One of the things we struggle with as SEO content providers, whether it's as bloggers or event organizers, is what level to target content at. It seems that, almost no matter what the content, some part of the audience complains that it isn't advanced enough. This is clearly an industry-wide struggle – we even have conferences now with "Advanced" right in the name.
The problem is that "advanced" means a lot of things to a lot of people. Some of those meanings are useful and can inform our future efforts, but some are closer to myth than reality.
1. "Advanced" Means Secrets
Let's start with one that's closer to myth. To some, especially people who are new to SEO, "advanced" means giving away the secret sauce. They naturally assume that we SEOs are saving the best stuff for ourselves or will only part with it if the price is right. Unfortunately, the snake-oil side of the industry does its best to perpetuate that myth.
Over the years, I've gotten to know and have access to some pretty amazing search marketers. It's true, on the one hand, that there are bits of information they don't share with everyone. In most cases, though, those "secrets" are either short-lived (Google catches on), fit a very narrow niche, or are just high-level tactics that still require a lot of time and effort. I've never once heard a secret that would magically propel a site to the top of the rankings with no work.
2. "Advanced" Means New
Sometimes, "advanced" just means new or cutting-edge. Google's algorithm changed more than 300 times last year, so keeping up with the latest can be important, and it certainly takes an advanced SEO (or, at least, a full-time one) to keep up with all the news. On the other hand, only a fraction of those changes really impact most people, so whether it's important to always have that news instantly is open for debate.
3. "Advanced" Means New to Me
Of course, "new" is a bit subjective. Even the TV tells us: "if you haven't seen it, it's new to you." In SEO, that could mean content you simply haven't seen before, or it could mean a content niche that's complementary to SEO but isn't discussed as often. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is a good example – it's relevant and interesting to search marketers. On the other hand, as someone who participates actively in the CRO space, I'm often amazed at what passes for "advanced" with an SEO audience. I have to step back and realize that, just because I see that content ever day, our readers don't. So, it's new (and useful) to some of you.
4. "Advanced" Means Technical
If you like to get your hands dirty, you may think "advanced" means deeply technical tips, complete with spreadsheets, plug-ins, and code. It's true that a lot of advanced tactics do require a deeper understanding of the technical side of SEO, but it's often a challenge to cover that kind of content in a blog post or conference session. Either you can't quite do it justice, or the topic becomes so niche that it only applies to a small segment of the audience. When you serve a wide demographic, this can be challenging, to say the least.
5. "Advanced" Means Enterprise
Finally, some people equate "advanced" with large-scale, enterprise SEO. Like the technical side, there's certainly some validity to that idea. Sites with 100,000+ pages definitely have unique problems, and the scale can turn even sometimes simple issues (like duplicate content) complex fast. Like deeply technical SEO, the challenge here is that any given solution or discussion probably only applies to a fairly small number of sites, at least once you dig into the details.
What Does "Advanced" Mean To You?
Of course, these are just a few examples, and each of them can be split apart even more. Here's where I'd like to hear from you. What do you think "advanced" SEO is, and, in a perfect world, how would you want search blogs and conferences to cover advanced topics? Feel free to use the survey below and/or to reply in the comments section.
Survey Results (11/29)
The graph below shows the survey results. There were 651 responses for options (1)-(5) and 73 "Other" answers. The big winner was "Technical SEO", with 57% of the votes. I left out the "Other" answers in the chart, because some of them were just people screwing around. Common other options included "All of the above" (or some combination), "Black hat", "Experimentation", "Holistic", and "Strategic".
Great post. I guess when I think of "SEO Secrets" I think of the strategy behind various techniques. Yeah I can see that you have a link from xyz.com, but how did you convince them to link to your site?
I also think "Advanced SEO" relates to how you interact with clients. I've enjoyed seeing Seth Besmertnik of Conductor speak at the last couple SEOmoz events. How do you get buy in from C level execs? How to you report? Creative ways to keep clients engaged so that they work with you for 12+ months. How do you get the CEO to use his/her powerful network to acquire links?
That's an interesting point - a big part of Enterprise SEO isn't the SEO itself, it's the politics. You look at in-house SEOs at big organizations, and a big part of their job is educating and convincing others about the value and pushing to get things implemented. The best SEO in the world is useless if it stays theoretical. For us consultants and agencies, we fight the same battle with clients.
