    The main entity described on a page is indicated by the Main Entity Schema, which is used to define entities on the website. It can be incorporated into the Home Page and utilized to identify the brand as an entity.

    Using The Main Entity Of Page Schema

    It is possible to designate a specific property (item, object, or brand) as the primary entity that the web page defines by using the Main Entity of Page Schema.

    When used on the home page, this schema type can also aid in authenticating the Brand Entity to ChatGPT and other AI technologies.

    Making Use of Local SEO

    Optimizing your entity for local search is crucial if your brand has physical locations.

    This can involve employing local keywords, producing local content, and optimizing your geographical data.

    You can boost your company’s chances of showing up in ChatGPT’s local search results and draw in more local clients by optimizing your brand’s entities for local search.

    2. Advanced SEO Perspectives to Consider in a Content Audit

    Are Search Engines Able to Find All of Your Content?

    One of the most frequent JavaScript problems is when search engine bots are unable to recognize and crawl important content on your pages. This may be because the content is difficult to render and index, or it may be the result of generic coding problems.

    In essence, we are comparing the visible content on the page and the discrepancies between the raw and rendered HTML.

    How Can This Be Audited?

    Configure the crawl configuration as shown below.

    This will show the rendered HTML and the source HTML side by side in the View Source window so you can examine the differences and determine whether or not important links and information are truly interpreted in the rendered DOM.

    The comparison process is further accelerated by checking the Show Differences checkbox above the original HTML window.

    Are Search Engines Able to Fully Access The URLs That Use JavaScript?

    Step 1:

    Use Screaming Frog to crawl the website and provide a dashboard of URLs and the associated data to determine whether your URLs are accessible and indexable.

    Step 2:

    You may promptly detect possible crawl capability and indexation problems that may result from incorrect JavaScript rendering by doing a crawl on Screaming Frog.

    Some issues need to be fixed if there are specific URLs on your website that should be indexed but aren’t. Among the most prevalent problems to think about on our pages are:

    with blocked resources

    that contain a noindex

    that contain a nofollow

    that contain a different canonical link

    redirects being handled at a page level instead of at the server request

    that utilizes a fragment URL (or hash URL)

    Core Web Vital Audit

    These metrics, to put it simply, are used to evaluate both user experience and page performance. The following are the top three Core Web Vitals:

    • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) gauges how long it takes for people to see a page’s main content. An LCP of less than 2.5 seconds is advised by Google.
    • When a user can interact with a page, like clicking a link or engaging with JavaScript elements, First Input Delay (FID) gauges how quickly the page responds. An FID of 100 milliseconds or less is advised by Google.
    • The amount of layout shifts that reposition a page’s primary content is measured by Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), which eventually impacts a user’s capacity to interact with content. A CLS score of 0.1 or lower is advised by Google.

    We use the Chrome User Experience report Using Lookup Studio

    To Generate a Report

    Detecting Index Bloat and Content Pruning

    What is Index Bloat?

    Search results should not include pages with subpar content, duplicate content, cannibalizing content, or no content at all. These low-value pages generate index bloat, dilute keywords, and waste the crawl budget.

    Because of this, auditing index bloat is an effective way to deal with this problem.

    Main Causes of Index Bloat

    • URLs that are dynamically generated (unique and indexable pages produced by functions such as pagination, tracking parameters, filters, search results, classification, or tagging).
    • Content created by users (UGC).
    • Coding errors (such as faulty URL paths in the footer of a website).
    • Subdomains are thin or non-search value pages on domains that you unintentionally overlook.
    • Orphan Pages

    How Can Index Bloat Be Found?

    The following kinds of URL indexation problems are the most prevalent:

    • Every non-indexable HTML URL
    • Resource Blocked under Response Codes
    • Response codes should not contain any response URLs.
    • Redirection under response codes (3XX URLs)
    • JavaScript redirection under response codes
    • Client error under response codes (4xx URLs)
    • Canonical Problems under the Canonicals Tab
    • problems with sitemap URLs under sitemaps.
    • URLs that are not indexable under the Directives Tab

    You Can Also Use Screaming Frog Crawl Analysis Feature to Filter Relevant URL Data

    URL Pruning That Contributes to Index Bloat

    Here are several methods for evaluating URLs so you can decide how best to trim them.

    • To determine the SEO value of a URL, examine organic data in Google Analytics, such as organic search traffic, conversions, user behavior, and engagement.
    • In order to avoid inadvertently removing material that is generating commercial value, you should also review all user segment analytics. Below is further information on this.
    • Use Performance > Search Results in Google Search Console to view the performance of specific sites for various searches. Filter options (Search type: Web and Date: Last 3 months will be activated by default; we recommend evaluating at least 12 months of data at a time to account for seasonality) are located toward the top. To see the search performance of particular URLs of interest, add a Page filter. You can click into each URL to see if it ranks for any particular queries in addition to search impressions and clicks.
    • Utilize the SEO Spider Crawl Analysis’s Link Score statistic, which has a range of 1 to 100. URLs with extremely low Link Scores are usually low-value pages that might be removed or redirected.
    • Remove & Redirect – Generally, you can remove the URLs you want to remove from the index and reroute them to the next most topically relevant URL that you want to give priority for search engine optimization.
    • Tags for Meta Robots – You can use the meta robots tag to set a URL as “noindex,nofollow” or “noindex,follow,” depending on the type of page.
    • For pages you wish to keep completely private, such as sponsored pages, PPC landing pages, or advertorials, Noindex, nofollow stops search engines from indexing and following any internal links on the page.
    • Disallow via Robots.txt: The “disallow” function via the Robots.txt file is the most useful technique in your pruning toolbox when there are a lot of pages that need to be completely excluded from crawling (such as complete URL paths, like all tag pages).
    • Canonicalization – The canonical tag is a useful technique that informs search engines of the target URL you want to prioritize indexing. It is not advised as a complete solution to address index bloat. In particular, the canonical tag is essential for ensuring that similar or redundant pages—such as syndicated material or redundant pages that must be retained for business, user experience, or other reasons—are properly indexed.

