2024 Annual Review: How 2024 Went For Me And What Changes In 2025 via @sejournal, @Kevin_Indig

It’s the time of the year! I can write about myself again without feeling guilty ;-).

Over the last few years, I’ve made it a habit to share how the year went for me and what next year looks like. This really seems to resonate with you, so I’ll keep doing it until you tell me to stop.

Previous annual reviews:

I had five big goals for 2024:

1. Hit 1,000 paid growth memo subscribers
2. Keep income above a certain level
3. Become a better speaker
4. Create more time and space
5. Keep my weight between a certain number, work out a minimum of four times a week, and pick up MMA.

I’m happy to say that I met all goals except for No. 1.

The Advisory is going really well.

In early 2024, I made an effort to focus on larger, more in-depth engagements and worked with phenomenal brands: Reddit, Alltrails, About You, Toast, and Hims, just to mention a few.

For 2025, I’m opening my calendar again for low-touch engagements. I’ll keep ~ three large clients, but I found really good success and high demand for sparring/office hour-like engagements.

Speaking: Shifting Gears

This year, I managed to speak at 10 conferences:

• Recommerce, London (UK).
• Friends of Search, Amsterdam (NL).
• NYC SEO Meetup, NYC.
• SaaStock, Austin.
• Digital Olympus, Eindhoven (NL).
• SMX Advanced, Berlin (DE).
• SEO Campixx, Berlin (DE).
• SEOktoberfest, Kitzbuhel (AU).
• Tech SEO Connect, Raleigh.
• SEOkomm, Salzburg (AU).

Phew, that was a lot! I don’t know how others do it, but that burned me out a little.

My mistake was probably to bring a new deck and topic to every event. Anyway.

My hypothesis for taking on many speaking engagements in 2024 was to grow my subscriber base. Unfortunately, the impact wasn’t as strong as I had hoped.

I had a ton of fun and met awesome people, but any speaking gig was outmatched by a good post. The SEOzempic Memo led to almost 150 new subscribers, which is about as much as a good presentation would drive.

That’s why I’m changing gears next year.

In 2025, I will set a strict limit of five conferences, focus on non-SEO conferences, and ask for a speaking fee of $5,000 + travel cost + accommodation (with one to two exceptions).

The reason is simple: It takes a lot of effort! Speaking takes a ton of time that I could spend with my family and invest in client work.

The ROI of speaking for free (or travel cost covered) isn’t there when you consider about 30 to 50 hours of preparation plus travel time.

I’m not even talking about paying experts for help with research and working with a speaking coach (who has been amazing).

I don’t get nor want any business from SEO conferences. It’s been fun-positive but ROI-negative for me.

Growth Memo: Going Video-First And Other Changes

How it’s going:

Growth Memo has done well this year. The free newsletter topped 16,000 subscribers, which is more than I projected (13,700 to 15,300).

Top 10 most-read articles:

I also started an experimental WhatsApp group that already has ~450 members, where I share my research as I find it (check it out). I feel so grateful and proud about how well it’s growing!

I widely missed my goal for the paid newsletter, though. I had hoped for 1,000 paying subscribers and barely made it over 300.

Don’t get me wrong – 300 premium subscribers is basically an average American salary. However, that number needs to grow.

I make 80% of my income from advising, but writing and researching take up about two days of my week.

Here’s how I plan to accomplish that in three ways:

1. New: Video First

When I started to do live streaming sessions for premium subscribers in which I shared my latest research and observations, numbers started to pick up.

I also strongly believe that video is where the action is: LinkedIn added a video tab. Youtube is the No. 1 podcast platform.

Lots of stats that I shared in my annual review show that even B2B buyers want more videos from companies.

Probably most important is the fact that LLMs are getting so good at writing that video creates a much more human connection with audiences.

So, starting in January,

1. The premium offering consists of two live sessions a month.
2. The free Memo comes with a video in the email and Youtube.
3. I’ll experiment with short-form videos throughout the year.

What I’m working towards is not just an easier way to consume the Growth Memo, but also for you to participate.

I don’t know what this will look like exactly, but I want to turn the experience of broadcasting into collaboration. Stay tuned.

If you’re wondering whether Kevin has gone full creator mode, the answer is no. I’m still an advisor who shares his insights and experience. But I think video is the format du jour. And it’s time to adapt.

2. New: Publishing Calendar For The Free And Premium Version

I’m taking off two weeks in the summer and two weeks in the winter time to recharge and get a head-start on publishing.

In fact, I’m already taking off for a winter break this year. The next Memo comes out on January 6.

In 2025, I’ll likely take two weeks off in August and the last two weeks of the year again.

I’ve created an overview of free Memos and (paid) Live Sessions: 2025 publishing calendar.

3. New Topics

Let’s be real: SEO is not what it used to be. Yes, tech SEO is still important for large sites, and too much mediocre content still bites sites in the rear end during Core updates – nothing new on the Western front.

However, with brands getting preferential treatment in many verticals, the rise of Reddit, rogue core Updates, AI overviews, and AI chatbot search, the landscape of Search has made a profound leap.

Not only are new user interfaces powered by AI sprouting up left and right, but Google itself is evolving after almost 20 years of incremental changes.

On top of that, YouTube gets more attention than ever before, Reddit is one of the largest sites on the web, and podcasts enter a second wave of popularity.

If I want to continue covering Organic Growth, my attempt to find a term for all the non-paid marketing channels and activities, I need to expand the scope of this newsletter.

So, expect more diverse topics in non-paid marketing in 2025. I know that most Growth Memo readers care deeply about SEO.

I won’t abandon SEO but introduce you to new topics to help you become a better marketer.

And with that, I’m checking out for the rest of the year.

Until 2025,

Kevin

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Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

22 SEO Experts Offer Their Predictions For 2025 via @sejournal, @theshelleywalsh

This year continued with the same theme as the year before – a bombardment of updates and rapid developments in AI.

