5 Crucial SEO Trends (and How to Adapt)

1. Matching Search Intent Is a MUST If You Want to Rank

Matching search intent has always been a big ranking factor. But now it’s an absolute must if you want to rank consistently.

Let’s take a look at why getting this right matters.

Imagine you’re searching for “best running shoes.” You click on a link expecting to see a list of top sneakers for running. But instead, you land on a product page selling a specific pair of running shoes.

That’s a classic example of matching the keyword but totally missing the mark on intent. The page didn’t give you what you wanted.

That’s why the (organic) search results for a term like this are packed with lists, rather than products:

Now, what would you do in this scenario as a searcher?

Most likely, you’d leave the page and open another one that satisfies your search intent.

You quickly leaving that first page increases its bounce rate, which is an indicator for Google’s algorithms that it didn’t meet your search intent. (More on these signals in the third trend on this list.)

Google can then use this to refine its results for that term to better meet user intent.

Note: This is clearly a pretty simple example. But at scale, Google can use data from thousands of searchers to understand which search results they find useful and which they don’t. Learn more about this in our guide to user behavior and SEO.

A great example of meeting search intent is the page ranking #1 for “QR code scanner”:

It has no content beyond a functional QR code scanner.

Talk about giving users what they want.

Okay, it’s clear why this is a best practice. But where’s the evidence that we’re shifting more in this direction than we were before?

Let’s take a look the SERP for a term like “keyword research” back in April 2024:

Now let’s compare that to the SERP in April 2025:

Last year, a listicle had the top spot, followed by a guide, then a tool. This year, it’s a tool, then a listicle, and then all tools through the rest of the top 10 (bar one video result).

The SERP went from 50% tools in 2024 to 80% in 2025.

The more specific “keyword research tool” saw a similar shift in 2025 vs. 2024:

That SERP went from 60% tools to 90%. It’s an easier one to understand as well: people searching for “keyword research tool” want to find a keyword research tool.

What’s more useful to them: a page telling them about the best tools, or a page that has a tool on it they can instantly try?

It’s not a case of the intent shifting (although that can sometimes explain these kinds of changes). It’s a narrowing of what Google will display for a given search term.

The old way involved ranking for a lot of terms with an ultimate guide that broadly covered all the intents.

Now it’s about truly understanding the main intent behind a search term and making sure you’re meeting that. Rather than trying to meet a more generic intent or lots of different intents at once.

You need to be laser focused on the search intent for every keyword you target. Or you risk wasting a ton of resources and never ranking at all.

How to Optimize for Search Intent

Optimizing your content for search intent starts with identifying EXACTLY what users want to get or achieve with their search term.

One quick and easy way to do this is by using the Semrush Keyword Overview tool. Just enter your target keyword and find out the user intent behind each related keyword.

In this case, the keyword “best running shoes” has commercial search intent. This suggests people are researching purchases. They’re not looking to make one there and then (which would fall under transactional search intent).

And this is exactly what we see in the SERP: pages dedicated to helping searchers research their options before they buy.

But don’t just limit yourself to the four main types of intent (informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional). Remember to drill down to exactly what the searcher wants. Is it:

• A list of products?
• A landing page to buy one specific product or service?
• A tool?
• A definition?
• An in-depth guide?
• A step-by-step walkthrough?

You can also just search for your desired keyword in Google and analyze the top results. Look at what type of content ranks on the first page and what intent they satisfy.

Once you understand what the search intent of your target keyword is, you can create content that will answer the search query and resonate with your target audience.

2. AI Is Changing How We Create Top-Tier Content

Content is an integral part of SEO, whether that’s:

• Blog posts
• Landing pages
• Service pages
• Press releases
• Product pages

Or any other pages with words, images, or videos on them.

Site owners have been using AI to help or wholly write content for these kinds of pages since even before ChatGPT came along. But obviously, the past few years have seen a massive increase.

But the best SEOs and content teams?

They use AI to augment their content, not to create it.

How to Use AI to Level Up Your Content

AI can do a lot of things well. It can summarize information that’s already known, make existing copy shorter, and turn lengthy paragraphs into bullet points.

You can also use it to drum up tables and simple graphical representations of data fast and with ease.

These are all things writers spend a good chunk of time on.

Using AI strategically can unlock a lot of that time for your writers to instead focus on:

• Sourcing relevant quotes from subject matter experts to level up the content’s value
• Suggesting ideas for custom images, graphics, and other visuals to support their writing (AI can help here too)
• Adding original takes and insights from their own experience
• Gathering data and using it or repurposing it to develop new and useful insights
• Creating supplementary resources like templates and tools that increase the actionability of the content

The best writers already do a lot of this — we can speak from experience with our own team (more on that in our guide to using AI for writing).