    3. Using X Default and HrefLang Tags | A Short Guide to International SEO

    What is International SEO?

    • Normally, SEOs like to go niche and focus on a specific range of services for specific countries. The majority of businesses, including local ones, operate inside a certain geographic area, such as a state, city, or nation. 
    • However, what happens if a company attempts to expand internationally? How would companies attempt to rank and target each nation? The issue of language then arises, along with how to display the appropriate language content to the appropriate user.
    • The technique of optimizing a website or blog so that search engines can determine which nations you wish to reach or which languages you should employ for your business is known as international SEO.

    An Overview of Hreflang Tags And How to Use Them

    Google created hreflang tags to assist webmasters in telling Google which version of the page should be displayed for a given user type, language, or location. In order to enhance the user experience, this was implemented in 2011 and assisted both users and search engines in providing the appropriate content to the appropriate users.

    For instance, hreflang tags can be used to offer different kinds of content to English-speaking consumers in the US and the UK.

    Examine the code sample that follows.

    Rel = “alternate” couple with an hreflang tells google that the following HTML link is an alternate variation of similar pages.

    href = “url link” tells google that the exact URL mentioned in the quote is the URL under observation.

    Implementing HrefLang Tags

    Hreflang = “en-gb” tells google that the URL within the quotes is the right variation for UK-based users and uk language speaker

    This code snippet clearly differentiates and specifies that there are different types of content for different languages, namely Australia, USA and UK. Each correct variation is properly indicated in under the href = “link” element.

    Ways to Implement the X Default Tag

    The following methods can be applied to implementing the hreflang tag for your site.

    • HTTP header of each page
    • XML sitemap
    • Header of the HTML code of each page 

    4. How to Get Ranked on You.com

    How Do Traditional Search Engines Work?

    Traditional Search Engines like Google uses a complex AI algorithm which ranks results based on a local index that is created dynamically from a larger index each time a user makes a search query.

    • Crawling
    • Indexing
    • Processing
    • Ranking
    • Results Page

    How Does You.com Work?

    You.com primarily uses user feedback to rank results in relation to user searches, in contrast to traditional search engines. This is how it operates:

    • The AI ranks the most pertinent results on You.com according to the search query based on the initial AI training.
    • After reviewing the outcomes, the user casts a vote based on how beneficial each result was to them.
    • The search rankings fluctuate according to the quantity of user votes. This entails real-time ranking adjustments based on the ongoing fluctuations in user upvotes.
    • We at You.com are committed to democratizing the search process. Because of this, their social voting method relies on user input rather than a sophisticated algorithm to provide consumers with direct power over website rankings.

    How to Optimize for You.com?

    Optimize with Schema Markups

    • Schema Markup Implementation Checklist :
    • Organization Schema
    • Local Business Schema if Relevant
    • Article Schema
    • Web Page Schema
    • Entity Schema 
    • Main Entity of Page Schema

    Here’s an example of an Entity Schema

    Build Trust Signals

    How to Do it 

    • Build Relevant Backlinks from Trustworthy Pages
    • Distribute your Backlinks to Important Landing Pages, Category and Service Pages
    • Build Domain Authority and Page Authority
    • Maintain a High Trust Flow Score.
    • Follow Google EEAT Guidelines in your Content Strategy.

    Expand Website Functionality with Web Apps

    How to Do it 

    • You.com have found a new way of integrating App functionality in search engines to enable the user to perform a variety of tasks without ever having to leave the search engine results page.
    • This enables by various web apps which are indexable by You.com. It is hence preferable to improve your website and provide various functionality like Web Applications to further enhance your website visibility on You.com.

    Create Apps and Submit to App Stores

    How to Do it 

    • You.com is also capable of pulling results directly from the App Store and Play Store. This makes App Store Optimization a very important SEO Strategy to rank well in “Search Engines of the Future”. 
    • You.com can rank such results and also provide various public functionalities that can be performed directly on the SERP itself.

    5. The Issue of Crawl Budget Optimization And Index Bloat

    Index Bloat: What Is It?

    When a website contains more non-indexable URLs that can be crawled than there are indexed URLs, it is referred to as index bloat.

    Search results should not include pages with subpar content, duplicate content, cannibalizing content, or no content at all. These low-value pages generate index bloat, dilute keywords, and waste the crawl budget.

    Optimizing the Crawl Budget

    We first look at the current number of Indexed Pages in Google for the given website.

    The observed no. of indexed pages: 847

    Next We look at the Daily Crawl Rate as per various Google Bots.

    The observed no. of indexed pages: 341

    Calculate the Crawl Budget

    Crawl budget = (Site Index value) / (Single day crawl stat)

    The ideal score is as follows:

    1. If the Crawl budget is between 1 – 3 is Good

    2. If the Crawl budget is 4 – 10 is bad and needs fix

    3. If the crawl budget is 10+ then its worst and needs immediate technical fixes

    As per the calculation, 

    Crawl budget for https://thatware.co = 847/341 = 2.48

    Crawl Budget Calculation

    The score for https://thatware.co is 2.48 which is in the ideal zone of 1 – 3.

    How to Optimize for Crawl Budget?