AI Overviews were introduced in May, which then saw a drop in organic traffic alongside major drops from Google updates.

It’s not been an easy year in SEO.

Whereas last year was considering how AI tools could be leveraged to augment our work, this year has been the acceptance that Google SERPs are changing and not delivering the same levels of organic traffic as before.

This introduction of AIO and the uncertainty of Google organic traffic has accelerated the move towards SEO becoming “marketing.”

Moving forward, SEO is now as much about branding and marketing as it is about what we used to know about SEO.

To make this transition, everything that you were doing in SEO needs to be reconsidered. The future of online marketing will involve being found in generative AI apps, AI-powered search engines, social media, forums, and communities.

The bottom line is that SEO is now marketing, and that could be challenging for anyone who holds on to a one-dimensional SEO mindset.

As is our tradition this time of year, we turned to some of the best minds in the industry to get their thoughts on where the industry is going and what might happen next.

We asked 22 of the best practicing SEO professionals: In your expert opinion, what should SEO pros focus on in 2025 to maintain visibility and get results?

1. Focus On The Fundamentals

Jono Alderson, Consultant at Jono Alderson

Make 2025 the year you actually optimize your website. Forget shiny new toys and focus on the fundamentals.

Fix your errors. Make it faster. Make it more accessible. Improve the UX. Correct the typos. Redirect the broken links. Clean up the mess.

And while you’re at it, trim the fat. Remove the zombie pages that nobody visits. Prune your bloated navigation. Consolidate duplicate content.

Fix those annoying forms that never seem to work. Make your images smaller. Stop auto-playing videos. Test your site on a cheap phone on bad Wi-Fi and see how frustrating it is. Then fix that, too.

SEO professionals are so busy chasing trends, tweaking metadata, and begging for backlinks that we’ve lost sight of what really matters: creating a website that works beautifully for users.

A faster, simpler, cleaner site isn’t just better for people – it’s better for search engines, too. Do the unglamorous work. Google notices, and so does the market.

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2. Focus More On UX

Arnout Hellemans, Consultant at Online Market Think

Here are a few tips for SEO pros to focus on in 2025:

Stop focussing on keywords and shift to user intent. Look at SERPs into all the questions users have.

Check the People Also Ask (PAA) features and check if your article satisfies that intent on the page.

Focus more on the UX (usability, site speed).

If you want to get traffic from other AI discovery engines, check your website without JavaScript. You can use SSR or pre-render your webpages, so that other crawlers can consume your content too.

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3. Start Considering Awareness And Upper Funnel Metrics

Ryan Jones, Senior Vice President at Razorfish

2025 will be the year when we finally treat SEO like full-funnel marketing. 

SEO pros will have to move beyond just measuring clicks and start considering awareness and upper funnel metrics as users less frequently desire websites in favor of AI, instant answers, and other search features. 

SEO pros will still be needed to help influence these features and ensure brands show up, but we’ll have to focus on user intents – the queries where users want to do or accomplish something – over high search volumes.

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4. Start With Video-First Content

Mark Williams-Cook, Digital Marketing Director at Candour

Over the past 20 years, we’ve consistently seen Google take steps to keep users on their SERP, as it’s more profitable for them.

In its Q3 announcement, it revealed a 90% reduction in the cost of generating AIOs, signaling even more aggressive deployment of these and AI-organized results in ecommerce.

This likely means a decline in traffic to “solved” knowledge and informational spaces – though that’s not necessarily a bad thing for the web (how many lasagna recipes does humanity really need?).

On the other hand, we can expect increased traffic from sources like Google Discover and Lens, particularly for non-text content such as video.

I believe those who rely solely on GenAI to generate content directly from LLMs will struggle.

However, those leveraging LLMs to enhance original material – such as generating transcriptions from video—are positioned to benefit, as this top-down approach now feels even more strategically aligned with current trends.

In 2025, I am going to be encouraging clients to start with video-first content and work backwards, with a special focus on Discover and Lens search, which has now been integrated.

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5. Diversify Where Your Community Might Be Spending Time Online

Miriam Ellis, Consultant at Miriam Ellis Consulting

A trend to pay particular interest to in 2025 is the diversity of digital platforms to which your potential customers may be going for local business information and recommendations.

2024 has seen many developments that may not be increasing searcher satisfaction, such as the rise of AI Overviews, which can’t be relied on for factual information, and a growing sense that Google search has become less skilled at intent matching.

I’ve fielded sentiment from a range of users encompassing some of the best SEO pros in the world to everyday searchers stating that it’s simply harder than it used to be for them to find what they’re looking for in Google.

While all the traditional SEO and local SEO skills and work remain relevant, diversifying your picture of where your community might be spending time online will be smart work for the year ahead.

In the U.S., we’ve reached a state in which half our counties no longer have access to local news, so people looking for trustworthy, authentic communications about their community will have to look elsewhere. This could include the big social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, but don’t stop there.

I recommend taking a very good look at Discord to see if it has become a community hub, or if you could turn it into one to increase your neighbors’ awareness of your brand taking an active role in your town or city. YouTube, Reddit, and hyperlocal podcasts are also very strong candidates for contributing to community life.

In summary, while normal SERP visibility will still be essential to your marketing strategy, be sure you’re studying consumers’ shifting behaviors so you can learn to be present wherever they feel information can be trusted.

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6. Organize And Structure The Content Hierarchy

Motoko Hunt, Founder & President at International SEO & SEM Consulting

Many SEO pros have been focusing so much on content generation in recent years, especially in 2024 with the help of AI.

It’s time to better organize generated content based on the target audience’s intent and business goals.

1. Identify the purpose of each content/page on site.
2. Identify the target audience’s intent and stage for each content.
3. Group content by topics.
4. Create a content tree within the group based on the searcher’s intent and stage.

