Bismuth vanadate (BiVO4) is a promising metal oxide photoabsorber for photoanode applications but is limited by its relatively short hole diffusion length resulting in severe charge complexation and limited performance. Herein, Ag3PO4 was compounded on BiVO4 through photodeposition of Ag followed by solution oxidation. The annealing of the composite BiVO4/Ag3PO4 heterojunction at 400 °C precipitated some Ag from Ag3PO4 on BiVO4/Ag3PO4 to form a new ternary photoanode BiVO4/Ag3PO4/Ag. Compared to the unannealed sample, the light trapping and crystal quality enhanced, resulting in increased photocurrent density of the annealed BiVO4/Ag3PO4 photoanode (4.46 mA cm−2) by 59.9 % when compared to the unannealed photoanode (2.79 mA cm−2). To further optimize the photoanode, co-catalyst iron hydroxyl oxide (FeOOH) was deposited to yield BiVO4/Ag3PO4/Ag/FeOOH photoanode with maximum photocurrent density of 4.71 mA cm−2 at 1.23 V (vs. reversible hydrogen electrode, VRHE), equivalent to about 3.7-fold the value of BiVO4 photoanode. The photoanode maintained 90.8 % of its initial current density after 3 h stability tests. Besides, the photoelectrocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B pollutant by BiVO4/Ag3PO4/Ag and BiVO4/Ag3PO4/Ag/FeOOH photoanode showed performance enhancement when compared to BiVO4/Ag3PO4. Overall, the proposed strategy looks very promising for the rational fabrication of high-efficiency heterojunction photoanodes.