    Sitemap.xml Optimization

    Step 1: 

    Make sure the XML sitemap contains the below hierarchy

    Should start with Homepage with priority set to 1.0 and change frequency value = Daily

    Then it should be followed with Top navigation pages with priority set to 0.95 and change frequency value = Daily

    Then it should be followed with top landing and service pages with priority set to 0.90 and change frequency value = Daily

    Then it should be followed with Blog pages with priority set to 0.80 and change frequency value = Weekly

    Then it should be followed with Miscellaneous pages with priority set to 0.70 and change frequency value = Monthly

    Step 2

    After that, put the sitemap path in Robots.txt.

    Step 3

    Also, declare the sitemap on search console as well.

    Check and Fix Mobile Usability Issues

    According to the screenshot above, which was taken from the Google search panel, we can see that there are no problems with mobile usability, which is good.

    However, there is a drawback: the screenshot above indicates that there are only 105 acceptable mobile pages, even though we had 847 pages indexed. 

    Therefore, we might draw the conclusion that mobile-first indexing is problematic. Once the aforementioned sitemap has been appropriately optimized, this problem can be resolved.

    Fix Page Indexing Issues on Priority

    A number of indexing problems that lead to index bloat will show up under the Pages area of the Google search panel.

    Prioritizing the resolution of these problems enables Google to crawl just crucial landing pages and maximizes your website’s crawl budget.

    Removing Unwanted Pages from Google Search

    Unwanted pages like website internal assets and plugin pages are unimportant for indexing and need not be shown by search engines.

    Hence these urls should be removed from Search.

    This is done through the removals tool in Google search Console.

    6. Focusing on Content Quality | Google’s EEAT Quality Guidelines

    What Does the New E Stand For?

    Google recently expanded the popular EAT guideline by introducing a new factor called Experience.

    Incorporating “experience” demonstrates that Google Quality Raters can assess content quality by determining the degree to which the content producer has firsthand knowledge of the subject.

    As the “most significant part of the E-E-A-T group,” Google highlights that “trust” lies at the core of this concept.

    Does Search Engine Quality Ratings Directly Influence Search Rankings?

    Here’s what Google Had to Say

    How Does Search Quality Raters Influence Ranking Overall

    First they give rating values to each website in the back end.

    Machine learning systems would then have access to this data, which they would utilize to enhance the algorithms based on known signal data.

    What Effects Do Search Quality Raters Have on Overall Ranking?

    For instance, the system may examine all of the signal data from a site or sites that are routinely rated High or better in order to find similarities.

    • As a result, the system would probably generate a set of results based on what the new algorithm generates over a range of phrases and niches.
    • Send the raters the top-ranked websites in that set.
    • Additionally, push the signal modifications into the well-known global algorithms, either worldwide or in testing, if the raters prefer the revised results page.

    Google Defines the Three Pillars of EEAT

    With Trust being the defining factor for assessing a Content’s Quality, Google defines 3 other factors that helps determine the trust score of a Web Page.

    The Aspect of YMYL Topics

    How Does a Search Quality Rater Distinguish between Harmful and Non Harmful Topics? 

    When Does a Web Page Lack EEAT?

    Why Is It Important for SEOs or Web Masters?

    Search quality assessors’ scores can aid Google in improving its algorithms, even though they are not utilized to decide rankings. To have a better understanding of which websites and web pages Google is more likely to rank, it is crucial to compare the modifications made in the current version of the document to the previous version. There’s a reason why Google made these changes.

    Google has been hinting at “experience” as a significant component for a while. It’s fantastic that the paper makes this clear and acknowledges it as one of the four essential components of quality.

    7. Leveraging Long Tail Keywords To Drive Quick Traffic and Organic Rankings in Google

    What are Long Tail Keywords?

    In essence, long-tail keywords are search terms longer than two or three words. They are frequently employed to identify what a user is trying to find in the search box. Compared to just entering “shoe,” this search term is more precise and is more likely to yield the exact result that the user is seeking.

    For instance, someone looking for a particular kind of “patio chairs” is more likely to look for “navy blue patio chairs.”

    With a search volume of “90,” which is significantly lower than the head term “patio chairs,” the latter is a long tail keyword.

    The comparison process is further accelerated by checking the Show Differences checkbox above the original HTML window.

    Why are they called Long Tail Keywords

    Why are they called Long Tail KeywordsWhy are they called Long Tail Keywords

    Contrary to popular belief, the word longtail keywords come from the position of these words in search volume vs no. of keywords plot, also known as the “Search Demand Curve”.

    These terms in the top are called head terms, while the tail end containing billions of keywords with low search volume are called long tail keywords.

    What Makes Long Tail Keywords an Absolute Gold Mine for Ranking?

    Long Tail Keywords are Less Competitive

    Short Tail Keywords

    Long Tail Keywords

    Long Tail Keywords are Intent Specific and hence Easier to Target with Content

    Lets look at the content length for a top ranking page ranking for a keyword: “how to mine bitcoin”

    Let’s do the same for the long tail keyword: “does bitcoin pay dividends.”

    As you can see, the word count of the top-ranking result shows to be only “1519” words.

    Now that is far easier to beat than the previous one.

    How to Find Long Tail Keywords?

    Use Google People Also Ask

    Use Google Related Search Section

    Use a Chrome Extension like Keywords Everywhere

    Dig Deeper into Long Tail Semantically Related Topics using AlsoAsked.com

    8. How To Use the Around Operator to find Relevant Keywords to Target?

    What is Around Operator?

    Google has its own search operator called “AROUND” for finding webpages that include words or phrases which are near to each other.

    By finding the most relevant search results that contain keywords that Google considers nearest to our target query, we can extract the words with higher relevancy score and optimize our target landing page with them.

