Five reasons to have an SEO strategy in 2025

SEO as a discipline has evolved considerably over the years it has been a serious part of the marketing mix, with link building becoming increasingly difficult and Google and Bing seeming to favour big businesses in the search results.

A lot of marketers are asking: Is an SEO strategy still going to be relevant in 2025?

It’s a valid question; after all, you have less control over what shows in the search results than you’ve ever had. Google decides whether to show your metadata to searchers, they release punitive algorithm updates and your startup website has little chance of ranking well against an established .org publication with years of domain authority (and huge content creation budgets).

However, with 53% of (trackable) website traffic coming from Organic Search and 68% of web experiences beginning with a search engine interaction, there is still a place for SEO.

New and emerging technologies may on the surface appear to have supplanted traditional web and app SEO but there is a positive feeling in the ether with regards to how AI, for example, can augment your SEO.

Generative AI, while seeming like the death knell for original content creation, can be a great way to save time and resource, boosting content relevance and quality with a simple prompt – allowing you to spend your valuable time optimising good content instead of writing it.

Google is also not the only major player in search anymore, with AI tools now doing a much better job of aggregating your most relevant search results in an intuitive manner.

This article will explore the top five reasons why an SEO strategy is indeed still an absolutely non-negotiable part of your customer acquisition strategy and why.

So, what is SEO?

You’ve no doubt seen that SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, but what does that really mean? Like the treasure maps of yore with X marketing the spot, SEO is like providing a search engine with a map to your website.

There are lots of components that make up a good “map” to your website and these include the phrases you use in your content, the structure of your website and the links pointing back to the website. Search engines, once they have found your website, will then weigh it up against other websites competing to rank for the same word or phrase and take things like site speed and user experience into account.

Good SEO lights the way to your website and facilitates that journey with an accessible, fast loading platform with relevant, up to date content.

What do search engines look for?

SEO work has one objective and that is to increase the Authority of your website for high value search terms, but that is only one side of the equation. The other is Popularity.

Search engines like Google want to see that users like your website and engage with it well. Because they pride themselves on being the number one search engine in the world, they want to maintain that reputation by ranking websites highly that are, yes, credible and relevant but also have proven indicators of popularity.

While search engine algorithms have changed a lot in the last decade and a half/two decades, they have – at heart – exactly the same objectives:

• Rank the page that is the most credible and relevant – Looking for Domain Authority and Authority in its truest sense of a subject matter.
• Rank the page that fits all the above and is also the most talked about and liked – Looking for Popularity.

What has changed is how they determine Authority in a topic and Popularity amongst users, so let’s do a quick dive into these factors.

How to search engines determine Authority and Popularity?

Let’s start with Authority. This consists of:

• Relevance: How relevant is your content to the target search term?

• Content Quality: How original and valuable is your content? Have you researched it well and is it genuinely informative. Does it add true value to your user?

• Proven Expertise & Credentials: Have you provided team bios and indications of your expertise in the sector? Do you have a credible domain name and Top Level Domain (TLD)? For example, many .org websites are high quality, well-researched websites and have a reputation for trustworthiness and credibility.

• Link Quality: If you are trying to rank for a phrase like “battery energy storage” and a website known for its expertise in battery energy storage links to you as an information source, that will, of course lend your domain more credibility in your sector. If you have hundreds of links from less relevant websites, this won’t help you half as much as one really high quality link. In fact, it may even harm you.

• Domain Authority: This is calculated out of 100, with the higher number scored being better. Domain Authority is determined by your link quality, user experience and content quality and it sends a signal to search engines that your content can be trusted and is highly valued.

• Domain URL & Age: Having a relevant domain name will help you enormously in terms of authority. This also trickles down to your individual page URLs. A page talking about the benefits of battery energy storage, for example, should have something like www.mycompanyname.co.uk/benefits-of-energy-storage/ in its URL and not www.mycompanyname.co.uk/energy_?!44kjftiit/

• Website Security: A website that demonstrates its secure status with https will rank better than a website still using http. Https? is an encryption between your browser and the server of the website and helps stop the theft of personal details.

• (TLD) Top Level Domain: A UK-based website should have a .co.uk domain as it looks professional, signifies you are based in the UK, and helps search engines rank you for UK-based search queries.

Now, let’s look at Popularity – which is just as important in determining where you will rank for your highest value search terms.

• Number of Backlinks: A genuine link is someone saying, “I really liked this content, I’d like you to see this content so that you can benefit from it how I have benefitted”, which is irresistible to a search engine. The more of these genuine links, the better? Who wants 100 less relevant links if you can get 50 links from truly authoritative, relevant sources. When each link is an endorsement of you and your brand, you want them to be genuine and credible.

• Traffic Volume and User Engagement: Yes, search engines like Google know exactly who comes to your website and how they engage with the content. High traffic from users with low Bounce/Exit rates and high Conversion Rates will send a huge “I’m really popular, so rank me highly” signal.

• Click-Through-Rate: Traffic numbers are important; however, are users clicking through to your website from the Search Engine Results at a good rate? If not, low positioning side as a factor, you may need to tweak your Meta Title and Description to ensure it is relevant to the keywords you are targeting. Users won’t click on something that doesn’t connect to their thought process and journey. Google, for example, sees a high CTR as an indication that the website is popular.

• Social signals: These aren’t direct ranking factors but popular social media content from a profile associated with your brand and website will show authority and popularity.

• Reviews: Reviews impact indications of popularity hugely, because they are viewed as an indicator of quality and signify that users are interested in your brand and website. Good reviews can also directly impact your click-through-rate, adding another positive ranking factor to the mix. Encourage reviews on your Google Business Profile, Yelp, Trip Advisor and Trustpilot, wherever is most relevant for your offering.

