5 Trending SEO Strategies for 2025 and Beyond
“2024 was nothing short of a rollercoaster year for SEO.”
From AI taking center stage to Google’s back-to-back 2024 core updates in March, August, November, and December, the search landscape has changed substantially. Beyond search engines like Google and Bing, platforms such as ChatGPT and Perplexity AI are gaining popularity, introducing new ways to access information.
Organic search remains a critical channel, contributing almost 53% of all website traffic.
That’s right! Your SEO strategies can make or break your digital presence. But here’s the catch: what worked yesterday might not work tomorrow. SEO isn’t just about ticking boxes, it’s all about blending proven practices with what’s trending now.
At Growth Accelerators, we’ve seen firsthand how being abreast with these changes and incorporating them into our strategies can lead to remarkable results. And now, we’re ready to spill the beans on the 5 SEO trends set to dominate 2025. Knowing these trends can help your business stay relevant, visible, and competitive in a constantly changing digital world.
In this post, let’s dive into the 5 most powerful SEO trends to make a place in your SEO strategy stack for 2025 and beyond:
1 – Embrace the evolution of AI
2 – Voice search is not a fad
3 – Increase focus on video search optimization
4 – Craft content fulfilling search intent
5 – Growing significance of Google Merchant Center
Embrace the evolution of AI
The world of SEO is transforming with the rise of AI-driven platforms like ChatGPT, Meta AI, Perplexity AI, as well as Google’s AI overviews that now appear prominently in search results. These platforms are reshaping how users search for and consume information, making it essential for businesses to adapt their strategies accordingly.
Screengrab of Google’s AI overview
When devising SEO strategies, it’s crucial to consider how your content can potentially feature in the answers provided by these AI platforms. At their core, these platforms prioritize USER EXPERIENCE. This means your website, blogs, and backlinks must be highly relevant, user-friendly, and informative.
For instance, one of our clients “Alamo Ad Valorem” ranks on Perplexity AI when a user searches for “Best property tax consultants in San Antonio”. What has really worked for them is content that highlights their USPs and a well-optimised website, which has led to their strong visibility on Google as well as AI platforms.
Screengrab of “Alamo Ad Valorem” getting visibility for a search query on Perplexity
While creating visibility on AI platform searches is crucial it is equally important to start using AI tools more promptly in your SEO work process. AI can help with tasks like coding, conducting competitor analysis, identifying keywords, and creating content. These tools not only improve efficiency but when used effectively they tend to enhance your overall SEO performance.
Thus, embrace AI in these two ways—optimizing for AI platforms and leveraging AI tools. This ensures your SEO strategies are future-ready, keeping you ahead in an ever-evolving digital landscape.
Voice search is not a Fad
Is Voice search optimization a part of your SEO strategy, YET? In case you’re still thinking, here are some voice search statistics that might trigger the need:
– 27% of the global online population is using voice search on mobile, as per Google reports
– 8.4 billion people worldwide are estimated to use voice assistants.
– 1 billion+ voice searches are performed every month.
Voice search has been evolving. Google’s improved Artificial intelligence has transformed Voice search in many ways, making it capable of comprehending and responding to user searches aptly.
Key strategies for voice search optimization:
Focus on long-tail, query-driven keywords: As a marketer, we need to understand that the user search behavior while typing the search query and when asking questions into voice search, is quite distinct. It has been observed, a user on voice search is seeking instant answers, fulfilling immediate needs.
Users tend to use more natural phrases and longer keywords when using voice search. For instance, when you type, you may put in a shorter search query like “San Francisco weather today”. However, when on voice search you may end up asking the complete question, “How is the weather in San Francisco Today?”
As a result, your voice search strategy must include more conversational and natural sounding keywords in the website content. This would help in ranking for the long-tail keywords.
Answer FAQs through your content: A lot of voice searches are query-based, starting with, What, Where, How, Who, Why, etc. To address these queries consider adding FAQs to your content and answer them in more of a conversational tone. Keep optimizing content to increase your chances of ranking in featured snippets, as websites ranking on Featured snippets get the most visibility on voice based searches.
Use schema markups: Schema markups give more clarity to search engines about the context of the content on your webpage. Further, it also helps Google to connect you with relevant searches. This improves your chances of ranking for specific queries made through voice search. Schema markup also helps your page to rank for featured snippets.
An important shift to note is the growing popularity of voice search among older adults, driven by the comfort and ease it offers, particularly for product-based searches.
Increase focus on Video Search Optimization
Video consumption increased substantially in 2024, and there’s no sign of it slowing down. According to a Hubspot study conducted in 2024, 89% of consumers said they want to see more videos from brands. This massive shift has transformed YouTube from just a video-watching platform to a full-blown search engine.
Even Google search has stepped up, now showing videos more prominently on the main search results page. Videos don’t just rank on Google for informational searches anymore, they’re also making their way into transactional queries, with video results fetched from platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and brand websites.