By organizing and structuring the content hierarchy, you can touch searchers at each stage of their journey and influence their decision-making.

You should also update the content as needed. You want your content to stand out in the sea of similar content out there. Make sure that your content adds value.

With this, the content will not just generate traffic but will contribute to the business growth.

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7. Build Author Authority And Explore Alternative Traffic Sources

John Shehata, CEO & Founder at NewzDash and Former Global VP of Audience Strategy at Conde Nast

I believe these key areas will be crucial for SEO success in 2025:

E-E-A-T Is King

Google’s emphasis on experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness will be even more critical.

SEO pros need to build Author Authority by showcasing expert credentials and first-hand experience, and digital and social footprint, especially in niches like health and finance (think doctor bios with links to publications).

Strong Domain Authority still relies on high-quality backlinks, but focus on those that drive traffic.

For Document Authority, create in-depth, entity-focused content that satisfies user intent better than competitors. Think comprehensive guides with clear attribution and original research.

AI Is Your Co-Pilot

AI is transforming search. Optimize for AI-generated answers by structuring content around topics and entities.

For example, instead of just targeting “best running shoes,” create content around “best running shoes for trail running” and “best running shoes for flat feet.”

Use AI tools to scale – not to write – content creation, but maintain a human touch for quality and originality. Think of AI as a research assistant and editor, not a replacement for your own expertise.

Diversify To Thrive

Expect fewer Google clicks with all the new SERP updates, and don’t put all your eggs in the Google basket.

Explore alternative traffic sources like Threads, Reddit, newsletters, and even push notifications.

A diversified approach makes you less vulnerable to algorithm updates and opens up new audience streams.

Adapt And Analyze

Stay informed about algorithm updates and adjust your strategies accordingly. Pay close attention to user behavior on your website to identify areas for improvement.

Tools like heatmaps and scroll maps can provide valuable insights.

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8. Create More Q&A Content To Be Present In LLMs

Kevin Indig, Growth Advisor and publisher of The Growth Memo 

In my opinion, the big question is, “What is the story of your brand in an LLM world?”

Track sales/revenue/leads from LLM referral traffic like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, etc. See if this could become meaningful when extrapolating the trend from the last six months out over the next two years.

If so, you want to invest in technical SEO to make crawling easier and create more structured content (like Q&A style content) to be more present in LLMs.

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9. Index Licensing Will Become Increasingly Important

Jes Scholz, Marketing Consultant at JesScholz Consulting

The Bing index powers ChatGPT (and thus will be integrated into Siri), as well as Microsoft Copilot and many answers of Meta AI.

It’s also leveraged by smaller search engines, including Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and Ecosia.

While other players, like Perplexity, aim to build their own index, it’s clear that index licensing will become increasingly important as the search landscape diversifies.

This means SEO marketers need to expand their focus beyond Google from an indexing perspective.

Now is the time to revisit Bing Webmaster Tools. Conduct a content audit using XML sitemaps for each page type to compare indexing rates on Bing versus Google.

If either search engine is missing valuable content, prioritize crawling and indexing optimization.

Because no matter the surface – whether it’s in traditional SERPs, AI-powered SERPs, chatbots, Google Discover, Google Shopping, or elsewhere – if your content isn’t indexed, you have no chance to earn visibility.

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10. Build Relationships With Other Well-Ranking Sites In Relevant Industries

Glen Allsopp, Fonder at Gaps.com

One recommendation I have for 2025 is to actively study as many of the main search results you’re trying to rank in, see what Google is rewarding, and look to get involved in those sources.

Bear with me – it gets better.

Besides traditional service or shopping pages, there’s a good chance you’ll also see:

• Guides recommending products and services.
• YouTube videos.
• Similar but non-competing brands.
• Interviews.
• Tweets.
• Forum posts.
• Reddit posts.

While a simplified goal of SEO is to get more targeted search traffic to your own website, you shouldn’t ignore the possibility of getting more exposure via creating videos, being involved in relevant Reddit communities, and so on.

One of the most effective things I’ve done is build relationships with other well-ranking sites in relevant industries. Even better if you’re in the same space but don’t compete on the end product you’re selling.

You would be surprised how open people are to also cover your product, service, or content when they get to connect with a human who actually cares about what they’re working on.

It’s far from the most important or only thing you should be doing, of course, but it’s always good to expand your marketing horizons.

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11. Building And Enriching Knowledge Graphs With Well-Defined Entities Is Key

Andrea Volpini, CEO and Co-Founder of Wordlift

SEO professionals and marketers should optimize for both human and AI audiences, particularly large language models (LLMs).

LLMs excel at processing structured, concise text but often struggle with complex, visually rich websites.

Providing clear, organized, and dense content – such as markdown files or LLM-specific resources like /llms.txt – helps LLMs better understand and represent your brand to users.

Structured data remains essential for search visibility and enhancing AI-driven customer experiences. It enables training models, improving content suggestions, and supporting advanced features like conversational search.

Understanding how LLMs function is equally critical. These models can be interpreted through monosemanticity – the ability to extract precise, entity-like features from their deep neural networks.

SEO pros should focus on creating clear, entity-rich content and evaluating how these entities align with openly distributed models.

Building and enriching Knowledge Graphs with well-defined entities is key. This approach ensures LLMs can effectively contextualize your content, unlocking new optimization opportunities and improving both AI and human experiences.

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12. Sit And Sync With Comms

Mordy Oberstein, Founder of Unify Brand Marketing

Let’s define “maximum visibility” for a second. Do we mean as many eyeballs as possible as quickly as possible? If so, I have no tips for you.

On the other hand, if we mean being visible as much as possible in as meaningful a way as possible, then I have one tip for you: Sit and sync with comms.

