I’ve read all the industry predictions for where SEO is headed this year. Most people seem to still be grasping for clarity around exactly how AI is going to change the SEO landscape. We know AI is going to continue to be big and disruptive, but we still can’t quite put our finger on exactly what is going to change, or to what degree. In an industry historically dominated by reactive tactics and cut-and-dry rules for achieving ranking, the ambiguity of AI in Search is shining a light on by-the-book SEO’s limitations and–sorry to say–failings.

If you have been over-reliant on metrics like ranking position, traffic volume, or impressions to measure your success in Search and guide your content decisions, you’re going to find yourself even further unmoored this year.

If, on the other hand, you’re someone who has recognized that Search is more than a marketing channel–that it represents a ubiquitous consumer behavior and requires an omnichannel marketing toolkit–you’ll be well-positioned to grow your business through SEO in 2025.

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Here are my predictions for the Search industry in 2025:

Look, almost everyone still uses traditional search engines like Google and Bing (and their AI integrations) for online searching. But over the back half of 2024, the amount of traffic to my clients’ sites that originated from non-traditional, AI search sources (such as Perplexity and ChatGPT) increased at an exponential rate, and the raw number of users coming from those sources increased by quadruple-digit percentages. I’ve noticed that searching on AI platforms seems to over-index with professionals (from within the client’s industry) who are using the AI to assist in job-related tasks, like research and writing.

Even though the amount of traffic originating from AI sources is a fraction of a fraction of overall site traffic, the rate of growth is compelling. It suggests that people who are using AIs like ChatGPT for their search needs are satisfied enough with the functionality and search results to keep using it.

Recommendations:

• Configure AI’s like Perplexity and ChatGPT as Organic Search sources, not referral sources, in your measurement platform and be sure to measure traffic and engagement from them as a group.
• Understand the role of AI search in your industry funnel: AI search might not play the same role across all industries and content funnels. Just like how people search for a coffee shop is different than how they search for a new business management software, AI usage will vary by the audience’s need.
• B2B content strategies should have AI prioritized as a channel tactic.

Oof, I don’t like including negative trends in my predictions, but I would be remiss not to include this unintended (but fully expected) consequence of AI. Let’s all get ahead of it and leave my prediction dead in the water, huh?

Google Search is really good at understanding searcher intent and retrieving the right content. Like, the GOAT good at it. Perplexity? Er, not so much.

Perplexity and other AI search platforms might be scarily fast learners and great at returning information that reads well and makes sense, but they are not very good at connecting people to helpful, rich content experiences. So much of our current website and content strategies are built off of what we know to be true of our audience through their behavior on Google Search–where, we believe, they are well-served by those experiences. As we scramble to improve visibility in AI search, we will be reacting to whatever insignificant quantities of incomplete behavior data we can get our hands on. Mix in the current poor functionality and results in AI search, and we’re bound to make some errant content decisions for our audience.

Recommendations:

• Be open to experimentation: Now is the time to try a proactive instead of reactive search strategy, and reframe bad decisions as experimental learnings. Keyword volumes can still anchor your SEO approach, but be open-minded to creative (but smart!) content formats, tones, and topics. Take a year to gather the subsequent performance data and then optimize against it.
• Go back to your sources of truth: If you need to be able to prove out the effectiveness of your marketing strategy at the end of the year, rely on trusted SEO and content tactics for ranking in Google Search. Google will still be sending the bulk of traffic to your site. There’s no need to overhaul your entire content strategy in a scramble to act on trendy but ultimately insignificant behaviors, like long-tail voice search.

Again, the quantity of traffic being sent from AI engines is a fraction of a fraction of total site traffic. Let us pump the breaks on overhauling our SEO and content strategies to serve an AI that still very few people use.

Perhaps this trend is a little bit of wishful thinking, and perhaps it only targets certain demographics, but I’ve seen an increased desire for longer, more engaging content.

The truth is that today we get all the short-form content we need directly from the AI or search results listings. Clickless search isn’t a trend anymore, it’s the de facto search experience for short answer queries. If Google Search does their job right, no one will be clicking through to your 300-word count content for any reason.

But, people do yearn for engaging, helpful information, and they don’t mind a little length as long as it’s easy to read (don’t look at me as an example, I don’t claim to be good at this).

Don’t get me wrong, people will still say, probably out loud “ugh, I don’t want to READ ALL OF THIS, JUST TELL ME WHAT I WANT TO KNOW RIGHT NOW” but often what people complain about, and what their actual tolerance is, is two different things.

True, many people will not give your website more than 10 seconds to give them an answer. These are the hurried and annoyed folks that you aren’t likely to convert anyway. Just give them what they need, leave them with a good impression of your brand, but don’t cater your strategy to them.

