Website promotion in Yandex in 2023

All Russian-speaking SEO specialists know about the difference between promotion in Yandex and Google. And it must be said that the further you go, the stronger this difference becomes. Google’s output for 10 years depends on links and long-reads, and Yandex’s output, 5 years ago – on behavioral factors. And, in the opinion of most experts, competitive tops in Yandex – it is exclusively a behavioral scoring. This is a given, here everyone decides for himself – to accept these rules of the game or not. In this article, I would like to discuss what steps should be taken in 2023 to get to the top of the Yandex rendition, including in highly competitive topics.

So, let’s break down the ranking factors in Yandex:

1.Amount of content

A very important factor for Yandex. The larger the site, the higher it is in the rendition. As a rule in the top above all now stand aggregators, and they have both a large amount of content, and the largest amount of information. Search engine is favorable to give the user a link to the site where he will close all his needs, and will be satisfied with both the search engine and the final site. That is why highly specialized sites go down lower and lower in the output. This incidentally applies to Google, to give traffic to sites that close all the issues in the niche – the general trend of search, narrow-niche sites have a place only in Direct and Google Ads.

Tip: Analyze the top results for your main queries (you don’t need a lot, 3-5 queries are enough), select sites that you want and MAY occupy, and see how many pages (content) are on the site. The easiest way to do this is to type in the Google search box

site: domain.com

Where domain.com is the URL of the site being tested

Checking the number of indexed pages of the site in Google

“Why Google, because we’re talking about Yandex?” – you ask. It’s simply the easiest and fastest way to see the number of indexed pages without using third-party services!

2.Quality of content

Look at competing sites, what is the number of characters on the pages of the sites? How is the text structured? How many illustrations are on the page, and what quality are they?

You need to do the same, only better – more text, richer content.

3.Legitimate improvement of behavioral factors:

– Usability

Look at the competitors from the Top 10, write out all their usability chips, even if you do not like them (online consultant, cost calculator, sliders, etc.) Write out, even if you do not like them. What to do, and what to postpone – decide later.Your task is to make your site was the most convenient for the user than all the sites from the rendition, and keep the user longer than other sites.Make it so that the user no longer wants to return to the search engine. To do this, give him complete information about the product/service or a complete answer to an information request.

– Contextual advertising

Yandex.Direct raises a site very well in rendition. Yandex specialists can claim the opposite, that Direct does not affect, but the practice says otherwise. All sites on which I was launched contextual advertising Yandex.Direct, improved positions in the search. And vice versa – disable Direct – fall positions in Yandex. So do not neglect such an obvious and LEGAL way to improve the behavioral factors of your site. Just try to set up Direct on the target audience (non-targeted traffic can do worse), and drive traffic to those pages and those queries on which you are promoted in the search. The result will not make you wait.

– Other ways to get non-search traffic

In general, any targeted traffic improves search positions. So don’t wait for high positions – bring visitors to your site today. The paths can be any way you want:

Outdoor advertising
Banner advertising on the site on the Internet
Advertising in social networks
Traffic arbitrage

Again, the main thing is that visitors should be interested in your site. If Yandex sees that the site is interesting to users (and it will, especially if you have Yandex.Metrica), it will definitely raise it to the top of the output.

Behavioral Factor Recruitment

This is not a simple question, both on the technical and moral side. Again, unfortunately, in many renditions of Yandex Tops consist of sites that have artificially inflated their behavioral. Accept these rules of the game or not – a personal matter for everyone. If you decide to still “twist”, here are some tips:

Do not use services to which everyone has access, such as Userator and Movebo. Such open services have managed to discredit themselves, when Yandex introduced sanctions for scrolling, it was their clients who suffered. The reason is simple – if anyone can register in a service, why shouldn’t Yandex specialists do it?

Use your own server, with customization for your project. IPs of entries must correspond to the IPs of the cities where you are promoting.

Avoid sudden spikes and drops in attendance, everything should be smooth sailing

If you need more information on this item, please contact me, I will advise you.

So, in this article I told you how things are today with promotion in Yandex. Whether you like it or not, this is the reality.

Good luck with the promotion!

Update: 01/21/2023

According to data for the beginning of 2023, behavioral factors in Yandex are the most important. Almost all of the Tops in Moscow and St. Petersburg in highly competitive topics consist of sites engaged in behavioral scoring. This should be taken into account if you want to get into the Top 5 in such topics