SEO has always played a major role in digital marketing. Whether you've invested years to reach number one positions on Google, or have spent thousands targeting a local market, you'll know that SEO is a long-term, complicated game.
Over the last couple of years, and more so than ever in 2024, we've seen exponential growth in the use of AI in SEO and marketing. From generating meta descriptions to AI overviews on Google, search engine specialists or those investing in it might be starting to worry about the future of SEO.
Having worked in the industry for over 8 years, Shokwave have seen many changes across SEO. Almost a decade ago, it wasn't commonplace for the average marketing executive (never mind anyone else) to have a solid grip on what is means to optimise a website for Google. There were plenty of blackhat techniques being used to trick the system and the whole process seemed very mysterious. However, nowadays, SEO has become an essential part of almost everyone's digital marketing plan from bakers to photographers, everyone is talking about SEO.
Google is huge, and getting to the top of that first page used to be everyone's goal.
But as mentioned earlier, with the growth of AI generated content, Google's push to display only its own answers to questions and the move towards a 0-click search results page, how can you really be making the most of SEO in 2025?
Well, as the saying goes, don't put all of your eggs in one basket.
If you acquire the majority of your site traffic from organic Google search, just remember, as easily (we wish) as Google gave you that traffic, it can easily take it away. Constant core updates have seen the downfall of many legitimate websites and scrambling to stay in your top position can see you fighting a loosing battle.
To make the most of your SEO in 2025 there are a few simple rules we recommend you follow.
1) Keep on top of technical errors
Broken links, outdated sitemaps, non-indexed pages; these are all fairly simple things that can be bringing your website down. Understanding and monitoring your website's technical health can ensure there's nothing wrong with the foundation you're building your brand on.
2) Only post useful content
It can be tempting to post daily or weekly articles to please Google's algorithm's and keep your website fresh, but quality over quantity is your friend. Put a plan in place to decide on the best content pieces to share with your audience this year. Instead of regurgitating old information, look at what's being displayed on the search engine results page for your chosen topics and find a gap that needs filling. Consider pulling together multiple blog ideas to create one long useful guide that can link out to other areas of your website instead of posting multiple short content pieces.
3) Collaborate your SEO efforts with other digital marketing techniques
In 2025, make your marketing goal to diversify your site traffic. In order to make the most of SEO, you actually need to take a step back and improve your brand awareness across different channels.
With over 200 potential algorithm factors, we can't be 100% sure on what counts and what doesn't. However, the way we look at it, if Google's tracking it, they're probably using it. That means SEO doesn't stop at traffic acquisition. How your users interact with your website is likey adding fuel to the fire when it comes to growing your website. For example, even if users are coming from social media, if they're interacting with your content, exploring the website, downloading guides or watching videos, this could have a positive impact on the way Google reacts to your website.
Semrush explains how a positive user experience can impact your SEO and ways to improve it.
So why does diversifying traffic matter if you want improve your SEO in 2025?
Someone searching a broad keyword and landing on your website is less invested in your brand than someone who saw a post on social media or received an email and decided to explore your business further. This means, the quality of the traffic you acquire through other marketing channels, and not just SEO, could have a huge positive impact on your display of positive user experience.
Email Marketing
Whether you ask people to subscribe to your website when they visit, collect email addresses from events, or have a database of current customers to take advantage of, start emailing your customers and potential customers. Emails have an average open rate of around 22.5% which means out of every 100 people you contact, 22 of them will consider reading what you have to say. With SEO, position 2 only takes around 18% of the clicks. Do you see what we're getting at here?
Social Media Marketing
Whether you're influencing the consumer market on Instagram or rubbing shoulders with CEOs on LinkedIn, social media marketing is more than just a few fluffy posts. If you're looking for direct sales, scroll on by, but if you're wanting to improve your brand awareness and have people looking to you for news on the latest products, industry trends and insights, the social media is the place to be. As well as getting clicks through to your website, social media can be used to shout your name from the rooftops. Meaning, later down the line when someone does that generic search on Google and your name pops up (even if it's not at the top!) they'll recognise your brand and know to trust your result.
Influencer Marketing
Partnering with other people in the market who you know will love your brand is a great way to improve your reach and get more visitors to your website. If you make and sell products, reach out to people on Instagram and ask if they'll endorse your brand. Whether that's through stories, photographs, or reels, having someone influential talk about your brand online always works. Remember, they will need to make it clear that they are promoting your brand whether it was a free gift or paid.
PPC and Google Ads
Complement your SEO efforts with paid advertising. If there are some stubborn keywords in your list that just won't budge, consider using PPC to get your website in front of visitors. Don't jut throw money at it and hope for the best though. Dig deep into your page's performance, design and offering to make sure that your PPC campaign gets the conversions you're hoping for. This could mean creating a whole new landing page that promotes the call to actions faster than a standard information-based service page on your website. Consider including freebies too, whether in the form of a download, free demo or industry report to make your customers feel valued.
Press Releases and Link-building
Investing in an experience PR company can play a huge part in boosting your SEO efforts in 2025. Link-building is a major part of SEO with endorsements back to your website helping Google to understand how trustworthy your content is. There are definitely ways to do this without using a PR professional, but if you want the results, finding an agency that specialises in your industry is like investing in gold. They'll already have personal connections with big publications so the hard part is already done and they will always be on the lookout for new places to publish your content.
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