    How we Use Around Operator for SEO?

    For example, we take “online supplement store” for this niche like below format in the SERP:

    “online” around(10) “supplement”

    In the same way, we add one more parameter with the existing operator by choosing the second priority keyword with Around 20 like this:

    “online” around(10) “supplement” around(20) “store”

    Most relevant output we get: https://sourceofsupplements.com/

    Again choose third priority keyword Around (30) with the existing one:

    “online” around(10) “supplement” around(20) “store” around(30) “men”

    Most relevant output we get: https://www.healthkart.com/

    Moving Forward we use a Keyword Extractor Tool like Bag of Words that can extract the most relevant keywords between these three landing pages.

    The relevancy of the keywords is determined based on the target landing page that is provided by us.

    By Optimizing the target landing page content with these keywords, this will highly increase the chances of keyword for the target query.

    Keywords Suggested By the Bag of Words Tool

    9. HTTP/2 Protocol and its Impact On the World Wide Web

    What is the HTTP/2 Protocol?

    Introduction to HTTP/2.0 Protocol

    HTTP/2 Protocol is a new way of sending and receiving data throughout the world wide web.

    With the ever expanding internet, the HTTP 1.0 protocol was not able keep up the pace by refreshing the content as soon as possible making it difficult to maintain highly interactive sites.

    The newly formed HTTP/2.0 Protocol fixed many of the inadequacies of the HTTP/1.0 Protocol and helped enhancing the world wide web.

    Main Benefits

    • Boost Website Performance
    • Access To The Internet At A Lesser Cost
    • Broad Area Coverage
    • Widespread Media Exposure
    • The Use of Modern Technology is Improved
    • Improved Security

    How to Check if your Website Supports HTTP/2.0 Protocol

    By Using the Chrome Developer Tools

    By Using a Tool like HTTP/2.0 pro

    In Terms of SEO what Does HTTP/2 Imply?

    Google’s algorithms do not consider whether a site is HTTP/2-ready, but it does encourage sites that provide a seamless user experience. As a result, migrating to HTTP/2 will improve a site’s search engine optimization. 

    HTTP/2 will undoubtedly improve mobile performance, which has focused on recent speed-up efforts.

    10. WebP and Image Format for the Web And Its SEO Significance

    What is Webp Format?

    According to Google, WebP is a modern image format that provides superior compression for images on the web.

    This means that website owners can create smaller images that are visually indistinguishable from their larger counterparts. It supports both lossy and lossless compression and includes an alpha channel for transparency, which means it can also compress PNG images and keep the transparent background.

    Main Benefits of WebP Format

    • WebP lossless images are 26% smaller in size compared to PNGs.
    • WebP lossy images are 25-34% smaller than comparable JPEG images
    • Lossless WebP supports transparency (also known as alpha channel) at a cost of just 22% additional bytes.
    • Lossy, lossless and transparency are all supported in animated WebP images, which can provide reduced sizes compared to GIF and APNG.

    Does Webp Really Necessary for Ranking

    While there is no direct evidence that using WebP images specifically will improve your website’s ranking, using Webp helps to optimize for speed and performance in various devices and platforms that helps in boosting user experience. Important points are:

    • Smaller Image sizes helps to improve page load times and overall user experience.
    • Webp can reduce the amount of data needed to load images on mobile devices, thus making your webpage mobie optimized
    • Google prioritizes faster websites so Webp optimization shall undoubtedly increase chances for ranking.

    How to Optimize for Webp?

    Choose the Right File Format?

    Don’t compromise on Quality.

    Good Compression

    Bad Compression

    Understand the difference between Lossy and Lossless Compression

    Lossy: This is a filter that eliminates some of the data. This will degrade the image, so you’ll have to be careful of how much to reduce the image. The file size can be reduced by a large amount. You can use tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Photo, or other image editors to adjust the quality settings of an image.

    The second photo in previous slide was example of lossy compression.

    Lossless: This is a filter that compresses the data. This doesn’t reduce the quality but it will require the images to be uncompressed before they can be rendered. You can perform a lossless compression on your desktop using tools such as Photoshop, FileOptimizer, or ImageOptim.

    The first photo in previous slide was example of lossy compression.

    Use Image Optimization Plugins

    If you are Using WordPress or Shopify there are several Image Optimization Plugins to Choose from:

    However that we recommend using:

    • Smush
    • Litespeed Cache(With Hostinger)

    11. The Problem of Crawl Depth and HTML Sitemap

    What is Crawl Depth and Why is It Bad for SEO?

    Crawl Depth

    Crawl depth refers to the number of clicks required to reach a particular page on a website starting from the homepage. In other words, it’s the distance of a web page from the homepage in terms of the number of clicks it takes to get there.

    Search engines use crawlers to navigate through the website and index its pages.

    A webpage with a high crawl depth makes it difficult for search engines bots to discover the page easily.

    Without proper discoverability, the webpage might not be indexed at all. Thus never showing up in SERPs.

    To improve SEO and user experience, it’s recommended to keep crawl depth to a minimum. 

    This can be achieved by designing a website with a clear and intuitive hierarchy, using internal linking to make pages easily accessible, and avoiding unnecessary levels of nesting in the site’s structure.

    The recommended crawl depth for a webpage < 3

    HTML Sitemap | The Best Fix for High Crawl Depth

    An HTML sitemap is a page on a website that lists out all the pages on that website in a hierarchical format, with links to each page. Unlike the XML sitemap, which is designed primarily for search engine crawlers, the HTML sitemap is designed for human visitors to the website.

    How Does it Fixes Crawl Depth

    When all Pages are Linked to the Home page in a proper hiearchial format you are essentially creating a link path from Home to every page of the site.

