Let's get one thing straight – the rumours that SEO is 'dead' or a thing of the past are completely false. Every few years, someone announces the death of SEO, typically on social media in a dramatic LinkedIn post or YouTube thumbnail. But search isn't dying. Far from it – it’s transforming. 2025 has made SEO more complex, more nuanced, and more essential than ever for businesses trying to be found online.
What has died however are the outdated tactics of keyword stuffing, churning out low-effort blog posts, or relying on backlinks from shady directories. Today, visibility depends on depth, trust, usability and meaningful content. Think less about tricking algorithms and more about earning attention with meaningful content that's authentic and relevant.
How SEO is different in 2025
Type any query into Google nowadays, and you’ll get an instantly-generated block of text at the top of the page that's been generated by an AI. This is the Search Generative Experience (SGE). It uses AI to summarise key information and pull insights from multiple sources in real-time.
For instance, if a user Googles “best CRM tools for small creative agencies”, they'll get an AI summary with recommendations and links to tools, the pros and cons of those tools and pricing before they've even clicked on anything. In essence, they've been given the answer to their question without having to search through various page results.
So what does that mean for your brand? It means you can’t just rank well – you need to be referenced by the AI itself. This is a fundamental shift in how SEO works. Your content needs to be not only optimised for humans and bots, but structured in a way that large language models can understand and trust.
Google, Bing, and even YouTube’s recommendation engines are using similar approaches. Structured data, natural language, clear headings and semantic relationships between content are no longer nice-to-haves. They’re how you get seen.
Don't forget the basic principles of SEO
Despite all the innovation, some things haven’t changed and likely never will. Search still rewards relevance, trust and performance.
For example, Google still hates slow and sluggish sites that take ages to load. If your beautifully designed portfolio website takes around 10 seconds to load on mobile, the user will likely click away before reading anything. Similarly, accessibility has become a bigger ranking factor. Sites that ignore alt tags, contrast ratios, or keyboard navigation are not only failing users, but they’re also falling in Google rankings.
Content-wise, the days of keyword-stuffing are gone, but authentic and related keywords still matter. They just need to appear in context. Keywords still need to be mentioned in the H1, metadata and naturally throughout the text, but Google’s NLP (natural language processing) models are looking for thematic depth, not repetition.
Where SEO meets AI, the stakes rise
In the last two years, AI-generated content has exploded. Tools like ChatGPT, Jasper and Claude can now generate blog posts, product descriptions and social captions in seconds. But if everyone uses these tools to generate content, the internet starts to feel very soulless and repetitive. Search engines are starting to notice if content has been generated by an AI tool. Google has explicitly stated that AI-generated content is acceptable if it’s useful and original.
Let's use the example of a law firm publishing an advice article on “How to file a personal injury claim.” If it’s just regurgitated AI content with no local insights, examples or expertise, it won't rank well. But if the AI content contains real world examples and insight from a real lawyer who adds in personal anecdotes and case studies, this page will likely outperform larger competitors. It's important to remember that AI has limitations – and should never be a replacement for human perspectives and insights. In SEO, the differentiator is no longer “can you publish content?” but “can you publish content that no one else can?”
What should companies be doing to improve their SEO in 2025?
If you want your brand to stay visible and competitive in search, here’s what a modern SEO strategy should actually look like in 2025.
The focus shouldn't just be on traffic, and you shouldn't create blog posts for the sake of it. Create them to answer specific questions that your target audience is actively asking. A well-written, niche post might generate fewer hits than a broader article, but the quality of traffic will be far more valuable.
Make sure your content is user-friendly and has structure. Use clear headings, logical flow and internal linking that helps both users and search engines navigate your site. If you publish a page on a topic, make sure it links to relevant case studies, pricing, or FAQs.
The best SEO wins also come from updating what you already have. Take an old blog post from 2021, update the stats, add new examples, improve its formatting and re-optimise its metadata. You might see a rankings boost within weeks.
Finally, start thinking about platforms other than Google. Platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Reddit and LinkedIn are becoming like search engines in how they publish and find relevant information.
The takeaway
SEO in 2025 is no longer about exploiting the algorithm and finding gaps. It’s about filling those gaps with genuine, authentic content. Whether you're building a brand, launching a service, or writing a blog post, the question to ask is no longer “how do I rank for this?” but “why should someone trust me on this?”
If your site is fast, your voice clear, your content genuinely helpful and your expertise real, you’ll have credibility and good rankings.
Because in the end, SEO isn’t dead. It’s reincarnated.
