SEO Trends in 2025

The end of 2024 is fast approaching! With the world of search engine optimization evolving and ever-changing, it’s time to look forward to what we believe will be the hottest trends next year.

It’s no secret that the SEO world is always changing things up, with a variety of new ranking factors, algorithm changes, technology, and even new trends shaking up the game. Everyone wants to see success in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and reach the dizzy heights of those hallowed top spots. However, to do so, you need to be up to speed with what’s hot in SEO. Only by knowing this key information can you reevaluate your digital marketing strategy to continue growing your sales, brand authority, organic trafficOrganic search traffic (sometimes called natural or unpaid search) is the traffic that's driven to a website because of unpaid placement on a search engine results page., and rankings.

Our team has narrowed down the SEO trends that we believe are set to make waves in 2025:

• AI & Machine LearningMachine Learning is the branch of artificial intelligence (AI) that gives computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed. in SEO
• Mobile-First SEO
• Zero-Click Searches & Featured Snippets
• Visual & Video Search Optimization
• Optimizing For E-E-A-T Signals
• Technical SEO
• The Resurgence of Traditional SEO Techniques

Let’s dive in!

AI & Machine Learning in SEO

In today’s digital marketing, you can’t go anywhere without stumbling across AI and machine learning. So, it’s no shock that these vital elements will continue to influence SEO in 2025. ChatGPT first launched in 2022 and now has more than 200 million active users in 2024, which is incredible.

AI technology is changing almost every industry that you can imagine, and digital marketing and SEO are no exception.

An example: It can be used as a tool to inform keyword researchKeyword research helps websites unearth the best keywords to drive traffic and visibility. This research is supported by a number of powerful web-based tools, the best of which we’ve listed here., content creation, and even content research. Yes, this can be incredibly beneficial to use, but there is a risk of relying too heavily on these tools. It could mean that your strategies lack the originality that search engines like Google crave. It’s for this reason that we think Google will be pushing its E-E-A-T signals even more next year.

The results are also changing, as is how you create your digital marketing strategies. Google has Gemini, and Bing has Copilot. So, this adoption of AI technology suggests that AI-driven search is the way forward. The incorporation of these tools also means that the way users interact with search results has changed. Now, users are given a ‘summary’ of various resources at the top of search results. They can get answers to their queries more easily and more quickly. Google is all about making its users’ lives easier, and the convenience that generative AI in SEO brings means that these key AI Overviews are going nowhere. You must ensure that your content is optimized for this new style of results.

It’s not just AI Overviews that are shaking up search. Tools like SearchGPT (from the same creators of ChatGPT) have been launched as an alternative to search engines. They’re designed to provide more of a conversational experience for the user to find the information they need. For each response SearchGPT gives, it includes a clear link to the source so users can engage with results.

To boost your chances of being included in AI results, you should:

• Ensure content fulfills search intent
• Improve site crawlability
• Make sure all of your content is fresh and relevant
• Optimize with E-E-A-T in mind
• Write summaries in your content to encourage AI to cite them

Mobile-First SEO

Google takes a mobile-first approach to indexing and ranking websites – this is a well-known fact. If you don’t have a fully mobile-friendly or at least a fully responsive site design, you won’t stand a chance of capturing vital organic search traffic. This is true even if the desktop version of your website is up to scratch. When you consider that 92.3% of internet users use a cell phone to access the web, it doesn’t look like the importance of mobile-first SEO will die down anytime soon.

There are some points to consider when it comes to forming your mobile-first indexingGoogle's Mobile-First Indexing is a change to the search engine's indexing system, where sites are ranked higher in search results if they're easier to navigate on mobile devices. strategies to guarantee you stay ahead of the curve and reap the complete benefits of your SEO efforts:

• Can Google crawl the mobile version of your site without issues?
• Is your website designed with mobile users in mind?
• Do images and other multimedia content load quickly without any impact on the quality?
• Does the mobile version of your site differ from the desktop version?

Zero-Click Searches & Featured Snippets

SEO has been all about getting users to click on your pages in the SERPs – up until recently. After all, it’s about capturing that all-important organic traffic, right? Well, yes, this is still important. However, 2024 has seen a significant shift in how Google displays its search results. Enter zero-click searches and Featured Snippets. Remember them, as they will be even more prominent in 2025.

Users don’t need to click on any results to get the information they need with zero-click searches. It’s another way of making search more convenient for them. Instead, the required information is shown as a Featured Snippet or an AI Overview through Gemini. It might not be immediately obvious (especially as you’re used to SEO concentrating on organic traffic to your site), but adopting advanced SEO strategies for Featured Snippets and zero-click can do wonders for your online visibility and brand authority.

If you want to increase your chances of appearing in this type of search result next year, your content must:

• Answer search intent
• Include relevant keywords
• Address People Also AskThe People Also Ask (PAA) SERP feature is a Google Search feature that displays similar questions to the one you typed into the search box. and FAQs queries
• Be organized and easy to read

Learn more: How To Do KeywordKeywords are the words and phrases that potential customers might search for to find your business. Research in Semrush

Visual & Video SEO

In 2025, visual search trends are going to be huge. Multimodal search (using different methods, like photos, to get relevant results) is rising. Google Lens allows users to search using the pictures they take instead of trying to describe a query. According to Google, nearly 20 billion visual searches are made monthly, and 20% of these are shopping-related, which is vitally important for eCommerce businesses.