    By restricting the link path to not exceed more than two hiearchy, than you are automatically optimizing the site for Crawl Depth.

    Other Benefits of HTML Sitemap

    In Addition to Fixing Crawl Depth an HTML Sitemap can: 

    Clear and Intuitive Way for Users to Navigate the Site. If a user is unable to find what they’re looking for through the site’s main navigation, they can turn to the HTML sitemap to locate the page they need.

    12. 3 Pack Ranking And Local SEO

    What is Google 3 Pack?

    The Google 3 pack optimization is pretty much exactly what it sounds like a pack of three local search results. These results are sourced based on a user’s query and their location.

    For instance, if you were to type in “SEO Services Kolkata” you’d likely get three suggestions at the very top. Which would be determined by the amount of info Google can collect on them.

    Why is it Significant for Local SEO?

    Increased visibility: More likely that users will click through to the business’s website or contact them directly.

    Credibility: The Google 3 Pack is highly visible and prominently displayed, increasing the credibility of the business.

    Increased traffic: Increased traffic to a business’s website or physical location, which can result in more leads and sales.

    Competitive advantage: Gives a competitive advantage over other local businesses in the same industry or niche.

    How to Rank for Local 3 Pack?

    Optimize your Google my Business Categories

    Optimize the Business Titles and Description with Local Keywords

    Add your Website and Services to the GMB Profile.

    Add Regular Updates to the GMB Profile.

    Geo Tag your Website to improve Search Query Relevancy.

    Build Classified Links to Drive More Traffic.

    Build Citations and Business Listings to drive more relevant traffic.

    13. How to Optimize for Google Multisearch

    What is Google MultiSearch?

    Many a Times , a user doesn’t always know the right search term to type in order to search something. 

    For example, while shopping if you find an item you donot know the name about but you want to quickly compare the price online.

    Google has identified the demand for this type of search and has actively worked to roll out a feature called Google Lens found on mobile and also for Google apps. 

    How Does Google Lens Work

    SCAN & TRANSLATE TEXT

    IDENTIFY PLANTS & ANIMALS

    EXPLORE PLACES AROUND YOU

    FIND THE LOOK YOU LIKE

    KNOW WHAT TO ORDER

    SCAN CODES

    How Google MultiSearch Works

    Google Multisearch uses AI to combine images and text to make sense of the query and return relevant results, mostly product listings, or other relevant formats.

    It also claims to explore ways of integrating the MUM algorithm to enhance the search experience. Google MUM Algorithm is a powerful technology with the ability to answer queries audio, video, images, and text and return the relevant information irrespective of the language of the query.

    How SEO Can Benefit from MultiSearch?

    With the roll out of multisearch Google has tried to shift its focus from text based content to visual content.

    It is now far more important to index images, products and videos types of content in Search Engines rather than just text.

    Some best practices to optimize for Google MultiSearch

    • Use Images and Videos in Web Pages
    • Apply image Alt Text and Alt Attributes
    • Apply Keywords in Alt Attributes
    • Use Video Tags
    • Use Video Schema and declare images wherever possible under different schema markup rules.

    Results from Image Search

    Source: Search Console

    14. Enhance User Experience by Integrating 3D Images and Augmented Reality

    How Google Search Integrate 3D Images and AR?

    Do you enjoy seeing animal pictures on the internet? Are you a student and love visualizing physics concepts in 3D that help you understand better. You don’t need to take an advanced course or animal safari package to access these benefits. It can be all experienced from home by a simple Google search.

    Google has announced the integration of 3D Images and Augmented Reality as a feature in SERP. It allowed users to visualize 3D images and experience them from their smartphone.

    How to Visualize 3D Images in SERP?

    In order to experience 3D images, you have to do this using a smartphone. Search for a term like a lion. You will see a general knowledge graph opening with the description of a lion. The only difference is there is a section where you can experience a 3D African lion labeled as “View in 3D”.

    If you click on the button, you can view a 3d model of your lion in your room using your camera. Just click on “View in your Space,” and it should show.

    Embed 3D Elements in Your Website

    The best way to create a 3D model is to use Blender, which is perhaps the easiest way to create professional 3D models. Or, if you don’t have the time to do it, you can hire a 3D model designer who can. 

    The embedding of the 3D model is done by simply entering an embedded code in HTML. First, you need a 3D image platform to publish your images. 

    Embed 3D Structured Data Model

    The embedding of the 3D model is done by simply entering an embedded code in HTML. First, you need a 3D image platform to publish your images. 

    3D Schema Markup Code Sample

    Why Should SEOs Care about 3D Images and AR

    • A Unique Way to Approach New Prospects
    • Capture Untapped Oppurtunities to Rank in Searchs
    • Influence CTR for Ecommerce Products
    • 3D Elements is the next Big thing for Web 3.0 Websites

    15. An SEO Guide to WaterFall Diagram and How to Optimize Waterfall

    What are WaterFall Diagrams?

    A waterfall diagram is a graphical view of all the resources loaded by a web browser to present your page to your users, showing both the order in which those resources were loaded and how long it took to load each resource. 

    Analyzing how those resources are loaded can give you insight into what’s slowing down your webpage, and what you can fix to make it faster.

    Different Phases of a Waterfall Diagram?

    DNS Lookup [Dark Green] – Before the browser can talk to a server it must do a DNS lookup to convert the hostname to an IP Address.

    Initial Connection [Orange] – Before the browser can send a request, it must create a TCP connection. This should only happen on the first few rows of the chart, otherwise there’s a performance problem (more on this later).

