5 Advanced SEO Settings You Need
If you’ve already mastered the SEO basics—keyword research, content optimization, and backlinks—it’s time to step up your game. Advanced SEO settings can give your website the technical edge it needs to outrank competitors and stay in Google’s good books.
Here are 5 advanced SEO settings every serious website owner, marketer, or developer needs to configure for long-term success.
1. 🧩 Implement Proper Canonical Tags
Why it matters:
Duplicate or similar content can confuse search engines and split your ranking power. A canonical tag helps Google understand which version of a page is the "main" version you want indexed.
✅ How to do it:
Add a <link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/main-page/" /> in the <head> of duplicate or alternate pages.
Make sure canonical URLs return a 200 status and aren’t redirected.
Don’t point canonical tags to paginated or filtered pages unless intentional.
Tip: Avoid self-referencing canonicals that link to redirected URLs.
2. 🛡️ Control Indexing with Robots Meta Tags
Why it matters:
Some pages on your site should exist—but not be indexed (like login pages, checkout, internal search results).
✅ Use these meta tags:
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow">
Common use cases:
Thank-you pages
Pagination pages (page=2)
Duplicate content variations
Pro move: Combine
noindexwith proper canonicalization for complete control.
3. 🧠 Use Structured Data (Schema Markup)
Why it matters:
Structured data helps Google understand your content—and enables rich results like reviews, FAQs, how-tos, and product details in SERPs.
✅ Popular schema types to implement:
Article or BlogPosting
Product
FAQPage
LocalBusiness
BreadcrumbList
Use tools like Schema.org and Google’s Rich Results Test to validate your markup.
Pro Tip: Add schema with JSON-LD for cleaner, more reliable results.
4. 🌎 Optimize for Hreflang (International SEO)
Why it matters:
If your website targets multiple countries or languages, hreflang helps serve the right content to the right users and avoids duplicate content issues.
✅ Sample hreflang tag:
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-us" href="https://example.com/us/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr-fr" href="https://example.com/fr/" />
Tips:
Use absolute URLs
Always include a self-referencing hreflang
Submit hreflang in XML sitemaps if preferred
Bonus: Avoid redirecting users based on location—Google recommends letting users choose their region.
5. 🔁 Configure Preferred Domain & HTTPS in Google Search Console
Why it matters:
Google treats http://example.com and https://www.example.com as separate properties. You must specify your preferred version for clean indexing and analytics.
✅ What to do:
Set the preferred domain (www or non-www) in GSC
Make sure HTTPS is enforced across your site
Set up 301 redirects from all variations (http → https, non-www → www or vice versa)
Also: Update all internal links and canonical tags to reflect your preferred version.
🚀 Final Thoughts: Fine-Tune for Big SEO Wins
These 5 advanced SEO settings may not be flashy, but they’re powerful. They help search engines better understand, index, and rank your content with precision.
If you're serious about long-term rankings, these aren’t optional—they’re essential.