The time for SEO predictions for 2025 is here
The end of the year is often the perfect time to take stock of the past year and make good resolutions. We decided to take this opportunity to think about what we see as SEO trends for 2025. The search world is constantly evolving, but the last quarter of 2024 was very turbulent with Open AI's announcements about the arrival of Search GPT, among others.
As we head into 2025, we've put together a video podcast about our predictions for Search in 2025. There is no shortage of themes: integration of artificial intelligence into search engines, the rise of searches on social networks, the growing importance of the user experience. We decided to identify five key trends that will shape the coming year in terms of SEO. And yes, Santa Claus is coming earlier this year!
1 - AI search engines: Artificial intelligence is already, and will always be, integrated into search engines
With the arrival of ChatGPT, Internet users integrated the codes of conversational research quite easily. This was already the case before with Google, which was tending to become an answer engine more than a search engine. But the irruption on the market of this UFO, accessible to the public since November 30, 2022, has accelerated this process.
This arrival had cascading effects and interesting consequences for the world of Search. First of all, Google pulled out all the stops and went to great lengths to release its AI-infused conversational tool: The Search Generative Experience (SGE for the intimate). Never heard of it? Normal, the tool never reached us in Europe.
It was launched with great fanfare in United States during a Google keynote in May 2023, but during the presentation itself, the tool was already wrong. It started badly, but it got worse. Google actually released the tool in a hurry when it was not yet 100% finalized. Additionally, they considered it a good idea to base most of the results generated by AI on expert sources. What in itself makes sense was the implementation that was a problem. They were indeed very much based on the content of the forums (Reddit in this specific case.). However, on Reddit, you don't just read truths or verified points, even if the pages answering questions generate thousands of views. We have thus seen dozens and dozens of testimonies from SEO specialists who shared their wacky findings from the SGE.
Consequence? Google backpedalled in good standing. They started by reducing the number of Google SGE appearances on queries. They also took care to rename their tool “Google AI Overview”, nothing better than a rebranding to pass the pill. All the more simple because at this stage, most countries (including all European countries) did not have, and still do not have, access to these functionalities.
But the Silicon Valley giant is not at the end of its troubles. They must in fact face the OpenAI Search tool: SearchGPT which was unveiled on July 26, 2024 and accessible to the general public since October 31 of the same year.
Is SearchGPT a revolution for Search?
Yes, clearly and Google is not wrong in taking it seriously.
Our tips and forecasts to prepare you for AI search engines in 2025
We will see an increase in zero-click requests: A study in 2024 showed that 60% of searches end up without clicking on the SERP (the Google results page). After an initial search (in Europe), 22% of users do a new search, 37% stop there. Google is becoming more and more of an answer engine. It is also interesting to note that 30% of clicks go to platforms owned by Google (Google News, Google Finance, Google for Jobs, Google Maps, etc.). This trend will accelerate in 2025 with AI search engines pre-chewing answers. You have access to information without necessarily clicking on the result.
Consequence, this creates difficulties in tracking on AI search engines, what KPIs will you track? For the time being, The proportion of content coming from AI Overview from Google is not easily visible (it doesn't show up in Search Console). It is possible to rely on external tools such as SEM Rush, SE Ranking or Ahrefs to see the queries on which AI-generated content (AI Overview) appears, but to be taken with a grain of salt, always.
To see the traffic that goes to your site via other platforms like SearchGPT, we can already use Google Analytics and rely on referral traffic, but it will be interesting to monitor what they put in place to have more details about the queries that generated clicks. “Data is always at the heart”, as our project account Pierre says so well, he does not think so well.
2 - SEO, much more than just Google
To position a brand now, you can no longer base its success solely on classic Search via Google. We also need visibility on the”Social Search”, search engines based on social networks such as TikTok, Pinterest, Instagram or even Facebook. Social networks are more dynamic and allow you to easily provide social proof (the) if useful and necessary.”Social Proof”). They offer super visual, eye-catching, entertaining content that is integrated into the routine of young people (and not only) in their daily research.
Some data to illustrate the importance of social networks in the search habits of the youngest: In the United States, 2 out of 5 people use social networks as a search engine. We are at a proportion of 1 out of 2 for Gen Z (the generation of people born between the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2010s).