    SSL/TLS Negotiation [Purple] – If your page is loading resources securely over SSL/TLS, this is the time the browser spends setting up that connection. With Google now using HTTPS as a search ranking factor, SSL/TLS negotiation is more and more common.

    Time To First Byte (TTFB) [Green] – The TTFB is the time it takes for the request to travel to the server, for the server to process it, and for the first byte of the response to make it make to the browser. We will use the measurement to determine if your web server is underpowered or you need to use a CDN.

    Downloading (Blue) – This is the time the browser spends downloading the response. The longer this phase is, the larger the resource is. Ideally you can control the length of this phase by optimizing the size of your content.

    Optimizing performance with a waterfall diagram

    A Waterfall Diagram can give us an Insight into the Ways by which we can improve website and reducing the width of different aspects of the waterfall diagram. 

    A waterfall chart provides us with 3 great visual aids to assist with this goal:

    Step 1:

    First, we can optimize our site to reduce the amount of time it takes to download all the resources. This reduces the width of our waterfall. The skinnier the waterfall, the faster your site.

    Step 2:

    Second, we can reduce the number of requests the browser needs to make to load a page. This reduces the height of our waterfall. The shorter your waterfall, the better.

    Step 3:

    Finally, we can optimize the ordering of resource requests to improve rendering time. This moves the green Start Render line to the left. The further left this line, the better.

    Other Factors

    Is my server fast enough?

    Look at the TTFB measurement. If it is longer than about 500 ms, your server may be underpowered or unoptimized.

    Do I need a CDN?

    Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) speed up your website by storing copies of your static assets (images, CSS, JavaScript files, etc) all over the world, reducing the latency for your visitors.

    16. Entity Stacking for SEO

    What is Entity Stacking?

    What is Google Entity Stacking in the SEO world? Google Stacking is an authoritative SEO strategy that allows you to build backlinks on several Google platforms to other entity assets like the company’s website.

    These “Google Entities” include content in assets like Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Maps, YouTube and more. Google indexes content on its own domains/assets very quickly as well.

    Difference and Benefits

    Google Stacking is the Evolution of Previous Link Building Schemes like Web 2.0, which included using Social Bookmarking sites, Blogger sites and other inexpensive sites like Wix, Weebly, HubPages, Squidoo.

    The main difference is instead of linking to one specific content platform like Blogger, Google stack points to as many Google entities as possible.

    It serves 3 Main Purpose:

    • Link Building
    • Content Promotion and Faster Indexing
    • Reputation Control

    Procedures

    Creating a Drive Link

    Creating a Google Sheet Link

    Giving Information In Google Sheets

    Create Link through Google Photos

    Generate Google Calendar Link

    • Google Forms
    • Google Maps Links
    • Google Docs
    • Google Slides
    • Google Sites

    17. BreadCrumb Navigation and its Importance in SEO

    What is BreadCrumb Navigation?

    Breadcrumb navigation is a type of navigation system that displays the user’s location within a website’s hierarchy. It typically appears as a trail of links at the top of a webpage and helps users to understand where they are on a website and how they got there.

    ]

    Types of BreadCrumb Navigation

    • Breadcrumb Navigation Based on History
    • BreadCrumb Navigation Based on Hiearchy
    • Breadcrumb Navigation based on Attributes

    Benefits of BreadCrumb Navigation

    Better site structure

    Google uses Breadcrumb Navigation to better understand your website structure and categorize your different assets for ranking.

    Improved User Experience

    90% of the Users say they would never they would never return to a website which is difficult to navigate.

    Almost 3 out of 4 businesses fail die to poor user experience.

    Indexing API

    The Indexing API was launched by Google allowed a site owner to directly notify Google when a particular URL was updated. 

    This method of appeared more efficient than any other method.

    How it Works

    1. First we need to enable the API in API Explorer in Google Cloud Console.
    1. Then we have to create the approprate service credentials from the create new credentials section.

    It will generate an Email and an Unique ID.

    1. The same Email Id has to be added

    as new user in Search Console with Owner level priviledges.

    1. The indexing API is then invoked using a Python Script.

    As you can see we updated a single url which was not indexed in Google.

    Result

    Before

    Not Indexed

    After

    Fully Indexed in 1 hour

    18. Using the Chrome User Experience Report

    Chrome User Experience Report shares valuable Insights into the Core Webi Vital Performance of a Website.

    With the help of the API you can get the user experience metrics for any url.

    How it Works

    1. First we need to enable the API from the Cloud Console in Google.
    1. Go to the API Section and copy the appropriate API Key to be used to invoke the API.
    1. Head over to the Official API Documentation. The API allows you get the user experience metrics for any website URL.
    1. Copy the Sample Query Code given in the Curl Format.
    1. Open GitBash and insert the copied piece of code. Run it to obtain the result.

    Don’t forget to put your API Key and the appropriate url at the appropriate portion of the code.

    1. The program then returns the desired websites’ with the major core web vital metric.

    19. Basics of MultiLingual SEO

    Why do we need a multilingual strategy to take our Website global?

    • Expanding your Target Market

    Only 25% of the Internet users are native English speaker. 75% aren’t. Hindi is the dominant language in India, and in the US, Spanish the second most spoken language.

    • Reduce Bounce Rates

    72.1% of consumers spend most or all of their time on websites in their own language.

    • Slashing the competition

    English is obviously the most competitive language. However things may not be so rough in other languages.

    • Customer Centric Marketing

    Being available in other languages is a modest gesture of personalization. What better way to improve a Brand’s image.

    Things to Do before Implementing a MultiLingual Approach

    1. Research Audience

    Develop your Customer avatar and identify their demographics, language preferences, where they congregate mostly.