Thank you Pete.
As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about how to make our blog posts, seminars and webinars more 'advanced' (because every time we do, half the audience thank us and half the audience as for it to be even harder!) this definitely rings true.
I tend to think that 'advanced' == 'hard' - i.e. technical and / or large-scale. The disconnect I think can come from the fact that this doesn't necessarily result in stuff that makes a big difference (sometimes the biggest results come from things that are easy to understand but hard to do).
Next time someone asks for something to be more advanced, I will point them to your post and ask what they mean :)
I know you and I have both written intensely-researched technical articles that seemed to fall flat (if you count thumbs, Tweets, etc.). I think the trick is that 5% of the audience probably found them incredibly useful, but they just didn't apply to the rest of the group. Once you start diving into the details, you also risk excluding more and more people, so it's a tough balance.
I don't want to sound like I'm complaining about it - we're all just trying to learn from our audience(s) and produce better content. One of the things I love about writing for SEOmoz is that it constantly pushes me to raise the bar.
My understanding of "advanced SEO" is simply that someone has more knowledges then others. Of course this is relative though. If I attend e.g. a SEO seminare I guess that most of the participants have a profound understanding of SEO. I expect from the speakers to teach me some advanced stuff. That means to learn more in that special field. Of course there is no SEO god in my opinion who is advanced in all topics. One is an expert in linkbuiling, the next in technical issues and so on.
I think that's absolutely the trick - it's all relative.
With you on that. "Advanced SEO" on a blog means I feel smug that I know it. "Advanced SEO" in a seminar means I feel cheated if I knew it before I got there.
To me, advanced SEO covers all these subjects and/or skills:
I actually voted for "Enterprise SEO" since advanced SEO is globally applied when you have large scale websites.
I totally agree with you, nice summary.
Some SEO's follow, others lead. To me "advanced SEO" is the ability to theorize, test and report.
A number of people selected experimentation or testing as "Other" in the survey. I'm not sure I separate that out (since it's more of a tactic) in my own mind, but it's definitely a valid point. "Advanced" SEO is often about testing the boundaries and collecting real data.
To me advanced SEO means deep knowledge and understanding of algorithmic mathematics and principles coupled with information retrieval sciences and knowing how to analyze and implement those in an already optimized site.
I don't necessarily disagree but you can make the argument that only a general understanding of algorithms is sufficient. After all, how useful is a “deep understanding of algorithmic mathematics” if you don’t have access to the algorithm?
Advanced SEO to me is people who have a understanding of advanced SEO strategies, people who understand Technical SEO concepts and know how to implement these. I would say something like making a .HTACCESS file and doing a old site to new domain transfer from all aspects is Advanced SEO while making a few meta tags and title tags for a website is basic SEO. Also I think as you work on different verticals you learn about more advanced SEO Styles I mean I have worked in specific verticals where you have to first understand all the legal constraints before you can even implement your SEO and Social Media strategy for the niche, then you work on e-commerce clients who do things like use a bunch of different CMS's and have 100,000+ product pages and you need to re do the whole things.
You may want to consider my two posts on advanced SEO. They both still apply.
What is Advanced SEO? (from July 2008)
https://seo2.0.onreact.com/what-is-advanced-seo
and
30+ Advanced SEO Tactics, Techniques and Resources (from June 2009)
https://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2009/06/30-advanced-seo-tactics-techniques-and-resources-55-links.html
Nice to see you over here, Tad. You make a great point in your first link - Advanced SEO is often about seeing the larger marketing strategy beyond SEO. As you get past the basics and get some successes under your belt, you start to realize that SEO isn't about ranking or even search traffic, it's about bringing the right traffic to your site, and moving that traffic towards a goal (like a sale). The more you understand that big picture, the more effective you are.
Hey Pete, I'm reading SEOMoz quite a lot. In most cases I'm too much in a hurry to contribute a comment though. Your advanced SEO definition reminded me of my own quite a bit and thus I decided to show up finally, hehe.