A quick glance at Google search results today shows how videos are climbing to the top spots:
This means in 2025 brands will be leaning heavily on video content, but simply creating videos isn’t enough, you need to optimize them to rank higher and capture the right audience. Here are a few effective video optimization strategies:
1 – Video size and load time: Ensure videos are in formats like MP4 or WebM, which are compatible with most browsers and load faster.
2 – Platform-specific optimization: For YouTube SEO, use relevant keywords in the title, write detailed descriptions, and add the right hashtags. For Instagram, include meaningful captions and hashtags to improve visibility.
3 – Indexing website videos: Google now has stricter requirements for video indexing on a brand’s website. The video must be the primary focus of a dedicated watch page to get indexed. In simple terms, this means that the page should highlight the video as its main content
By following these strategies, brands can optimize their videos on different platforms and create strong visibility of their content.
Craft Content Fulfilling the Search Intent
In 2024, Google launched four core updates, an unprecedented move emphasizing the critical importance of content relevance. These updates had a significant impact on websites with low-quality or keyword-stuffed content, making it clear that only well-crafted, intent-driven content can succeed. With advancements in Google’s machine learning, the search engine can now better understand the intent behind user queries and deliver results that align with their needs. This makes intent optimization a key focus area for anyone aiming to rank on Google.
Performing a high-level keyword analysis wouldn’t be enough, rather you need to dig in deeper to decipher the search queries and the intent behind them such as; Is the user seeking specific information? Do they want to make a purchase? Are they looking for a list of options? With each search query, there is an intention that needs to be comprehended adequately to deliver an optimal user experience.
Our recommendations here:
- Go beyond keywords, understand the purpose behind each query to identify what the user is truly looking for.
- Build content that matches the audience needs and use more conversational tone to address query-based searches.
- Revisit older content and refine it to match current search intent and Google’s quality expectations.
- Make no mistake; write content for humans and not bots.
Growing significance of Google Merchant Center
Did you know that 85% of all product searches begin on platforms like Amazon or Google? This makes creating strong visibility on Google Search absolutely essential for eCommerce brands. To achieve this, many eCommerce businesses rely on Shopping Ads as a key strategy.
To run shopping Ads, advertisers need to link their website dashboard with Google’s Merchant Center. This integration allows Google to pull real-time inventory data and product details directly from the website, ensuring that ads display accurate and up-to-date information to potential customers.
Previously, only shopping ads could display product listings (refer to the screenshot below depicting shopping ads on Google search).
However, in its pursuit to outdo Amazon’s dominance in shopping searches, Google has introduced several changes in 2024. One of the most prominent one being the launch of revamped Merchant Center – Merchant Center Next in September 2024.
Now, users see product listings organically(for free) fetched through Merchant Center under sections like “Popular Products” and others. For example, the below screenshot shows product listings appear in the organic section-(popular products) and also under sponsored (shopping ads) on the right side of the page.
Moreover, Google’s search page for product based searches, specifically in the USA, now resemble that of a category page, offering multiple filters on the left-hand side, allowing users to refine results in real-time based on their preferences.
Screengrab from Google.com, the Section under refine results shows multiple filters
These advancements have significantly expanded the role of Merchant Center beyond shopping ads, making it a vital tool for eCommerce businesses to capture audience attention. If you’re an eCommerce company looking to dominate Google searches, here’s how you can optimize your Merchant Center listings:
- Ensure all your products are listed with complete and accurate details.
- Include target keywords and write user-friendly titles and descriptions that clearly convey the product’s value.
- Link your Google My Business reviews and website reviews to Merchant Center to display customer feedback on your listings.
- Connect your Google My Business to Merchant Center to enhance visibility for local searches.
The new Google Merchant Center opens up countless opportunities to build a stronger presence on Google Search, opportunities that were once limited to shopping ads. By optimizing your Merchant Center listings, you can effectively compete in Google’s ever-evolving eCommerce ecosystem.
Wrapping Up
User experience is the central point of most of the Google updates. If your SEO strategy revolves around improving the user experience of your website in terms of page speed, content relevancy, and site accessibility, SEO wouldn’t be as daunting as it sounds.
SEO is dynamic in nature; Google and other AI platforms are constantly advancing their machine learning capabilities to provide a more fulfilling experience to the users. Hence, today’s marketer needs to be proactive in not just adapting the changes but striving to stay ahead of the changes to have the edge on the competition.
At Growth Accelerators, a boutique SEO agency, we stay one step ahead by keeping abreast of the latest trends in the search landscape and acknowledge the importance of aligning our client’s SEO strategy with your business goals and target audience.
If you’re looking for a team that will partner with you to build stronger and effective visibility on search engines, write to us at info@groacc.com. We’d be delighted to schedule a consultation and help your brand thrive in the evolving digital ecosystem.
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