    1. Language and Location

    Multilingual SEO is a huge undertaking. Knowing the exact language and location of our target market can save time and improve efficiency.

    1. Keyword Research

    Since content needs to be personalized, its a good idea to have keywords ready in local languages, to save time.

    1. Choose the right search engines

    Although Google is the dominant search engine, some countries have a preference. Make sure to include that in your research.

    20. Steps to Create a Multilingual Website

    Choose the right domain and URL Structure

    Create Multiple Language Versions Of Content

    This is the hardest part… But Why Should you Do it?

    A dedicated URL for your translated page can tell search engines that the page corresponds to a specific language so that it knows which one should be shown to speakers of different languages.

    Common Mistakes

    • Donot Set Up Automatic Redirects to language specific pages. Instead Google recommends to give internal links to different versions to let the user decide.
    • Flag icons represent nations but not languages. Its best to use links instead.

    Translate and Create New content to make it Unique

    It is unacceptable to use AI Content Writers or Google Translaters. Why??

    • Google can detect automatically translated content and decrease its position and visibility in the search results.
    • Inaccurate grammer and language nuances can lead to irrelevant content leading to poor user experience and higher bounce rate.

    Recommendation:

    • Take help of professional copyrighting services.
    • Cheap Costs and gets the job done.

    Use Hreflang Tags

    Adding Hreflang tags to your website is the best way to tell search engines how to distinguish which URLs are appropriate for each language on the website.

    How to do it?

    • Implement them in your language sitemap.
    • Place them in the head section of the HTML Page.
    • Place it in the http header of non-html pages.

    Using a Multilingual Sitemap

    If you’re using a CMS like WordPress, you can use a plugin like Yoast SEO to automatically generate a sitemap.

    A multilingual sitemap doesn’t differ much from a traditional one. However, it should include additional information about each <loc> entry.

    Why Should you Do it?

    • Helps in Gaining Local Authority for Ranking in Local Indexes.
    • Backlinks are more relevant.
    • Reduces Spam

    How To Do It?

    Participate in Local Events.

    Get Listed in local citations.

    Influencer Marketing

    Guest Posting.

    21. Identifying Crawl Traps For SEO

    What Are Crawl Traps?

    Spider or Crawl Traps refer to a website structure that has technical seo issues. These traps provide infinite urls making crawling difficult for the spider.

    Different Types of Crawl Traps

    • Never Ending URLs
    • Mix Match Traps
    • Subdomain Redirect Trap
    • Search based Crawl Traps
    • Time Traps

    Never Ending URLs

    When using a crawler-based tool, you can identify these traps if any of the following occurs:

    The URL keeps getting longer and longer without stopping

    The crawl runs smoothly until it reaches your site’s junk pages

    If the crawled URLs start taking a strange form that is an extension of the crawled pages

    Correction Procedure

    This spider trap may be fixed by utilizing a crawler tool and configuring it to order URLs by length. Choose the longest URL to find the source of the problem.

    Mix Match Crawl Traps

    This problem is most common with e-Commerce platforms that allow consumers to apply many filters to find the proper product.

    For a crawler, several product filters per page might cause problems.

    Correction Procedure

    • Provide fewer filtering options
    • Use robots.txt to block pages with too many or too few filters  
    • implementing mix-and-match filtering in Javascript

    Subdomain Redirect Crawl Trap

    When your website is operating on a secure connection, yet every page on the unsecured site is pointed to your secured homepage, you’ve fallen into the trap. The trap makes it difficult for Google bots to reroute outdated, vulnerable pages. 

    Correction Procedure

    Traps for spiders Misconfiguration of the CMS or web server causes SEO. Edit your web server configuration to fix it. You may also change the CMS and add the request URL redirect string there.

    Search based Crawl Traps

    The search feature isn’t supposed to be crawled or indexed by search engines. Unfortunately, many website designers overlook this fact. When this happens to your website, anyone with bad intent may easily upload indexable information to it even if they are not signed in.

    Correction Procedure

    To remove a portion of the search results from the search engine, add no index, no follow metadata to the search results, and have the site crawled again. The deleted pImage Indexing Guideages can then be blocked using robots.txt.

    Time Traps

    You can manually spot the trap, even if Google will eventually find and remove pointless calendars from your website. Click the “next year” (or “next month”) button repeatedly on the website’s calendar page. The website has a calendar trap if you have a few months or years to spare.

    Correction Procedure

    Check the settings of your calendar plugin to see whether you can restrict how many months are shown going forward.

    You will need to go to the robots.txt file and specify a reasonable number of months into the future to block the calendar pages if there is no protection.

    How Does Spider Traps Affect SEO?

    • Google algorithms reduce the quality of your ranking.
    • Affect the original page’s ranking in circumstances when spider traps result in near-duplicate pages.
    • Search bots waste time loading irrelevant near-duplicate pages, wasting crawl money.

    22. Dead Page Optimization

    What are Dead Pages?

    Those are the pages which can’t generate any traffic for the website.  

    • According to Google Webmaster, those pages have fewer clicks and impressions.
    • According to Google Analytics, those pages have fewer views and active sessions.

    How to Detect Dead Pages from Google Analytics?

    1. Go to Google analytics 🡪 Behavior 🡪 Site Content 🡪 All pages
    1. Set the data time range 6 months for better results
    1. Add filter on page views and set the data from lowest to highest
    1. Export the full data from analytics
    1. Remove unwanted pages from this list
    1. List Down the Pages with 1-10 Pageviews
    1. Go to Google search console 🡪Seach Results-> Select the data range: last 6 months
    1. Export all the data and set the clicks range: 0 to 10. And the impressions range: 0 to 1000

    How to Optimize Dead Pages?