Be aligned with and on board with your company’s or client’s comms or brand department. Understand where they want to go. Understand how they see the company’s identity, positioning, and the messaging they want to send.

Be a part of that process. Help them align and amplify that positioning and messaging. Help the brand become what it aims to be.

We’re entering a digital winter. There is so much volatility and so much dysfunction (hello, search and social algorithms).

Most of all, there is so much noise. It’s much harder for your audience to tune it all out and to allow themselves to be impacted by what you’re putting out there.

That’s a huge hurdle to overcome. We’ve become inundated and numbed to all of the digital content thrown at us. And we’re only getting more inundated and more numb.

There’s a huge need for resonance. Your content needs to be crafted in a way that can cut through all the noise and resonate.

There’s not a whole lot of point in grabbing as much traffic as possible if it’s not going to be “seen” by the audience.

That old model of garnering as much visibility as possible is outdated. It’s better to be purposeful more than anything. And to do that, SEO pros can no longer afford to be siloed.

Sitting with whoever is running the overall communications strategy is an absolute must. It leads to a healthier approach and better outcomes. It’s what will drive visibility that actually matters.

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13. Know Who Your Customers Are, Create Resonant Messages, And Deliver Value

Ameet Khabra, Founder at Hop Skip Media

Fully embrace artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in every part of marketing.

This is about so much more than automating PPC campaigns, though that’s a huge part, especially since Google is retiring manual bid controls like eCPC.

The marketers who will succeed are the ones who can make the most of AI and automation while keeping that human touch to connect with customers.

Build strong first-party (1P) data sets, as third-party (3P) cookies will continue to fade away, and privacy rules will get stricter.

This is all about the information you gather directly from your customers – their website habits, how they interact with your brand, and what they’ve bought.

Those who invest heavily in tools and strategies to collect 1P data will be able to deliver compelling experiences at every point of the buyer’s journey.

You must also incorporate that data into creating experiences that catch your customer’s attention.

Create immersive, interactive experiences that capture attention and spark emotion, and look beyond the screen to voice interfaces, wearables, and wherever your customers engage.

It’s the brands that can create these amazing, human-centred experiences that are going to be the real differentiators.

Finally, create some organizational agility. This is not news, but things are moving fast for us in this industry, and we need to create a culture where ongoing learning and testing are part of the rhythm.

The fundamental rules of marketing remain constant. It is all about knowing who your customers are, creating resonant messages, and delivering value in every interaction.

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14. Users And Search Engines Prioritize Trusted Brands

Montserrat Cano, Consultant at MC. International SEO & Digital Strategy

In 2025, understanding your audience and market is key to building brand authority, increasing visibility and driving online leads or sales.

Users and search engines prioritize trusted brands, so consistent branding and high-quality content are essential.

This is especially important in international markets, due to the unique cultural nuances and search behaviours.

Combine this with a solid website that focuses on user experience and accessibility for long-term growth.

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15. Communities Can Have A Big Impact On Visibility

Jo Turnbull, Digital Marketing Consultant at Turn Global, Organizer of Search London, and Co-host of SEO Office-Hours

SEO professionals should focus on being part of communities, supporting them or creating ones where there is a gap in the market.

This is particularly important for small brands who do not have a lot of budget to make significant changes to their website.

Communities can have a big impact on visibility, helping to build brands and subsequently conversions.

Through communities, SEO pros can connect with and support one another in initiatives such as mentorship, writing for key sites, as well as attending virtual and/or in-person events.

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16. Understand How Users Consume Information

Navah Hopkins, Brand Evangelist for Optymzr

Looking ahead to 2025 and beyond, it’s all about understanding how users consume information.

By focusing on non-login forums (Reddit, Quora, etc), and getting indexed on Bing for ChatGPT visibility, brands can bypass expensive and time intensive conventional Google SEO.

Forums often rank better on SERPs and offer a more authentic, human touch compared to traditional websites.

If you plan to promote yourself, make sure you’re honest about it – building an infrastructure for your customers and brand influencers to share on your behalf can serve better.

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17. Gain A Foothold In New Trends And Topics Before Larger Competitors

Tory Gray, CEO at Gray Dot Company

There’s a fundamental shortcoming to traditional SEO keyword research that we maybe don’t talk about enough: It’s a lagging indicator.

So, when it comes to identifying new trends, topics, or questions for content, relying on traditional keyword research makes SEO professionals and content strategists late to the game.

That’s especially important for smaller, less authoritative domains. In established industries and verticals, many existing topics are dominated by high-authority competitors.

Gaining a foothold in new trends and topics before larger competitors is one of the few, strong tactics that can help close the gap.

Today, trends and topics take off on platforms like TikTok and Reddit before they make their way to search engines like Google.

In 2025, looking outside of traditional search data – and incorporating platforms where “newness” happens – is how we can tap into leading indicators that let us know which new and useful information our audience really wants.

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18. Finding Truly Unique Angles For New Content Will Reward You

Alli Berry, Search Engine Optimization Consultant at Alli Berry Consulting, LLC

Less is more when it comes to your content strategy.

Google has been busy continuing to punish lower-quality pages, so it’s time to cut the robotic-like programmatic and low-quality AI-generated pages that may have given you some short-term gains.

I know everyone says they’d never do that, but the internet suggests otherwise.

I would also be cutting low-performing pages and thin pages because they may be harming the overall quality of your site from a search engine lens.

Finding truly unique angles for new content will reward you, especially if you can incorporate proprietary or 1st party research.

The Google documents leaked suggest that high-quality news links and links from new pages count for more, so anything you can do to drive new external links should reward you.

Also, if you’ve got all of your eggs in the affiliate revenue model basket, it’s time to diversify your business model. Google is coming hard for affiliate sites.

