Why SEO Is Nothing Like You Think It Should Be In 2025
SEO's ability to do what you want is different in 2025 than at virtually any other time in recent history.
But what’s happening in this space, and why does it matter?
Essentially, it comes back to how you spend your time. You don’t want to be in a position where you’re wasting energy, trying to do things that simply don’t matter anymore.
Keywords Aren’t As Important As Before
Top of the list is the fact that keywords simply aren’t as important as they used to be. Sure, they mattered once upon a time, but those days are now quite firmly behind us.
Google used to rely on keywords to tell it what a page was about. But how the search giant is relying more on AI and context to learn whether a page is going to be helpful for users.
For this reason, the overall quality of the page or content is becoming the most critical factor. That’s what really seems to push the needle when it comes to rankings.
AI-Generated Content Is Out
When AI-generated content first came along, people were quite excited. After all, it seemed to indicate that you didn’t need a human writer anymore. And yet, the need for people to write their own content continues unabated.
What’s more, Google isn’t interested in AI-generated fluff. It knows that the output of AI machines isn’t as valuable as deep and original human insights. And it also knows that most people want to read the latter significantly more than the former.
Backlinks Matter Less
Then there’s the issue of backlinks. In 2025, these are becoming progressively less important. They don’t matter as much as they once did.
Yes, backlinks are still valuable and they can make a difference if implemented correctly, but they aren’t the be-all-and-end-all that they once were.
The best way to get backlinks these days is through digital public relations. These services often allow you to get high-authority links that really make a difference to how Google perceives your site.
AI Overview Are Critical
While Google itself doesn’t often promote AI-generated content on websites in search engine page results, tracking AI Overviews from the company and leveraging them to your advantage is critical. You want to ensure that you’re doing everything you can to get into those.
The best way to do this is to provide succinct, fact-based answers to questions. The more of these you have in your niche, the more likely the AI will link to you (and users will click through to your site.)
Search Is Multimodal
Finally, SEO is nothing like you think it is in 2025 because search is multimodal. It’s becoming something that’s based on voice, written text, video and gestures. (Yes, that’s right: even gestures now.)
These other forms of search aren’t as common as, say, regular search terms, but they are growing exponentially. A lot of people now use voice, for instance, when communicating with Google and exploring the internet. Many are even hooking these systems up to AI to make them more efficient. Ideally, your business should be responding to these trends.