To stay on this famous Generation Z, the most used applications on smartphones are (in descending order): YouTube, Instagram, Titok then finally Google. Clearly, Google users tend to be older. These are important points to consider in user journeys because they have a big impact. Acquisition funnels need to be redesigned for long-term visibility on social networks.
The most impacted sectors according to the platforms (where social networks have the greatest importance) are as follows:
- Tiktok & Instagram : make-up, cooking, tourism, fashion
- Pinterest : construction, decoration, layout,
- YouTube : varied, informational content (tutorial, training, news)
Our 2025 forecast for Social Search
Social Search is not going to falter any time soon and will continue to grow. It is very important to integrate social networks into your Search strategy through careful preparation. You need an editorial calendar designed for your site but also for your social networks. It must be based on an analysis of demand and the dilution of the audience from search engines like Google to social media platforms. It is important to identify the types of content and formats to be put forward according to the themes that we are going to address, the audiences will not be the same.
Another point not to be overlooked: Impact and traffic measurement. It is essential to measure the impact and traffic on social networks, especially the traffic that passes through social networks and arrives on your site. This is possible and quite easy to do via tools such as Google Analytics 4 (via “referral” traffic). A strategy without data and without measuring results is not “future-proof”.
In summary
- Social networks are increasingly integrated into consumer and research habits.
- Social networks have a significant impact on the SERP
- Important to measure to plan and forecast your strategy on these platforms (and see their impact)
3 - The user experience at the center of concerns
The explosion of content due to the massive use of generative AIs for content led Google to think about the best way for it to sort and select the content that it was going to show on its search engine to Internet users.
Not only is there more and more AI content on the web but in addition, it has led to an increase in terms of content quality. To determine what will and will not be shown, Google must make a more thorough selection. To do this, it is increasingly based on the user experience. He will analyze it on the sites, in particular thanks to his Google Chrome browser, which is of enormous importance to him. In fact, it allows it to monitor everything about the interaction of Internet users with a website: scrolling on the site, clicks, interaction with buttons (Call-To-Action), bookmarking content, etc.
This is nothing new but it will be exacerbated in 2025, You must take care of your user experience at all costs. You need an optimized UX on your site for Google to display it and make it visible, but also and especially for its users.
Let's say you appear on a request like for example”Music lessons in Brussels”. If your site is positioned on the request, starts to generate traffic but your offer on the site does not exactly match what is offered. For example, you offer courses but only around Brussels. There is the risk that your site will appear less regularly in the future on the request, because Internet users will probably leave the site quickly, without interacting with it in interesting proportions. If Google realizes that your site does not meet the expectations of Internet users, it will be displayed less and less.
To go further into the idea of user experience, if your site does not meet standards or is less efficient than competitors: a site that is not responsive enough, quick to load content, a site that does not perform well on mobile and offers a poor user experience, this will have an impact on the engagement of Internet users on your pages. Fire the”Bounce Rate”, which determines the proportion of people who arrive on and leave the site without making a single click or interaction with the site, provided an overview of the engagement of Internet users on a given website. Google uses these types of metrics to improve its offer on the web. There is a premium for sites that offer an optimal user experience and this trend will deepen in the future, given the amount of content published via AI on the web.
Search engines will thus continue to rely on the quality of sessions, the sharing of content on other platforms (social networks, emails, etc.). Les Google Leaks seemed to show that the systems used by Google make good use of clicks and post-click behavior data for their rankings in search results.. The time spent on a page and the conversions are used by Google to define the relevance of a page or a site according to the request that brought the user to the site. User interaction data and its analysis in terms of user behavior on a site are increasingly playing a major role in the visibility of sites. It is a trend that is not going to go away and UX will be more and more important.
Our advice and forecasts in terms of user experience for your natural referencing in 2025
You have to think about sites from a UX point of view but also from an SEO point of view in parallel.. What is called CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization), is the act of optimizing the conversion on a site. Regardless of the purpose of your site, it will always have performance indicators that will correspond to your objective with this site. Optimizing a site from an SEO point of view only for traffic makes little sense in itself, except to inflate the “vanity metrics” of your site (or your ego).
If you have an e-commerce, you will seek to increase conversions, and therefore the purchase on the site. If you have an informative site but also have a newspaper or magazine at the same time, you will seek to increase the number of subscribers to your digital or physical support or the number of subscribers to your newsletter for example.