It’s good practice to optimize the following to increase your chances of appearing in results for visual searches:

• File names
• Titles
• Descriptions
• Tags

Doing this will allow Google to understand your visual elements better.

It’s not just image optimization that will be popular for SEO next year, either. Video optimization will also be a significant trend. Google is displaying more and more YouTube results, and pages with video tend to do better than those without, so now is the time to focus on video content as well as more traditional content.

If you want to get the best results, your videos must:

• Contain relevant keywords
• Have correctly optimized titles, tags, thumbnails, and descriptions to boost YouTube visibility.

E-E-A-T Signals

Google’s E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) has always been important. Still, with the rise of zero-click searches and AI summaries, E-E-A-T signals will be an even bigger trend in 2025. Google’s search results and AI models are trained to show original, trustworthy content that brings value to the reader. If you want your content to be displayed to a broad audience, you need to fulfill the vital E-E-A-T principles.

To do this, you must:

• Let your experience shine
• Answer search intent and address any related queries
• Incorporate things that signal users and search engines can trust you (think author bios, case studies, testimonials, awards, certificates).
• Enrich your content with a range of multimedia
• Uphold quality by having fact-checked SEO content that users know they can rely on

Read more: Optimize Your Web Content Like an SEO Expert in These 5 Steps

Technical SEO

Next year, Google is going to put even more emphasis on user-friendly websites. So, technical SEO will be more crucial than ever. Of course, technical SEO is nothing new. However, it will be coming to the forefront in 2025.

When your technical SEO is up to scratch, Google can easily crawl and index your pages for ranking. What’s more, it also helps ensure a good user experience. Google’s Core Web Vitals and user experience results are a great measurement of how well your website scores when it comes to page loading speeds, interactivity, and stability.

To guarantee your website ticks all the right boxes when it comes to technical SEO for user experience:

• Carry out regular technical SEO audits to detect potential issues
• Keep an eye on your page speed
• Ensure your title tags, meta descriptions, and image alt text are fully optimized
• Use structured data and schema markup

Learn more: What Are Core Web Vitals?

Traditional SEO Techniques Are Still Important

Despite expecting the above trends to shake up SEO next year, traditional strategies will be more vital than ever. We recommend doubling down on these as we transition into next year. Below are the traditional tried and tested SEO tactics that will be just as relevant in 2025 as they are today.

1. On-page Technical SEO

We’ve already touched on the importance of technical SEO for 2025. However, next year, it’s really important to double down on this aspect. Regular technical audits can detect any issues that might be holding your website back from reaching its full potential in the SERPs.

They look at:

• Site structure
• Internal linking and URL structure
• Site speed
• Mobile-friendliness
• Crawling and indexing
• How you are using tags like canonical tags in the HTML code
• Backlink profile
• Rankings

An audit can then help you when it comes to prioritizing on-page changes like the optimization of the following important elements that make it easier for search engines and users to understand your pages:

• Title tags
• Meta descriptions
• Header tags
• URLS

2. Content Strategy

Content creation will always be an important part of SEO. Quality content has the power to boost your online visibility, credibility, and to position your business as a leader in your industry.

Google has emphasized high-quality, helpful content that brings value to the user for a long time now because it wants to deliver the best experience to its users.

For the best chances of ranking, your original content needs to address user queries and be engaging. On top of this, content freshness, relevance, and adherence to E-E-A-T is vital.

Read more: Content Strategy Cheat Sheet

3. High-Quality Link BuildingLink building is a process of acquiring links pointing to your website. These links are obtained by creating content, participating in social media or commenting on other blogs.

It will always be important to build high-quality backlinks to your website. After all, every quality link you have that points back to your site acts like a vote of confidence for your content and website, meaning you’ll appear higher up the SERPs, which is great for organic rankings.

For a successful and effective link building strategy, focus on the following:

• Prioritize quality over quantity: A few linksHyperlinks, also known as links, are the connection points on a webpage that take you to other webpages. coming from highly respected websites can do more to boost your backlink profile than hundreds of links from spammy, low-quality sites, which can cause more harm than good.
• Domain authority: Check the domain authority (DA) of the sites you want your backlinks to come from. The higher DA score, the more trust the site carries, which is good for your backlink profile.
• Contextual Relevance: Your backlinks need to come from sites that are relevant to your industry.
• Anchor textAnchor text is the text highlighted by a hyperlink. The words highlighted are crucial for SEO, informing Google’s crawling bots about the content of the site linked to.: Make sure the anchor text is relevant to the link it is going to and includes a target keyword if possible.

Learn more: Best Link Building Services To Use in 2025

We Can Help You Stay On Top of The Latest SEO Trends

It looks like 2025 is going to be another big year for SEO. The above trends are looking like they will reshape the industry and completely change your SEO efforts. Of course, traditional white-hat SEO methods like technical SEO, link building, and content creation will be at the heart of staying ahead of these shifts.

If you’re unsure about how to stay ahead next year, our friendly team is here to guide you. What’s even better is that we’re giving you the opportunity to discuss your SEO performance, our relevant SEO services, and your goals for next year for free!

Book your free SEO strategy session today, worth £1,000. We’ll discuss your 2025 goals and objectives, perform a live review of your current SEO performance, and answer your burning questions on the latest SEO trends in 2025. Get a call booked in today!