But this is going to be table stakes moving forward if you want to consistently and sustainably rank at the top of Google.

So in 2025, encourage your writers to think of themselves more as content curators than just content writers.

Note: This doesn’t just apply to writers. Your editors, brief creators, design team, and strategists can all benefit from this approach.

3. SEOs Focus on Optimizing for User Signals and a Great UX

During Google’s big antitrust case, they had to reveal some of the patents their search algorithms use.

It turns out Google leans heavily on user signals to rank content, not just deep content analysis. They’re really good at figuring out if users are happy with what they find.

They likely do this using metrics like click-through rate, dwell time, and bounce rate. (Although we can’t be sure of the specifics for now.)

This means SEO is shifting more towards optimizing for user engagement and satisfaction. In other words: making it clear to Google that you’re giving users what they want (see the first trend on meeting search intent).

Note: Optimizing for user signals comes down to optimizing your page so that users spend more time interacting with your page. Ideally, they’ll even want to share it further.

One way to foster positive user signals and encourage people to spend more time on your pages is by providing a great user experience (UX).

Site speed, ease of navigation, and how users can interact with your site are key elements that Google’s algorithms consider when ranking websites.

How to Optimize for User Signals

Here are some tips to keep visitors engaged with a great user experience:

• Monitor user engagement metrics like time on page, bounce rate, clicks on buttons, or interactions with features. These give you a clear picture of how users are interacting with your site.
• Align your content with exactly what users are searching for. If they’re looking for a quick answer, don’t bury it under a wall of text. Make it easy for them to find the answers.
• Add visual elements like videos and infographics. These elements are engaging and take time to consume the material.
• Add elements that prompt user interaction like comment sections, polls, and quizzes.
• Improve your site speed. Also monitor your Core Web Vitals to stay on top of performance issues.

4. CTRs Will Drop as Zero-Click Searches Rise

In 2024, Google released its AI-powered summaries in search results: AI Overviews.

These are AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of the search results for certain keywords.

These let users ask extensive questions and the AI generates an answer to their queries based on existing content on the web. This makes it easier for users to get the answers they need right there on the SERP.

AI Overviews are not the first feature Google has introduced to search results that has the potential to massively impact website traffic levels.

Over the years, we have seen several new features introduced that have changed the way users access information, products, and services.

From featured snippets, which give users the answer to their question right there on the SERP:

To People Also Ask boxes that give you even more information:

And even built-in calculators that remove the need to even go to another site:

These kinds of features have led to a rise in “zero-click searches.”

All of these things have an impact on one important metric: click-through rate.

There’s no doubt that AI Overviews are likely to reduce the chances of a user clicking through to organic search results for some queries.

One report from Advanced Web Ranking suggests this is already happening at scale for informational queries. And a study by Seer Interactive suggests that, while CTRs are rising for queries without AI Overviews, those with AI Overviews saw CTRs drop over the past year.

But other sites may see the opposite effect. Because Google can include your site in the overview, you can actually drive more traffic to your site than if you were originally ranking at the bottom of page 1 (or lower).

So in some cases, these features will actually help sites get more clicks. But clearly this isn’t going to be true for the majority.

How to Survive as CTRs Continue Dropping

No matter what happens with CTRs, our view stays the same: people still need to get to a site in the end.

Okay, for some searches, they don’t. If Google can show them a quick calculator to convert miles to kilometers, the user doesn’t need a site.

But imagine they’re searching for something like “how to choose an email marketing tool.” No matter how great an answer the AI Overview provides, the user eventually needs to go to an email marketing solution’s website and press the buy button.

So how do you win in this environment?

There are two aspects to this:

1. Making it easier for Google to understand who you are and what you do
2. Shifting your keyword strategy to focus on keywords with higher click potential

1. Grow Your Online Presence Beyond Your Website

If you have other websites, social media profiles, YouTube channels, or business profiles, put effort into growing your presence there.

The more Google can learn about your brand, the more likely it is to feature it in AI Overviews and other SERP features (along with organic rankings).

Also consider where the key discussions are happening in your industry. This could be on platforms like Reddit or social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter/X.

Just look at this snippet of a SERP for “how to perform an seo audit”:

There’s a full screen’s worth of real estate taken up by video and forum results.

If you can grow your presence in these areas, you might not impact your CTR directly.

But you can capture attention and traffic from elsewhere. And you can make it easier for Google to understand more about your brand to potentially include it in AI Overviews.

2. Focus on Click Potential

There’s no doubt that some search terms are just going to be less rewarding than they used to be.