CRO makes it possible to analyze the interactions of Internet users with your site and to draw conclusions based on tests that you carry out on the site. We are talking here aboutAB testing that can be done on a few elements of a page. Half of Internet users will see one version of it, the other half the other. Based on the results (which page has the most conversions), we can determine if the proposed change is relevant or not.
This type of practice is very important to improve your natural referencing, because as explained here, the behavior of Internet users is monitored by Google and taken into account to assess the relevance of your site.
4 - The Google ecosystem and its dominance in search results
Google has always aimed to maximize the time spent by Internet users in its ecosystem. Regardless of the type of search, more and more sectors are now trusted by the Google interface in search results. The most obvious are Google Business Profiles (ex-Google My Business), which we encounter every time we have to make a local query. Google's objective is to maximize the time of Internet users on its own platforms.
This is already the case with an entire existing ecosystem: Google Shopping, Google news, Google news, discover, Google maps, Google finance, Google scholar, Google flights, Google flights, Google travel, Google for jobs, etc.
The interest of Google is to facilitate the navigation of Internet users but via the Google interface. For example, in the case of e-commerce, we notice a strong dependence on Google Shopping to appear in the results. Where before you could rely on classic blue links to rank, now more and more products appear in search results, so sites that don't appear there are penalized.
In the United States, for example, the filtering possibilities (for example to buy an X or Y smartphone) are multiplied directly in the search results. You can choose the size, price range, delivery method, screen resolution, etc., directly in the search results, without even going to an e-merchant's site.
Similar trends can be seen in other areas, such as job desks, where job offers appear directly in “Google for Jobs”. And where the quantity of your traffic will largely depend on the optimization of your site in order to appear on the Google platform. In fact, do the experiment yourself and type “marketing job Bruxelles”, you will see the offers on “Google for Jobs” first.
Sites must therefore adapt and optimize their sites to ensure that they best appear on these sections.
How? By optimizing your site by creating categories and sub-categories for the different types of job offers or products if we are talking about an e-commerce site. But also by optimizing structured data (via schema.org tags for example) on job offers or products (for the examples we just mentioned). They make it possible to tag a page on a site, to tell Google what it needs to understand and read on a site.
These tags are very important to make it easier for search engines in general. Their use is a real plus at a time when search engines are becoming more and more “picky” in the content they index and that they are ready to show to Internet users. It ensures that the content of your site is well understood by search engine crawlers. You can specify an almost infinite amount of points: the type of page, whether there are FAQs on the page, an address, a contact form, the availability of an offer, the price of a product, the validity period for a job offer, etc.
What are our predictions for 2025 for the Google ecosystem?
We can therefore assume that Google will expand its ecosystem with other solutions directly integrated into the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Already very present in tourism and finance, it will probably try to integrate other sectors into its palette in order to always maximize the time spent by Internet users on its platform and the dependence of sites on its search engine. But be careful that if the user experience were to suffer, Internet users will have no shortage of options to change and do without Google. Search GPT, Perplexity, and others are keeping an eye on the ball.
It will be essential to seize these positioning opportunities and for this it is important to fully understand where your traffic comes from and how Internet users go from the search phase to clicking on a section of your site. It's incredible the number of people who don't really know how users end up on their site and how to optimize this traffic flow. At Elocos, we can of course help you through support for your natural referencing via a SEO agency driven by a passion for SEO.
5 - Brand authority and its importance in demonstrating the expertise of a website
As explained earlier, given the explosion of generative AIs, there is a real importance given by Google to the added value of content. More and more content is being created via AI, mostly of average quality, but in bulk. This forces Google to make an increasingly complex selection to decide what it will and will not show on search engines (especially since indexing costs it money). So we need to send positive signals to Google, especially with regard to expertise (which is part of the EEAT, so dear to Google: Experience, Expertise, Authority, T: Trust). It must be demonstrated to Google so that it considers it relevant to display and show your site on the web.
On search engines there is a general decrease in indexing. There is a sharp drop in indexed content on the web, as we can see among our customers, but this is a general observation made by experts in natural referencing. It is therefore a question of optimizing your site as much as possible to waste as little time as possible for search engines and to promote its visibility. We are thinking similarly for all other search engines (purely AI like the classic ones), you have to demonstrate your expertise to appear relevant and appear in the answers.