If majority of people come out of a conference without understanding a damn thing being said, then it can be declared as a 'very advanced' conference. I think when audience complain "it is not advanced enough" they are infact saying "there is nothing new" or "nothing that we can't understand in one go'. If you approach to a problem with altogether a different method then it may be considered as 'Advanced" by some. For e.g. tracking the effect of ranking on website usage, conversion rate and other metrics using Google Analytics as a 'rank tracker tool' can be considered as pretty advanced. Using 'motion charts' to determine keywords which have best conversion rate can also be considered as advanced stuff. Other than that anything which you can't comprehend in one go, is simply above your head or require special knowledge as a perquisite can also be considered as advanced. For e.g. IR models, Topic Modeling, correlation analysis etc. In the end it is all about individual perception and knowledge level. Topics which you think are advanced may be not advanced for me and vice versa.
Advanced SEO... I passed trough different steps of self explications to what Advanced SEO means to me.
When I was a newbie, everything was Advanced, but things like technical SEO was surely what the most, being my ignorance about tech/devs aspects of SEO close to the absolute zero.
With time, I have learnt that Advanced for me means "everything experts in the SEO field can teach me about work/business rationalization/optimization".
With that I mean that what I value the most are "lessons" that teach me how make all the things I have to do as an SEO the better in the most efficient way. As an example, the Laura Lippay 8 posts series IMO is a really good example of Advanced SEO (or the Lindsay posts).
I echo what Slingshot wrote above in the first comment: Advanced SEO for me has more to do with business models and Marketing strategies toward the Clients and Market than other things. Let say, Advanced SEO is more about Strategies than Tactics.
A variation of this is everything that can explains me with real datas and actionable value how to merge the puristic definition of SEO with the other Internet Marketing disciplines, but that is also because of my own conviction of the holistic nature of web marketing itself.
That doesn't exclude that some (re)discovery on the technical/operational side can be considered Advanced: the SEOmoz working in progress investigation about LDA is surely advanced.
P.D.: Peter, again you post after Rand, I hope it is not scheduled another Rand post after yours ;).
Good article. I hadn't thought about it like that.
I define "basic" SEO as on-page stuff, but "advanced" SEO as a more comprehensive plan that requires more knowledge, analytics analysis, in-bound link and competitive analysis, etc.
It's not a secret, but it's a lot more than a 5 minute overview can cover.
Advanced SEO is when:
I think "advanced" often refers to the more strategic piece of SEO as well. It's easy to hire a vendor who can point out basic technical or content fixes or re-write your metadata; this stuff is all SEO 101. But people who can articulate an entire strategy for how SEO can impact business, or where your site *should* be visible (along with a plan to get there) are the ones who rise above simple tactics. Tactics are just paints in the paintbox, advanced is the Picasso. Or something like that :)
Surely 'advanced' means 'to have moved forwards'. It's a personal development thing...
Advanced SEO would suggest a seismic shift in the knowledge of lots of people. Here on SEOmoz, most of the community know their basics, and follow SEOmoz because of the analysis and breakdown not just of the new, cutting-edge stuff but also for more detailed evaluation of existing concepts.
I would interpret 'Advanced SEO' to be more on the technical side of the industry (i.e. Rand's posts). I wouldn't associate 'advanced' with secret squirrel ideas/concepts as those 'secrets' are more likely than not black hat and not industry-leading. All in all, thought-provoking post.
Yes, I'd link advanced SEO to tech stuff too. Makes more sense to me.
I like the threating Mozbot in the top right corner! :)
Personally I think when people talk about advanced they're talking about a combination of 'technical' and 'new'. Things like ordering content with CSS and (at the time, maybe not any more) how to use the link rel=canonical tag would be considered advanced SEO
LOL - sorry, I didn't mean for Roger to seem quite so angry. I was going more for perplexed and a little frustrated, like:
"I built a spaceship for you people - why won't you love me?!" :)
Ok, even that sounded a bit angry. Unfortunately, Roger's been dealing with some issues since he didn't get called back for his Transformers 3 auditions.
Apologies, I didn't know he had a name.
Re: his transformer audition, he'd probably be a better actor than bumblebee ;)
For me 'advanced' SEO refers to advanced tools ( master tools ) , better analyzed data, more skilled overall hehe !