We know that long-form content is going to continue to thrive in audio–people love to listen to podcasts while doing all the other things they have to do. Reading is different, it commands more of your undivided attention. But much like people are looking to improve their health and wellness with meditation, exercise, and other time-consuming activities, they will be willing to spend more time with thoughtful, written content.

You have a right to create longer-form content about your business, industry, and product. Long-form is where storytelling happens, and it’s where connection with the audience happens. It’s worth your time to find those topics that you can create long-form content around.

Recommendations:

• Seek out right-to-win content topics that you think can foster a connection with your audience, create a 1,000-word post (or 5 minute-length video), and test performance.
• Lower your expectations for traffic volumes and look toward engagement metrics. Clickless search is our new playing field, and we shouldn’t expect people looking for clickless topics to engage with our site content.
• Ignore anyone saying content is dead. Content is only dead if you’re dead.

I am guilty of this–last year I think I used the word “ecosystem” more than any other term in my SEO vocabulary. And for good reason, most existing client content was conceived of in a hodgepodge or reactive manner, and without a central content strategy or objective. Ecosystem content strategies are but another name for full-kit SEO strategies, and by using the term “ecosystem” we can help stakeholders understand the kind of impact these strategies can have on their brand.

Ecosystem strategies will continue to be an effective approach to SEO in the coming year, and will give SEO’s a further foothold in the content strategy and content management fields.

Recommendations:

• Continue to use whatever hub-and-spoke content framework you have at your disposal to build your SEO ecosystem strategies. They are smart approaches to effective work.

In direct contrast to trend #4 (we can keep two truths in our head at once!) be on the lookout for your audience’s habit and preference to ask Google questions as they move through the funnel, thereby ignoring your thoughtfully linked ecosystem content.

It’s an underpinning of the AI search movement, as well as a consequence and reflection of 30 years of searching online–some people prefer, perhaps unconsciously, to go back to Google to ask their next question.

This is anecdotal, but I’ve talked with many people about this phenomenon–they could follow that internal link to the next topic on their mind, but they prefer to go back to Google to ask that next question. It’s as if they want to be a more active participant in their search, and because they trust Google more than the website they happen to be on.

Recommendations:

• Create an ecosystem of short-form content that succinctly (but thoroughly) answers the user’s question. It’s better to be the source of clickless search than to cede that authority to your competitors.
• When linking between pages in a content ecosystem, phrase the anchor link as a question that the user would type into Google. This will win you anchor link SEO points, but also will tap into the audience’s desire to ask a question before getting their answer.

Recommendations:

• SEOs, find your words for understanding, describing, and strategizing the image search landscape. The more authoritatively you can speak to the image search space, the more impact you’ll be able to have on your team’s image strategy.
• Get your GenAI prompt writing skills up to snuff and start making the case for the Search team to weigh in on website key visuals so that client imagery can be competitive in the search listings.

If you’ve been with Adobe all this time, congratulations, you’ve probably mastered this trend in 2019. But for those of us who are working mostly in Google Analytics, the mandatory adoption of GA4 in 2023 has had working us without solid year-over-year site engagement data. Depending on when you finally implemented GA4, 2025 should be the year you start to get a 24-month look-back.

Recommendations:

• Use channel-agnostic data to inform SEO: Try looking at a piece of content’s overall engagement performance, regardless of what source and medium sent visitors to the piece. Then, use that information to inform your SEO strategy. The thought here is that you might have high quality content that you are promoting on other channels like social or on YouTube, that could also do well in search with some smart optimization.
• Of course, reassess your tagged GA4 events and ensure they are organized in the best way to tell your data story.

This prediction may be still a year or two ahead, but it’s coming. As larger marketing agencies continue to expand globally and streamline their below-the-line offerings, agency-employed SEO teams will find themselves without the resources to create the robust, actionable, and effective strategies that this new search landscape requires.

The consultant will be well positioned to perform these tasks for a client at half the price. Large agencies may continue to “own” SEO and content strategy from an above- and through-the-line perspective, but we know that he who controls the keywords controls the SEO, and this is increasingly falling into the hands of the smaller vendor, in-house hire, or consultant.

Recommendations:

• Make sure your SEO and SEM teams are nimble and engaged in the client’s industry as much as possible, and that they have the tools and resources to execute the work in market.

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Some trends I’m confident will not come to pass in 2025:

• SEO will not die, so long as human beings desire to seek answers.

• Content will not die, so long as human beings desire for stories and emotional connection.

Happy New Year, welcome to the Klatch!