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19. Mentions In LLMs Will Emerge As A Key Aspect Of SEO

Olga Zarr, SEO Consultant at SEOSLY

SEO professionals should broaden their focus beyond just Google to include Bing and LLMs, as visibility across all these platforms will likely become increasingly critical.

Mentions in LLMs will emerge as a key aspect of SEO, extending the discipline beyond traditional search engines.

Good rankings in Google will still matter, especially since they will influence mentions in AI Overviews. However, the dynamics shift when considering the leading LLM player, ChatGPT, which relies on Bing for search results in both ChatGPT and GPT-powered search.

This means that strong rankings in Bing will become significantly more valuable. SEO pros must familiarize themselves with Bing’s ranking criteria and closely study its documentation, as its algorithm and priorities differ from Google’s.

For other LLMs – regardless of their data sources – SEO marketers should ensure that the brand they aim to promote is consistently and clearly positioned online.

It’s crucial to communicate what the brand represents and offers, so it becomes a reliable source for LLMs to cite. Cohesive and authoritative branding will play a big role in improving visibility.

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20. Do More With Less By Swapping The Fluff For Trustworthy Information

Jamie Indigo, Director of Technical SEO at Cox Automotive Inc.

Visibility in 2025 is all about understanding the context in which your site exists. More content will be created this year than 2010-2018 combined.

In the face of a rapidly expanding internet full of regurgitated AI, Google’s goal of crawling less makes sense. If your site is made of the same content as all the others using that particular AI tool, why bother?

AI-generated content is statistically probable rather than factually accurate. It may lack the depth, nuance, and originality that users seek.

Google’s emphasis on crawling less underscores the need for unique, high-quality content that provides genuine value to users.

This is why your website’s unique context is so important. Smaller sites should have different focuses than large sites.

If your site is greater than 100,000 pages … does it need to be? How much of that content do users actually engage with? This is your time to be intentional about the index.

If it doesn’t solve a real human problem, cut the cruft. Do more with less by swapping the fluff for trustworthy information.

This includes all the bells and whistles on your site to make it as shiny as possible. A feature no one uses is waste. Great content with a bad user experience is still bad content. Even great content is useless if it isn’t relevant to why the user came to the page.

SEO professionals should prioritize trustworthy experiences that fulfill user intent. If you’re answering questions and helping get things done, you’ll see growth.

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21. Learn How To “Program Personas” Effectively

Michael Bonfils, Global Managing Director at SEM International

As you already know, SEO professionals who figure out how to combine data, creativity, and AI-driven innovation will be the ones who win.

An opportunity for SEO pros in 2025 will be learning how to “program personas” effectively.

This means taking tools like ChatGPT and other LLMs and feeding them the right inputs – like your target audience’s behaviors, their pain points, and the brand tone – to create AI-driven personas that are specific, strategic, and actionable.

Think of these personas as virtual assistants who can brainstorm and refine ideas with you tailored to your exact needs.

For example, you could program an AI persona to act like a Gen Z skateboarder or a busy CFO and have it generate ideas or strategies that would appeal directly to that group.

This goes beyond traditional keyword research; it’s about having AI provide insights you might not have considered, delivering fresh, relevant angles.

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22. Businesses Should Invest In A Strong Internal SEO Product-Oriented Team

Pedro Dias, Founder and SEO Consultant at Visively

SEO professionals should step back and try to understand how their strategies impact the new rules of the game we’re currently playing in search.

There’s a lot of noise around promises of easy traffic at scale that are more designed to catch off-guard anyone not fully aware of what they should be doing, and make money from the less savvy.

That said, the important pillars of SEO remain:

Technical Excellence

Ensuring a site is crawlable and indexable by search engines is foundational – log file analysis, optimizing crawl paths, and resolving technical barriers (e.g., redirects, canonicalization, and URL structures).

Data-Driven Decision Making

Leveraging tools like Google BigQuery to analyze search and performance data — making SEO decisions based on solid data, such as understanding user behavior, identifying patterns in search intent, or assessing technical performance.

Scalability And Sustainability

Building scalable systems and processes that support SEO growth — preventative measures, automation, and frameworks (“Improvements, Prevention, Recovery” models) for a proactive approach over reactive fixes.

Collaboration With Product Teams (For Internal Teams)

Integrating SEO into product and development workflows, highlighting the importance of SEO as a core component rather than a marketing afterthought.

User-Centric Approach

Ensuring SEO efforts align with delivering value to users, as user satisfaction often drives ranking improvements.

I believe it’s more important than ever that businesses seriously invest in having a strong internal SEO product-oriented team.

This will be a game changer for the future as this will increasingly be a factor to differentiate sustained growth better catered when you have a deep knowledge of your product and vertical of operation, rather than the sole reliance on intermittent external collaborators.

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SEO in 2025

In a continuation from last year, SEO is changing more rapidly than at any other time in the history of the industry.

As we said at the beginning, SEOs need to change their mindset away from the old way to a new holistic approach that seeks to find visibility where your audience is. Most likely across Google SERPs, Bing SERPs, ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Gemini, TikTok, YouTube, all in varying degrees.

Most of the experts agree that focusing on brand and producing quality content that demonstrates expertise is an area of focus.

We also think, removing reliance on Google for organic traffic would be a smart investment to make right now.

More Resources:

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Voice Search SEO: How Does It Work? via @sejournal, @BennyJamminS

When Google Voice was released in 2012, and then Amazon Alexa was released in 2014 voice search was expected to be highly influential.

Voice search didn’t quite take off in an industry-shaking way. But, as the technology has improved, it’s become integrated into so many devices and daily user journeys that it’s important to understand for SEO.

What Is Voice Search And Voice Commerce?

Voice search describes when people use their voice devices to access information available from search engines.

Voice commerce describes people using voice devices to make purchases. It’s part of voice search, and users often interact with search engines to complete purchases.