Great post, "Advanced SEO" means to me keeping up with New so New to me works. There is always something new in SEO I think those that stay in touch with all things new and implement them in a way that will work within their niche are truely advanced, by taking their learnings and putting them into practice.
Advanced for me understand some elements of the algorithms like LDA, LSI
"Advanced" is one of those words that has so many connotations it's lost meaning, or it means whatever the reader wants it to mean.
If I don't understand it, it's advanced. If I do understand it, it's probably pretty basic.
Thanks for sharing.
For me 'advanced' SEO refers to things that are beyond the basics (SEO 101 as it's often described) and the more obvious 'intermediate' level tactics. So beyond on-page optimisation and the usual link-building stategies for example.
I think that the techical side of SEO is what this often refers to. Ideas such as LDA, and the more in-depth looks at SEO involving large amounts of data such as Will from Distilled mentioned above, and analysis theories that are rooted in maths. I also think that perhaps a good way of looking at 'advanced' SEO is what was covered at ProSEO 2010 a few weeks ago. There were some basic elements covered, but the seminar definitely looked at stuff beyond the basics (including advanced link-building, advanced competitor analysis, in depth anaylsis of latest Google updates and plenty of the maths based SEO theory), and went into related areas such as CRO and page design. There was even some 'secrets' shared for those that like that style of 'advanced SEO'.
My understanding of "advanced SEO" is simply that someone has more knowledges then others. Of course this is relative though.
Hey Pete, I'm reading SEOMoz quite a lot. In most cases I'm too much in a hurry to contribute a comment though. Your advanced SEO definition reminded me of my own quite a bit and thus I decided to show up finally,Thanks a lot i want to start work on my site UNIroyalties.com the same way.
Yep! when i was reading the post I thought that to me, advanced seo means technical and so was very happy when I read that was the most common association of it. But I like the article, it shows that the term advance seo means a lot of different things to different people depending on how you look at seo. It is in the eye of the beholder so to speak.
In some way, all 5 answers are partly right. But I would also add advanced SEO is about finding new, original, eficiant ways to archive all that's needed for SEO.
It would be interesting to see results of that survay at the end of this post after some period of time.
Advanced SEO Question. Did anybody figure out how to get the exact PR value from every backlink?
Could you share the poll results with us please?
Will do, but given the holiday weekend, it'll probably be Monday. There were quite a few more responses than I expected.
I went with "secrets". I seem to get an inbox full of offers to leapfrog my site/sites to the top of Google by "advanced" SEO's every day - some are actually from search companies, most are SPAM, but all clearly indicate they have some secret sauce that my hard earned cash will grant me access to. On the Internet, there are no secrets.
Fry: "Since when is the Internet about robbing people of their privacy?"
Bender: "Augast 6th, 1991"
Great post Dr. Pete!
When I first read the title of this posting it really caught my attention, and got me thinking about what advanced SEO actually is. Before reading this article, I thought advanced SEO had to deal with the technical side with advanced strategies and tactics that only highly trained SEO’s understood.
However, after reading this article and thinking about it, I believe that advanced SEO can be a combination of all 5 of these points. I don’t think advanced SEO has to be confined to just the technical side, rather advanced SEO can be a combination of all these definitions.
Again, great post!
Great post! This is something I've been struggling with lately in deciding what to write about SEO (and how to do it) on my personal blog. I'd love to write exclusively about more advanced topics, because I'm past the basics and I am looking to better develop my own thoughts in a way that other people can engage with. That being said, I want to keep things accessible to beginners and less technical people without sounding like I'm dumbing it down.
It's a balancing act... but defining it in terms like these really is helpful!
"Advanced SEO" for me is a strategy that connects technical knowledge and seo secrets.
Ok, SEOMOZ guys, how about to get to an "ADVANCED" level for this community and start to post some real helpful tips on SEO. I'm already tired of reading well organized old SEO tactics that doesn't work anymore. Give us some real examples from your expirience.
Thanks
Start you first explaining better what kind of "tactics" are you thinking about and which are those old SEO tactics are you talking and why doesn't they work anymore: with cases.
I think that's my whole point here, though - what you mean by "advanced" may not be what anyone else means. I'd also argue, frankly, that a lot of core SEO hasn't changed that much over the years. The cutting-edge stuff tends to be small pieces that have to fit the larger framework. If we only focus on that and forget the "basics" (and stop looking at those basics in new ways), we're missing a lot of the SEO puzzle.
