The start of a new year is the perfect opportunity to rethink your SEO strategies. With the frequency of Google algorithm updates increasing more and more every year, it’s never been more important to stay adaptable to ensure your website doesn’t fall behind the curve.
So, without further ado, let’s examine some key SEO trends to stay on top of this year.
1. Building a Strong Brand and Boosting Branded Search

If nothing else, the algorithm updates we experienced in 2024 signalled that Google prioritises established brands in the rankings.
But why did this happen?
As discussed in Ahref’s recent post on the death of affiliate marketing, one of the main culprits is undoubtedly the rise of AI-generated content.
Essentially, the affiliate marketing business model became too easy to abuse with the ability to programmatically create thousands of pages with minimal effort (thanks, ChatGPT!)
To combat this, Google has swung to prioritising the authority of websites sharing the content rather than the content itself.
Therefore, being discovered based on your brand name is becoming crucial to earning those page 1 rankings. For competitive searches, SEO can no longer work in isolation – there needs to be a plan for increasing general awareness of the brand and (importantly) the number of times the brand is searched for.
So, take a look at the search volume for your brand name. If it’s low or non-existent, you should consider broadening your marketing strategy to avenues like PR and creating viral content that will get people looking specifically for you, not just what you offer.
2. Increased Importance of User Signals and Backlinks
Since AI makes content easy to pump out, Google must look at other signals to evaluate what to serve users.
Beyond the brand, which we talked about, user engagement metrics and the quality of referring domains will become even more critical to ranking content in 2025 and beyond.
User Signals
User signals like CTR, bounce rate, and dwell time are an easy way for Google to differentiate run-of-the-mill AI content from content that’s genuinely satisfying users. Increasingly, people are starting to spot patterns in AI copy and are bouncing from pages they suspect have been generated by AI. For example, it’s becoming obvious to many users that blog articles that start with cliché lines like “In today’s digital landscape” are being generated by AI.
When people see copy that they suspect is AI-generated, they will usually leave the page, indicating to Google that the content is not useful or worth ranking.
To boost your user signals, you obviously want to have content that provides genuine value, unique insights, and engages users. You also want to make sure you have good internal linking, calls to action, great UX, and a technically sound website that performs well.
Remember: Google’s search guidance on AI explains that they do not care whether the words on the page are typed by a human or AI; they only care about the quality. The issue is that raw AI content rarely meets the quality standards users and Google are looking for. With sophisticated prompting and a human touch, there’s no reason you can’t use AI to help you.
Backlinks
Backlinks have always been a key component of SEO, but with content becoming so easy to do with AI tools, they are even more important than ever. Like user signals, backlinks indicate to Google that people like and want to reference this content.
As always, the quality and stickiness of backlinks are more important than having a high volume of them. Avoid shortcuts and prioritise getting a few high-value placements on domains with steady authority and traffic.
3. Diversifying Traffic Sources
Another symptom of the increased emphasis on brands is the increasing importance of diversifying how people reach your website. Trusted brands that people love will get traffic to their websites from social media, paid ads, email links, referral traffic from backlinks, and more.
Not only does this help signal your online presence, but it also helps protect you in the event of Google algorithm updates. If your business relies heavily on organic traffic through SEO, then an algorithm update could potentially cripple your business since you’ve put all your eggs in one basket.
4. Combatting AIO by Providing Unique, In-Depth Insights
If you haven’t noticed, Google’s AI Overviews (AIO) have started to dominate position zero results on SERPs. This is especially true for informational searches, where Google wants to give users the answer they need without them actually needing to leave the Google platform.
Like featured snippets, this reduces the CTR (click-through rate) to pages that aim to answer those informational queries. However, unlike featured snippets, it’s not obvious which brand or website is responsible for giving the best answer (now it’s a combo of multiple sources condensed into one answer by Google’s AI).
All of this means you can’t rely as much on having the best answer to popular queries to drive traffic to your domain. Instead, you should focus on creating content that offers something unique that only your webpage can deliver.
Examples of ways to level-up your content include:
- Tools and calculators
- User-generated or expert content
- Original research and data (infographics)
- Multimedia experiences (videos, graphics, audio)
- Personal stories and case studies
All of this goes beyond providing the basic answer to deliver the depth, originality, and value that AIOs can’t.
5. Avoid “Overoptimising” Your Content with SEO Tool Recommendations
Until recently, I swore by content optimisation tools and tool-generated content audits. They took so much of the grunt work out of updating content, providing a gamified way to increase page depth and keyword relevancy based on top-ranking competitors.
However, these tools made it too easy to unintentionally over-optimise content. If you’re not careful, content can become bloated with sections added just to satisfy NLP terms or structure recommendations, often at the expense of user experience.
Don’t get me wrong; these tools still have value in simplifying competitor research and identifying elements missing from your page. However, I don’t think they are the game changers they used to be.
Google wants websites to deliver content how they want, not feel obligated to copy what everyone else is doing.
In 2025, you don’t need to obsess about the precise word count, keywords or structure of pages vs your competitors. Instead, focus on creating an excellent user experience with content that directly satisfies the search intent of the keyword. Most importantly, do this while retaining a unique brand voice and emphasising your USPs.
Getting ideas from competitors and filling gaps in your content will always be important. However, don’t pull your hair out trying to get the ‘perfect’ page – do what makes sense for you and your users, plain and simple.
2025 is the Year of the Brand
In summary, 2025 is the year that you need to consider brand growth and think outside the box with your SEO strategy, especially if you’re in a highly competitive niche. It’s not enough just to tick all the boxes and cover a topic comprehensively – to rank you need to offer something unique and make a name for yourself doing it.