Anything Google can answer with a few paragraphs in an AI Overview is going to be hard to vouch for as part of your keyword strategy.

Instead, focus on terms where you can provide something that Google can’t just summarize.

We’ve done this ourselves with our tool pages:

By expanding our range of free tools, we were able to double down on important terms (keyword research, backlinks etc.) with high click potential (people are looking for tools, not summaries or definitions).

And we’ve seen real click growth across these pages year over year — almost 150%.

Good candidates for high click potential keywords include any with high buyer intent or where the reader wants to take action. An AI summary isn’t going to cater to a user looking to make a purchase or try out a tool.

But you don’t have to be selling something on every page. If your focus is informational content, consider targeting more technical topics. Or on those that require a thorough step-by-step guide (with visuals) to fully cover.

These are topics that, no matter how great the AI summary is, are still likely to generate a lot of clicks.

5. Brand Presence Across the Web Is Becoming a Stronger Authority Signal

Domain authority used to be all about links. You used to be able to focus on getting links to brute force rank for almost any keyword.

And links are still important. Especially for high-value keywords.

But more important than the sheer number of links you get in 2025 is the type of links you get.

I’m not talking about follow vs. nofollow. I’m talking about links where you’re being discussed as an authority.

If you look at our backlink profile, you’ll see that a lot of our links come from sources discussing Brian Dean by name:

This is testament to the influence Brian had with Backlinko. But it’s also a good illustration of the kind of backlinks we believe will become more important in the future.

The kind of backlinks that help you build trust and credibility around your brand, or “brand authority.”

You want to become part of the discussion around key topics in your niche all over the internet. This might sound pretty obvious or basic, but there’s no denying the power of brand awareness and trust in 2025.

The more links you can build to your site that are in the context of relevant discussions in your niche, the better.

This will make it easier for Google (and users) to associate your site with the topics you’re trying to rank for.

In fact, you likely won’t always need a link for this effect to benefit your site. And we believe brand mentions will become more important this year.

We get a lot of these. Like this one, which even mentions what we’re known for (SEO):

That site has an Authority Score of 43, so it would have been a decent link to pick up. But even the mention alone is likely to suggest to Google and readers of that post that Backlinko is a reputable source in the SEO space.

Sure, it’s not a super strong signal, but it’s still a signal.

Or take this example from the Seattle Times, a site with an Authority Score of 71:

Again, that would have been a nice link to get. But it’s still a mention of our brand as a reputable source in a high-authority and high-traffic publication.

Now don’t get me wrong: these would likely have a stronger effect individually on our SEO if they were links. There is no denying that.

But the point we’re trying to make is that just being discussed as an authority across the internet is going to become more important moving forward.

Google’s AI Overviews and the myriad AI tools on the market all rely on understanding brands and what people think of them to produce their answers.

So the more people talk about your brand online, the higher your chances of ranking in search and appearing in the answers these tools provide.

How to Boost Your Brand Authority

Like our previous trend, a lot of the methods to grow your brand authority follow general SEO basics. Create great content, maintain your website, and perform outreach where you can to accelerate your link building efforts.

You don’t just need to focus on blogs, news sites, and other traditional publications. Links from forums and social media sites might not pack the SEO punch of a link from a site with a high Authority Score. But they’re still valuable mentions of your brand.

In fact, mentions of your brand in these places can actually be even more powerful from a conversion and brand awareness perspective.

Like this example of someone recommending one of our posts specifically to help a local business with SEO:

These kinds of mentions can be super powerful for growing trust in your brand.

Why?

Because there are bound to be lots of other business owners that might find that thread and see our post as one of the top recommendations.

Plus, like we showed in the previous section, forum results can take up a significant chunk of the SERP. So appearing in these can indirectly boost your visibility.

You can’t directly influence this of course, at least not without coming across as spammy. But you can:

• Actively post on social media to increase your presence on platforms where people discuss topics related to your brand
• Respond to user questions and concerns on platforms like Reddit and Quora (in a helpful, not promotional, way)
• Share reports or ask for feedback in these subreddits and other communities (where you’re allowed) to spark useful conversation with your audience

This is one of those factors that is tough and effort-intensive to influence. But when you do it well, it can be a massive driver for growth.

What Will Be the Future of SEO in the Next 5 to 10 Years?

If we have one takeaway from these SEO trends, it’s that the bar has been raised in 2025.

Brands that know how to use AI to create better content, not just more content, are the ones that will win.

And while CTRs will keep dropping and more users start trying out new ways to search, the bottom line is that SEO is still a fundamental part of running a website that performs well.

Looking for more on the future of marketing and search? Check out our guide to this year’s content marketing trends.