Yes , I do agree many people think that there is some secret kept under covers when they talk about Advanced SEO.
But, that is totally a MYTH and there is no secret as such. Its just that you either have enough knowledge and experience about SEO or you don't .
And I don't think there is anything such as Advanced SEO per se. SEO is SEO . You either optimize a site and do full justice to it by helping the site to put its best foot forward or you don't .
More than being called Advanced I think it is the challenge involved in making a site which is already ranking high for targeted keywords and has an online presence of nearly 10 years with excellent footprints on the web more visible and help get better conversions and more targeted visitors.
I think from the clients perspective also when he is looking for advanced SEO services he is thinking of improving the presence and conversions which is beyond just rankings. It is the challenge involved in acheiving this which can be called as the advanced bit. It is more about integrating and enhancing the existing SEO parameters which already are good or maybe even excellent.
For which the other factors like social media presence , the right art of blogging, participating in community forums, tweaking the landing pages to ensure conversions, educating the client to have a right approach to the online presence by helping him create a web culture in his organization are all a part of the challenge.
After nearly 12 years of optimization SEO sure is beyond rankings and that yes is referred to as advanced according to me.
I think you diversified the meaning of "advanced" within the SEO industry well enough. The belief of any "secret sauce" being given away is, like you said, the snake oil side of the industry and I never associate something like that with "advanced". When i think of the term "advanced" I do associate it with a more technical application of technique or strategies but that's just me. Either way, I like the post and kudos.
As a University student, I always equate 'advanced' to something more difficult to understand, more in-depth, more technical, etc.
So something that you couldn't pick-up all in one sitting, something that you couldn't implement straight away, etc.
Hence I voted for the technical option.
Yes for me Advanced SEO is technical. I've worked in large organisations where the SEO guys have little or no technical knowledge who come up with solutions that patch web frameworks, rather than sorting out SEO from the bottom up, infrastructure ->
Google rewards good sites. Good sites are well built sites. Technical know how is a must.
And then there's all the Off Page analysis, strategising, planning and networking once you've worked from the bottom up.
Pete,
Great article. One way of looking at Advanced SEO is that it is the combination of several tactics that can act as multipliers. Once you combine many of these, you are performing advanced SEO. Tactics to combine may include:
1. Configuration (domain name, whois, 404 config, robots.txt, 301 redirects, duplicate content avoidance, etc.)
2. Keyword Research & business alignment
3. Information Architecture (Link Structure, Canonical, Anchor text, Pagination, nofollow, etc.)
4. On-Page SEO Factors
5. Building Awareness (link building, link bait, RSS, Social Media, PR, XML Sitemap, etc.)
6. Landing Page Conversion Optimization
7. Results Measurement and Refinement
John
Great post. I like that you mention that search marketings often claim to have that secret sauce. They don't, they just have a pro subscription to SEOMOZ.org. I could rant, but everyone knows whom I reference.
The point is, to be an SEO you must spend the time to learn these "advanced" methods that are often just complex content creation and website structuring. The meta-canonical tactic was advanced not to long ago. Now everyone raves about it.
My personal favorite is when "Internet marketers" throw around the term "silo."
As you grow in this profession you will learn to spot the fakers: they say they know secrets. But the truth is those who know how SEO works know that sharing these "secrets" will lead to better site traffic, creditability, and respect, i.e. Rand Fishkin and his team.
"Patience young grasshoppers..."
I really look at advanced SEO as something beyond what you currently know. Because once you master one thing or realize it works it doesn't become advanced anymore. It becomes more basic and you keep pushing the boundaries. I find right now advanced for me includes working with the SEOmoz API but advanced last year was sculpting page rank, and now that's part of everyone of my SEO initiatives.
For me advance SEO is an SEO Statergy one implements while working on a website. It would be also combination on NEW+Secret as you have to contionusly keep updated with the changes that occurs in Search algorithm & secret because people always something extra to add on the project their working that they are not willing to share.
Developing SEO Statergy for different website is an advance version of the SEO as this statergies will help you analysis & getting results.