The importance of mentions on the web for your visibility. To consider you relevant, Google will take into account the relevance of your brand as such according to your sector. So not only your level of SEO optimization but it will seek to know if you are relevant in your field. To do this, it will measure mentions of your brand, not only on your site but also elsewhere on the web. Beyond backlinks alone (which must however also be part of your 2025 strategy on very competitive queries), your visibility and your level of expertise will be taken into account by Google.
The importance of being present on several channels: your website of course, but also online advertising, YouTube or social networks, Ads, Youtube, social networks. It is very important for Google to see that the traffic to your site does not only come from a single source but is multi-channel. This gives legitimacy to your site and contributes to the social proof (“Social Proof”) of your site for Google. It also allows him to assess the relevance of your product or content. Indeed, if traffic is diluted via several acquisition channels, it will be easier to think that your site is not only built by SEO but has a real user base. Another important point, if you diversify your traffic acquisition channels, you also avoid migraines if one day you experience a significant drop in traffic via the organic channel on your site. It is really a win win to work on your visibility on other channels and essential to integrate into your strategy in 2025.
Brand authority is an important factor in demonstrating your expertise to Google: (expertise and uniqueness of content): The legitimacy of authors on the web is and will always be a key to success in 2025. To stand out, you need to highlight the real human experience behind the content, adding the authenticity and trust that users and search engines value. If you have an author for your content who can boast a long experience in his field of expertise, highlight him by creating an author sheet that includes all the content that he has published on your site. If he is a reference in his field and also publishes elsewhere on the web, even better. This will help search engines consider your content trustworthy and promote its visibility.
Our 2025 Brand Authority Predictions
In 2025, brand authority will be an essential pillar to stand out on the web. Google will continue to favor content that demonstrates solid expertise, supported by signals of reliability and relevance. This will require rigorous optimization of websites, but also through a diversified presence on several acquisition channels such as social networks, YouTube or advertising campaigns. Mentions of your brand, whether they're backlinks or quotes on other platforms, will play a critical role in assessing your credibility. Finally, the authenticity of authors will be valued more than ever, strengthening the trust of users and search engines. Investing in a multi-channel strategy and valuing real human expertise will therefore be keys to success and guarantee sustainable visibility.
On a certain number of requests (informational but also commercial), Google offers users the ability to generate content using artificial intelligence to answer their questions. This result will go above the classic results and have a format similar to what is found on ChatGPT (and now SearchGPT). With the answer in summary, clickable sources for the generated content, content highlighted to deepen the information but also the proposed answers to click for the user to go further in their search (remember the 0 clicks searches mentioned at the beginning of this article). We are on a user experience similar to what a Search GPT can offer but with results that are sometimes less qualitative and clear than this one.
It will also be interesting to see How Open AI is gradually integrating paid advertising into its search platform, because it is on this point that they are likely to take market shares from Google (we noted since yesterday that Google has already started monetizing AI-generated content in Google AI Overviews by placing ads on it). This is clearly what will and is already motivating the Silicon Valley giant to improve its AI-based tools to improve the user experience as much as possible, but also to continue to place ads on as many queries as possible. Since the visibility potential for businesses is very important via SearchGPT and the budgets are not always scalable, the risk is especially there for Google in the short and medium term. So to be followed closely.
To summarize, even if it does not represent Not an immediate danger to Google in the short term, it remains a revolution in the world of Search and has already forced Google to adapt (even before the release of SearchGPT). It's just getting started and we can't wait to follow it! SEO is not dead my friends, far from it, it is only in perpetual evolution.
The five SEO trends for 2025 according to Elocos
In summary, here are the 5 SEO trends that will redefine the Search landscape in 2025:
- Artificial intelligence integrated into search engines : AI will continue to revolutionize online searches, with tools like SearchGPT and Google AI Overview redefining user expectations.
- The importance of social search : Social networks will become essential platforms to capture the attention of younger generations and offer increased visibility.
- User experience as a central criterion : A smooth, fast and relevant UX will be essential to meet the expectations of Internet users and search engines.
- The dominance of the Google ecosystem : The diversification of Google's tools and services will require adapted strategies to maximize your presence on their platforms.
- Brand authority and expertise at the center : Expert content and the provision of proof of credibility (social proof) will be your major assets in gaining visibility and retaining your audience.
By integrating these trends into your strategy, you can not only anticipate changes, but also consolidate your online presence and take advantage of the new opportunities offered by tomorrow's SEO.