For SEO professionals, there are two core functions you should pay attention to:

1. Local intent searches: People often use voice searches when they’re traveling to search for things they need and places they need to go. In these cases, your local SEO is critical. You need to ensure your Google Business Profile is up to date and that you can be discovered in map applications.
2. Using voice assistants to access Search: There are all sorts of reasons someone might prefer or need to use their voice to access search engines. When this happens, the questions tend to be highly specific and in “natural language.” This means you should prioritize not only organic rankings but also SERP features, because SERP features tend to better represent natural language picked up in voice search and where you want visibility.

Alongside core functions, there are three different core voice search intents to consider for SEO:

Transactional Intent

Someone is looking to purchase a product or go to a location for a product or service.

• Using an Amazon Alexa to order products. Voice assistants can connect to accounts with saved payment options and perform the process automatically. “Alexa, order cat food.”
• Using a smart assistant, likely on a phone or a car’s own voice recognition feature, to direct them to a local business for a specific need. “Hey Google, take me to Home Depot.” “Hey Siri, find me a gas station.”

High-Intent Consideration

Someone doesn’t know exactly what they want, but they need something.

• While driving, looking for something to eat or a coffee shop. “Hey Google, show me coffee shops nearby.”
• Using an Amazon Echo device to create a shopping list. “Alexa, add eggs to my shopping list.”
• Asking a voice assistant where to find a specific item. “Hey Siri, where can I get cast iron pans?”

How-To/Active Learning Query

Users interact with voice assistants to answer questions or find information.

• Using a voice assistant to refer to a recipe while cooking.
• Accessing search functions using a voice assistant. “Hey Google, how do I find a wall stud?”

Informational Query

Someone uses a voice assistant to come up with a quick answer.

• “Hey Google, who is the current King of England?”

Accessibility

• Voice devices and screen readers are used by people with vision issues and other disabilities to access the internet.

Voice Is Part Of Everyday Search & Purchase Journeys

Voice search and mobile SEO are highly interconnected.

Basically, every mobile device is also a voice device, so I find it helpful to think about the place in the journey a user is when they use their voice.

If you take a look at what people say they use their voice assistants for, there isn’t much room for traditional SEO discovery – in the sense of Googling things, in the real-world functions. But they are making shopping lists and making purchases.

What Devices Use Voice Search?

Voice recognition technology has a long history, but the first true voice assistant was Siri, released on the Apple app store in 2010 and integrated into the iPhone in 2011.

Many voice assistants have connectivity to either the internet at large or certain aspects of search functionality, such as Google Maps. The main voice assistants are:

• Google Assistant.
• Apple Siri.
• Microsoft Cortana.
• Amazon Alexa.

Voice search is embedded into many devices. Some have limited functionality, like a Roku remote that searches for TV shows and movies. Others can access almost anything online, like an Amazon Echo or the Google voice assistant.

There’s voice tech in your phone and your car if you’ve bought a vehicle made in the last 10 years. There’s voice tech in your TV or streaming device.

Devices that can connect to voice search functions include:

• Phones.
• Tablets and laptops.
• PC computers and gaming consoles.
• Cars.
• TVs.
• Appliances such as refrigerators.
• Voice assistant devices (such as the Echo).

Not all of these devices have implications for SEO. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for you to do SEO for someone giving voice commands to appliances around their house.

Why Is Voice Search Good For SEO?

There are multiple reasons that voice search is critical for SEO strategy, and the specific reason depends on the intent and use case.

These intents also inform your approach and the tactics you use to target users engaging with voice search.

Accessibility

People with visual impairments likely use devices like screen readers and may use voice interactions to engage with content online.

Ensuring your content is easy for devices like screen readers to navigate improves the user experience for all users, not just those needing accessibility functions.

User Experience

Some people prefer voice interactions or activate search functions using their voice when they’re not able to use their hands. Common examples include driving and cooking.

Immediacy & Intent

Voice searches are often conducted for convenience when a user doesn’t need to spend time searching or when they need something quickly.

Examples of this intent include:

• Using a voice-activated device to place an Amazon order.
• Using the voice function in your car or on your phone to look for a local business while you’re out.

How Do You Optimize For Voice Search?

In many cases, if you’re properly targeting intent and keeping updated with the SEO fundamentals of your website and content, you’re already optimizing for voice search. This technology is advanced and mature and can read the web.

There really is no disadvantage to targeting voice search if you think about it in terms of intent and use case.

If you perform well in voice search, you likely also perform well in overall SEO because voice assistants can connect to external sources to provide you with information.

So, if you’re the top result in that source (Google Maps, Google Search, Amazon marketplace, Etsy, etc.), you’re more likely to be the result the user hears or sees.

However, certain elements of voice search need specific attention, such as conversational queries, Amazon shopping, and local search.

Local SEO: Voice Search & Near Me Queries

Voice search and local queries are closely aligned due to the use case. People on the road, looking for somewhere to stop, will likely use voice search. Or they might look for somewhere to go right before leaving the house.

The good news is that if you’re investing in local SEO, you’re already well-positioned to appear in these kinds of voice searches.

It’s critical to optimize for the Map Pack, build your Google Business Profile, and develop local-SEO friendly websites to serve these voice search intents.

You want to make a local-focused experience as smooth as possible. When people are out traveling or running errands, being the first to serve their immediate and specific needs can mean walk-in traffic.

• Make sure your Google Business Profile is complete, including contact information, address, service area, payment types, etc.
  • Navigate to your business profile by searching for your business.
  • Click on “Edit Profile.”
  • Ensure that you complete all relevant fields.

• Make sure that you add products and services to your Google Business Profile. This helps people discover you when they’re looking for something specific.
  • Click on “Edit Products” or “Edit Services” depending on your business type.
  • Add details about all of the things you offer. Pair this with keyword research to understand what people are looking for and align your offerings with their intent and wording.