    • Use those pages as hyperlinks from high-traffic pages.
    • Need to add more click elements and relevant content on those pages.
    • Need to work on advanced off-page for those pages.

    23. Image Indexing Guide

    Naming Images Properly

    Here’s what Google Says: 

    It’s obvious that using straightforward, descriptive file names is a better method to let Google know what the image is about.

    Yes, alt tags are helpful, but as SEOs, we want to provide as much information as we can.

    Make Use of Captions And Descriptive Alt Text

    An image is described by alt text, or alternative text. It’s what screen reader users see in the browser. If an image rendering issue arises, browsers also show alt text.

    A Few Examples: 

    Selecting The Ideal File Type Is Crucial

    For SEO, page load time is critical. It is a ranking element on desktop and mobile devices, according to Google. Selecting the optimum file type for each image—that is, the one that provides the best compression with the least loss of quality—is our job as SEOs.

    A Few Examples on How this matters: 

    Compress Images 

    Although there isn’t much of a quality difference between the two, the first image is 58% smaller than the second (31kb vs. 73kb).

    Guetzli, MozJPEG (by Mozilla), and pngquant are three open-source software that Google suggests for this. These are utilities for the command line.

    Additionally, you can utilize a standard tool like the free Mac program Imaghe Optim.

    Use Webp Format

    Principal Advantages of WebP Format

    • When compared to PNGs, WebP lossless images are 26% smaller.
    • Comparable JPEG images are 25–34% larger than WebP lossy images.
    • Transparency, or alpha channel, is supported by Lossless WebP at a little 22% extra byte cost.
    • Also, animated WebP images can offer smaller sizes than GIF and APNG and feature lossy, lossless, and transparency.

    Create an Image Sitemap

    Here are some of the different tags for you for setting up an image sitemap.

    Final Thoughts

    Search Engine Optimization is always changing, and as SEOs, it is our responsibility to embrace these changes rather than be afraid of them in order to maximize the company’s online visibility in search engines.

    The 23 SEO strategies listed above provide a broad overview of the most recent trends and strategies that are dominating the SEO industry.Get a Free Customized SEO and Digital Marketing Strategy to Increase the Online Visibility of Your Website and Business if you’re not sure where to begin.

    Get the Strategy Today!

    FAQ

    Brand entity schema refers to structured data markup that defines a brand or entity uniquely, helps search engines (and AI tools like ChatGPT) understand it, and connects it within knowledge graphs. ThatWare explains it boosts visibility in AI-driven search results and reinforces semantic relevance.

    Index bloat happens when many low-value or duplicate pages are indexed, wasting crawl budget and diluting keyword targeting. ThatWare recommends auditing via tools like Screaming Frog, checking performance/traffic for each URL and redirecting or no-indexing pages that don’t serve SEO value. 

    Core Web Vitals measure user experience metrics—like LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), FID (First Input Delay), and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift). ThatWare emphasises achieving Google-recommended thresholds (e.g., LCP under 2.5s, CLS below 0.1) to ensure pages are user-friendly and favourably ranked. 

    ThatWare explains that long-tail keywords are more specific, lower-volume search terms, but less competitive and highly intent-driven. By targeting them, you can rank quicker, attract more qualified traffic, and build topical relevance before scaling to broader keywords. 

    International SEO involves serving the correct language or regional version of content. ThatWare shows how to implement hreflang tags and x-default tags so search engines know which URL version to show for different languages or regions—improving relevance and reducing duplicate content issues.

    Summary of the Page - RAG-Ready Highlights

    Below are concise, structured insights summarizing the key principles, entities, and technologies discussed on this page.

    As search engines and AI-based platforms like ChatGPT evolve, businesses need to stay current with SEO strategies to remain competitive. Key trends include optimizing brand entities with schema markup to appear in AI-driven search results. Entities represent unique objects, products, or brands, and properly defining them through schema can improve visibility in knowledge graphs and enhance online presence, including local search opportunities.

    A thorough content audit ensures that all pages are discoverable and indexable by search engines. Challenges such as JavaScript rendering issues, blocked resources, and non-indexable URLs must be identified using tools like Screaming Frog. Additionally, auditing Core Web Vitals—including Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)—helps improve page speed and user experience, both of which are critical for SEO performance.

    Index bloat occurs when low-value, duplicate, or orphaned pages occupy crawl budget and dilute SEO effectiveness. Detecting bloat involves analyzing URL indexation issues, server responses, canonical tags, and sitemap structure. Pruning low-value URLs can be achieved through redirects, meta robots tags, canonicalization, or disallowing via robots.txt. Evaluating organic traffic, conversions, and engagement metrics ensures that valuable content is retained while minimizing SEO inefficiencies.

    Optimizing a website’s SEO requires strategic prioritization of URLs for indexing. High-value pages should be retained and supported through proper linking, while low-value or redundant pages are pruned or redirected. Techniques like meta robots configuration, canonicalization, and analytics-driven evaluation allow webmasters to maintain a clean, efficient index. This ensures search engines focus on important content, improving overall visibility, crawl efficiency, and search ranking potential.

    Tuhin Banik - Author

    Tuhin Banik

    Thatware | Founder & CEO

    Tuhin is recognized across the globe for his vision to revolutionize digital transformation industry with the help of cutting-edge technology. He won bronze for India at the Stevie Awards USA as well as winning the India Business Awards, India Technology Award, Top 100 influential tech leaders from Analytics Insights, Clutch Global Front runner in digital marketing, founder of the fastest growing company in Asia by The CEO Magazine and is a TEDx speaker and BrightonSEO speaker.

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