So, now that we have explained what SEO is, why it is important and what constitutes good signalling to search engines that you are relevant, authoritative and popular, lets go into the five core reasons why you need an SEO strategy going into 2025.

1. One SERP position change really can make the difference to your bottom line

Not even a number one SERP (Search Engine Results Pages) position can guarantee you will get all the traffic for a search, but it can still make a huge difference to your bottom line. With Local Packs, Google Ads listings and the “People Also Ask” section of drop downs, a number 1 position will net you a click-through-rate of approximately 39.8%.

If you think that’s a little low, you should see position 2, at 18.7% and position 3 at 10.2%.

If you love maths, you’ll know that the average ecommerce conversion rate; i.e. the rate by which a user will visit an online shop and make a purchase, is about 4.1%. This is lower for B2B services websites, at around 2.23%.

So, let’s say your search term has a 1000 searches per month. At position 1, you’ll get around 390 clicks. If your website converts at about 2%, you’ll get about eight conversions. That’s if your website is fast enough and has watertight UX.

Compare that to position 2. Same search term, different CTR. At number two, you’re getting approximately 18.7% of the clicks from your 1,000 searches. That gives you 187 clicks and just under four conversions.

If each conversion is worth ￡10,000 in real world money, you’d be netting a potential ￡78,000 at position 1 and about ￡30,740 at position 2 (MQL to SQL conversion notwithstanding).

Position 3 drops your potential revenue to ￡20.4K. That’s a drop of around a third, just by virtue of being at position 3 and not position 2.

2. The AI’s the limit: Google is no longer your only place to rank well

With tools like CoPilot, you can conduct in depth research and have a real time conversation with a chatbot that crawls websites for you in a much more intuitive way that your traditional search engine. At the moment, Google has an AI summary of its top result but does not provide a range of resources in the top spot for you to browse.

With AI crawlers, you can ask a question and get an answer that has been compiled through a crawl of the internet’s best resources. As you can see below, the content is sourced, so you can check it for authenticity.

If you would like your content to show in AI tools in this manner, you’ll need to optimise it in a very similar way to how you would for Google; i.e. including keywords your users search for and making sure your website is as mobile friendly and fast as possible.

3. Organic Search is still the web’s number one channel

53% of trackable website traffic comes from Organic Search. SEO is far from being obsolete. In fact, it is even more important, as demonstrated by the differing bottom line figures above, to rank at a top position than it has ever been.

While SEO is still absolutely vital in your marketing mix, you’ll need to make sure you are optimising your website for intent as well as search volume. This means really getting into the mindsets of your potential customers; as in:

• How are they describing what they want?
• Where would you place their queries in the conversion funnel?
• When do they search?
• What devices are they using?

Like many businesses, you’ll find that your audience is not a monolithic entity, and that you will need to see how you can break them down into user groups and/or personas so that you have the right, properly optimised content ready for their search.

4. High search positions increase brand credibility and trust

How many of you have searched for a service and ignored the paid listings to see who is ranking at number one? Probably all of you at some point.

Ranking highly for a search term increases brand awareness and exposure over time. If a user sees your website listed when they are at the Awareness stage of the conversion funnel, and then sees it again when they are at the Conversion stage, you are more likely to get that click.

If you rank highly, you are automatically perceived as being high quality and trustworthy.

5. Search is a low-funnel, higher intent marketing tool

While you can try and rank for higher volume, bigger phrases, your wins come from knowing that users search for a specific longtail keyword 50 times per month and that your content meets the need expressed in that search perfectly.

Users searching for something do not need to be told that the “thing” exists – they’re already past the awareness stage already. They may not even need to be told that they want the “thing”, depending on the search term and the intent behind it. That puts you way further ahead in terms of funnel progression than other forms of marketing that find customers when they are browsing elsewhere.

With search, the user comes to you. It’s magic, really. Make sure you are there.

So, those are your five biggest reasons to have an SEO strategy going into 2025, but where on earth does one begin?

How can you improve your SEO as a beginner?

We’ve provided the tactics and the why factor – but where do you start? That is a question we hear a lot. After all, it can be a bit overwhelming to jump straight in.

Here are some things you can do to start getting some quick wins in SEO:

• Set up a Google Business account: Have you set up a Google Business account? All you need is a Gmail and access to your business phone number for verification. It’ll help you rank for local search terms and you may even then appear right at the top of the search results in the local listing “three pack”. It’s also a great way of getting reviews, which help your rankings.

• Do Keyword Research: Have you researched what your potential customers are looking for? This is still one of the most interesting and vital things you can do to understand your customer and optimise your content for what they want to see. For example, “pr consultancy” has around 70 searches per month, while “pr consulting” has around 170. The subtle differences between a search for “consultancy” and “consulting” may seem minor; however, it tells you that your audience is searching for a service more than an entity and is relatively open to how that service is rendered. Use tools like SEMrush or AHREFs to do this research.

• Optimise Website Tags: Each page should have its own Meta Title and Meta Description heavily influenced by your keyword research. This can make an immediate impact on how you rank and your click-through-rate, as relevant Title Tags and Meta Descriptions make for a cohesive user journey as well.

• Speed Up Your Website: If you have large images and slow loading JavaScript, then your website will be sending a negative signal to search engines and users alike. Use this free tool to make sure your website passes the Core Web Vitals test.

We’ve given you a lot of information in this article – if you’d like to discuss with the team, book a call with us today and we’ll happily discuss your website and the quick wins you can implement.

Written by,

Rebecca Graves Woods | Digital Account Director