Follow these resources from SEJ to achieve higher local rankings and show up in local voice searches:

Optimize For Ecommerce Queries On Amazon And Google

The Alexa ecosystem connects with users’ Amazon accounts and allows them to make purchases quickly and easily using their voice.

If you’re in ecommerce, this makes your optimization on platforms like Amazon critical. While the Alexa ecosystem often means that users skip platforms like Google, that doesn’t mean SEO is irrelevant.

Amazon is a search engine, too, and properly optimizing your business and products on the platform could help you increase sales via direct voice purchases.

Other voice assistants might access search engines like Google for product searches.

Optimize your product landing pages with structured data (expanded on in the next section) for an easy user experience, both in Google Search and if a user decides to explore your page using voice.

Optimize Structured Data And Target Featured Snippets

SERP features and AI Overviews focus on providing short, quick summaries and answers to specific queries.

If you can appear in these additional features, then you’re right at the top of the page where those queries are answered, whether they’re typed or spoken.

Structured data is particularly important for voice queries, especially those spoken back to the user without a screen.

Properly structuring the data about your pages and content helps the algorithms choose what to display and helps voice assistants speak coherent results.

On the smaller screens of mobile devices, featured snippets become important because there’s less screen space for users to see organic results.

Schema should be part of your overall SEO strategy and you can learn more here:

Target High-Intent Long-Tail Keywords

Voice search involves answering queries that people speak. While SEO often involves targeting short phrases that people type, people speak very differently.

There are three key considerations for keyword targeting when it comes to voice:

1. People tend to speak in long phrases.
2. Many people use voice search for purchase-related queries, such as making online purchases and creating shopping lists.
3. Voice queries tend to express immediate or short-term needs. People often ask their voice assistants to find something or perform an action. (Play a podcast, find a recipe, find or direct to a place.)

All these facts make long-tail queries and high-intent task or product-focused queries important.

By creating content on your website that serves these types of queries, you can get yourself in front of audiences during decisions or consideration points in their process.

SEJ has many resources on long-tail queries and targeting query intent:

Answer Questions Conveniently

Developments in AI have improved how search engines respond to queries in longer form, “natural” or “conversational” language. These types of queries are more likely from voice searchers. They’re also key to successful SEO strategies overall.

As AI algorithms get better at understanding and responding to complex queries, voice search is becoming less of a separate thing to optimize for and more of a benefit of a robust SEO strategy.

Your content strategy should involve developing easily accessible answers to questions and common queries you expect from your audience.

You can use Google’s features, such as People Also Ask, and your keyword research tools to identify questions your audience will likely ask and then build them into your content strategy.

Read these resources from SEJ to find out more about questions and answers:

Understand Intent To Serve Voice Queries

Advanced natural language processing means search algorithms can easily interpret queries, even in complex language, and return results that match them.

Your focus should be on search intents for users who are either in a hurry, have a high intent to action, or need additional accessibility.

For all these users, you should make your website easy to navigate and focus on acquiring the top spots in featured snippets and local SEO results.

While voice search wasn’t as disruptive as expected, it was a step in the development of natural language processing towards AI technology. Understanding these concepts can help you succeed in modern SEO.

More resources:

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Holiday SEO Pitfalls To Avoid: Common Mistakes And How To Fix Them via @sejournal, @wburton27

With the holiday approaching fast, it’s time to go through holiday SEO pitfalls and learn how to avoid and fix them.

Salesforce predicts a 2% year-over-year global sales growth for November and December, totaling $1.19 trillion, with U.S. sales expected to reach $277 billion – also up 2% from last year.

With people holding on to their wallets and watching every penny, you must fight for every dollar.

Make sure you have a solid holiday SEO strategy to win, especially since there are five fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas compared to 2023.

Plus, Google is getting more competitive and pushing organic results further down the page.

Mistake #1: Late Planning And Implementation

Some businesses wait until November or December to start building their holiday SEO strategy, which does not leave a lot of time to get new content indexed and ranked.

The Solution

Start holiday SEO planning three to four months in advance.

If you’re planning your holiday content in November and expect to rank in December for “Christmas Holiday gifts” with a brand new page, it is not going to happen. You should build out a page way in advance.

Create a content calendar focusing on your top products, guides, and helpful content. Look at last year’s sales and analytics data to show you what products sold the most and bought in the most revenue.

This will also help your company decide what items you should keep in stock based on previous order history.

Implement technical SEO updates like making sure your pages load as quickly as possible and your shopping cart process is smooth, quick, and easy to add new products or delete old or out-of-stock items.

Use historical data and SEO tools like Exploding Topics and Google Trends to predict trending topics and make sure you have helpful and useful content that is original, unique, and engaging.

Mistake #2: Lack Of An Integrated Strategy

Some businesses rely on organic search as the only channel to bring traffic.

Unfortunately, organic search is getting pushed down the fold due to AI overviews, paid search, and other factors.

In order to be successful, you must have an integrated strategy that works with paid search, social, and video.

Also, start thinking of SEO as “search engine everywhere” to maximize your website’s visibility across all digital marketing channels. This can drive more organic traffic, better visibility, and a consistent brand message, boosting sales and leads across all platforms and customer touchpoints.

The Solution

Get support from relevant stakeholders and decision-makers by showing them data on organic, paid, and how other channels work together to drive performance.

Share data and content plans. If you’re building content and new landing pages, let SEO optimize it, share learnings to incorporate into paid search ad copy, and vice versa. Also, the content should be shared on social channels to drive organic and social performance.

Plus, implement an omnichannel approach to show the value of an integrated strategy.

Mistake #3: Poor URL Structure For Seasonal Content

Some businesses create new URLs every year for holiday content, which is not a recommended practice because you will have to set up redirects, secure backlinks, and gain authority.

