Advanced SEO: You’ve Done the Basics, Now What?

Posted by Kelly Spear on October 9, 2026

So, you’ve done the basics of SEO, you’ve got some good pages with on your website that have a clear structure and content for search engines to crawl through. You have some solid internal linking, strong localisation keywords and some client testimonials/reviews on the website.  The website shows up in Google searches, but what else can you do to increase the ranking results? Here are a few advanced SEO techniques for you to implement on your website to boost that ranking.

Strengthening Brand/Entity Signals

Brand (or Entity) signals are key words, phrases that help search engines understand your business, what you sell, and why it should consider your brand trustworthy. By making sure you have clear, consistent brand details across the site, Google will recognise the strong positioning and rank the site higher in search results.  Not only does this help showcase your overall brand, but this helps Google understand your products, categories, and expertise as well. And to top it off, this is something that AI agents will search for too!

How do I strengthen my Brand/Entity online?

• Ensure your brand name, logos and addresses are consistent across your website and social media channels.
• Build a clear and informative About Us page, highlighting history, specialisations, accreditations and relevant industry memberships.
• Optimise page structure and data organisation (Products, FAQ, Breadcrumbs)
• Give brand context to product and category pages to reinforce expertise. E.g. “specialists in [Industry] since [date] “, “Our team has over 20 years’ experience in [Industry/Product/Niche]…”
• Are you selling B2C, B2B or a bit of both? Adding this information will let search engines get your website in front of a relevant audience.

Page Updates & Content Pruning

While it is often better to keep some older content on a website, content that is very old or low‑performing can drag down overall site authority. This is where content pruning comes in handy, updating, merging, or removing pages that no longer perform well. This helps search engines focus on the high‑value pages on your website and reduces index bloating. Refreshing content also tells Google that particular pages and information are still relevant, improving ranking stability.

How do I make sure my content is relevant?

• Use Google Analytics and Google Search Console to identify pages with declining traffic
• Review the content on each highlighted page, is it still up to date?  Refresh outdated content where possible.
• Does the content overlap with a newer page or blog? If so, consider merging the pages/articles. If the content is wildly out of date or inaccurate, it might be best to remove the page.
• Having a cleaner site structure allows for better crawl efficiency and stronger topical signals for search engines to pick up on.

Advanced Technical SEO

While on page structure, image sizing, website slugs and working links are a great start to Technical SEO, it can go a lot deeper. The more complex areas of technical SEO help to ensure Google can crawl, render, and understand your website properly. These areas are a bit harder to identify and work on if you are looking to DIY your SEO, so you might want to consider hiring a developer team to help you - like us here at Antropy!   

• Review and Fix any issues with JavaScript rendering, dynamic content, and blocked resources. Modern sites often rely on JavaScript to load images, text, or product details, so this is key.
• Reduce the amount of filter pages, duplicates and old versions on your site. Improves Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP) for better user experience and rankings in Google’s speed and usability scores.
• Ensure your semantic HTML structure is correct. Check the log files to see what Google is actually crawling, and on the flip side, what it is ignoring.

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): how quickly the main content loads

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): whether the page jumps around as it loads

Interaction to Next Paint (INP): how responsive the page feels when you click or tap

High‑Authority / PR Links

It is good to have a mix of internal and external and external linking on your website. But when it comes to external linking, it is about quality, not quantity. Search engines look for high‑authority links, links that come from reputable sources.

What are some examples of High-Authority links?

• Mentions in industry publications: PR‑driven links often outperform traditional link building, highlighting topical authority and improving ranking for competitive keywords.
• Building profiles on a select number of established directory sites build brand visibility and can even work as lead generation sources themselves. 

Summary

After laying the groundwork for strong SEO on your website, the next stage is all about refining it. Strengthening your brand signals, tidying up older content, improving technical speed and stability, and securing high‑authority PR links are all great steps in taking your SEO to the next level. Which of these areas do you feel ready to tackle next in your SEO journey? Let us know in the comments!