The Solution

Use evergreen URLs (e.g., /holiday-gift-guide instead of /holiday-gift-guide-2024), and do not change the URL strategy. Keep it consistent all the time.

Update existing content and landing pages rather than creating new URLs.

Implement 301 redirects from old holiday URLs to new URLs to transfer some equity to the new URLs.

Maintain consistent internal linking structure to reinforce important pages and help search engines understand your site structure.

Mistake #4: Poor Category And Filter Optimization

Do not allow Google and other search engines to index duplicate content from multiple filter combinations and category pages.

The Solution

Use canonical tags to inform Google that this is the specified version of the page or implement robots.txt directives for filtered pages for the search engines to ignore.

Update and optimize your titles and metadata with unique and original content.

Create unique content for the main category pages. Think outside the box and offer content that provides value to end users and meets their intent.

For example, if you have a category page about Christmas gifts for 5-year-olds, make sure you have a video, imagery, and questions that people are asking, and you’re optimized for shopping results since that is a transactional keyword.

For instance, REI does a great job at making sure the filter content has a canonical tag on it.

Mistake #5: Not Optimizing For Local

Local searches are particularly important, especially during the holidays, as 42% of Google searches have local intent.

Google places a strong emphasis on local relevance in its search results to provide users with the most helpful information based on their location.

If your local search is not optimized, you’re missing an opportunity to get in front of your local audience during the holiday season when local queries begin to spike.

The Solution

Optimize your local listings and make sure your local assets are filled out with detailed business information, high-quality photos, regular updates, and actively respond to customer reviews.

Update holiday business hours to make sure that customers know when you’re open and when you’re not.

Create location-specific landing pages to give your site a chance to rank for location-based searches (e.g., [Surprise dolls near Fargo North Dakota]).

Optimize local holiday keywords and maintain consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) information across search engines and directories.

Encourage holiday-specific reviews by asking customers if they like your product or the experience they had shopping at your online store.

Mistake #6: Lack Of High-Quality Content

If you’re a brand with thousands or millions of pages or working on a small team, you have a lot on your plate and may rush to create holiday content.

Rushing content just to get it out there may result in low-quality content that does not demonstrate experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T).

Additionally, if you do not have high-quality content that is people first, you run the risk of getting hit by a core algorithm update.

The Solution

Create comprehensive gift guides that are unique and offer value to end users. For example, you can break down gift guides for men, women, kids, grandparents, etc.

Develop unique product descriptions that are different from those of your competitors.

Oftentimes, when a brand sells the same product as competitors, the product description is identical. Search what questions people ask about that product and include it in your descriptions or your page.

Update existing content with fresh information, surveys, information, and links or mentions to high-authoritative sites. Always create people-first content that is helpful and useful as opposed to creating content that is not natural.

Prioritize and plan. You may not get to everything, but if you can cover off on the biggest money makers, you will be in decent shape if you move the needle and drive high-quality traffic that converts.

Conduct keyword research and competitor analysis to help inform content strategy.

Speak to the current year and relevant trends in your holiday SEO content, like “2024 Best Holiday Gifts.”

Mistake #7: Technical SEO Oversight

We all know mistakes can happen, especially during holidays, when you get a lot of traffic.

The Solution

Have an always-on technical approach. Monitor and optimize site speed.

If you see that your top product page loads slowly, try to fix it right away to drive more sales and traffic.

Implement product and breadcrumb schema on your holiday products to give Google more information about your content.

Ensure proper handling of out-of-stock items so customers know what to expect and when the items will be back in stock.

If you have 404 error pages, fix them, make sure the URLs are 200, and load the content people came to your site for.

Mistake #8: Poor Internal Linking Strategy

Internal linking is essential during this season and can reinforce important pages, especially holiday-specific pages and promotions.

The Solution

Create a holiday hub page and update navigation to feature seasonal categories that do not change.

Mark it up using breadcrumb schema, so Google will understand your site navigation.

Have strong CTAs to drive more traffic and sales of your products, especially if you’re using discounts, e.g., Unlock 30% off just for you!

You may also link between holiday-related content. For example, red baseball hats can have an internal link to pink baseball hats because they are close enough in color.

Mistake #9: Ignoring Historical Data

Not utilizing last year’s data to inform your current holiday SEO strategy could lead to missed opportunities.

The Solution

Analyze last year’s top-performing pages using Google Analytics 4 or other analytics tools. This will help you prioritize your SEO efforts.

Review historical keyword trends. Make sure you have the content and assets to be relevant for those terms this year.

Identify successful promotional strategies used last year that you can incorporate this year to drive better engagement and more sales.

Use analytics data to predict inventory demands and have a strategy for out-of-stock items or a surge in sales.

Mistake #10: Inadequate Performance Monitoring

Some websites do not have proper tracking set up for the holiday season.

We all know that GA4 is cumbersome, so work with your analytics team to make sure GA4 is set up correctly, tracking events and attributing correctly to organic research.

The Solution 

Conduct an analytics audit and data review with your team. Track performance metrics, monitor competitors’ activities, test your content, and have a plan in place for traffic spokes.

Mistake #11: Poor Mobile Optimization

With the majority of U.S. consumers using their mobile phones to shop on Amazon and other big box retailers, having a poorly optimized mobile site can hurt rankings and conversions.

The Solution

Make sure your site is optimized, provides a good mobile experience, loads quickly, and has a quick and easy checkout process.

Wrapping Up

With the holidays approaching, early planning is critical to SEO success.

Optimize for mobile and local, and make sure your site has a strong technical foundation.

Build out high-quality, people-first content that is helpful, and use historical data to predict trends from the previous year.

SEO is not about rankings; it’s about providing users with useful content and a seamless user experience. Adopting these strategies will help convert seasonal traffic into sales while building long-term SEO value for your site.

More Resources:

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