In the last few years, we saw a lot of changes to Google, but also other search engines. As it usually goes, the algorithms have become more selective as to which content they present to end-users. Manipulating the system with cheap tricks is nowadays almost impossible, forcing website owners to focus on the quality of information.
In the upcoming 2025, search engine optimization will revolve more around topical expertise. Whether we’re talking about the author or the website as a whole, Google will assess your past work when prioritizing articles within the search results.
In this article, we’ll talk about different SEO strategies and SEO tools that you might want to implement in 2025. Enjoy!
The changes to the SEO landscape
In the last several years, search engines have placed much more emphasis on user experience. Optimizing sites for mobile devices and increasing their speeds are already old concepts. Aside from that, sites can benefit from having higher CTR, more page views, and longer time spent on pages.
Furthermore, there is much more focus on providing quick information that directly answers people’s questions. When browsing different search queries, users are looking for fast replies. They don’t want to read thousands of words to get what they need. Google has made changes to how it delivers results by highlighting the best definitions.
Although these trends are important, the real change came with AI-generated content.
Chatbots such as ChatGPT have changed the content creation process forever. Nowadays, there’s a heated debate regarding computer-generated articles, how they affect optimization, and whether they’ll replace real authors. While this technology is brand new, it’s already sending shockwaves through the community.
17 Biggest trends in 2026
Without further ado, here are some of the biggest trends and innovations lurking in 2025! Some of them are the continuation of previous trends, while others are completely fresh, relating to brand-new algorithm changes.
1. EEAT
EAT, or expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, is a concept that has been around for a while. It was officially introduced in 2014, but it is often overlooked compared to some other search engine ranking factors.
Basically, it tells us about content creators’ proficiency and whether they’re well-equipped to tackle the topic. Google used this system to assess the relevancy of a website to a particular topic and also to analyze if the source is credible enough.
In other words, EAT would assess your entire body of work, but also website factors, to assign rankings. For example, sites that wrote about digital marketing would get a push for digital marketing topics. Pages that were featured and linked to by some of the biggest blogs would get more exposure than those that haven’t, etc.
EEAT introduction
In December 2022, Google expanded the concept by adding another letter. Now, it’s called EEAT and refers to experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
Now, we don’t fully understand what Google refers to under experience as this is a rather comprehensive term. However, we received a few pointers from the company:
We presume that author credibility will become an even more important factor for search engine algorithms as artificial intelligence takes over. Experts presume that AI content can severely hinder your ability to place at the top of search rankings. This makes sense, given that all these articles are nothing than regurgitated articles by human authors.
4. AI tools
Like with most other technologies, people are still very reserved when it comes to artificial intelligence. According to many experts, these tools might be detrimental to your placement within Google search, as the algorithm perceives AI-generated posts as low quality.
Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t benefit from this type of software. While AI programs shouldn’t be your focal point, nor should you create whole articles with them, they can serve as ancillary tools for creating quality content. Here are a few things they can help us with:
Keep in mind these are just a few main user stats that Google considers when allocating rankings. Aside from working in a vacuum, where each has a value of its own, they probably also have a cumulative effect.
Whatever the case might be, it’s your task as a website owner to create the best possible browsing experience. Among others, you need to create pages that answer user intent, that are interactive, and provide unique knowledge that can’t be found elsewhere.
6. FAQ
One of the latest top SEO trends is adding an FAQ section at the bottom of the page. If you check the articles published in the last year or so, you’ll notice that most of them have this section.
The reason for adding FAQs is relatively obvious. As of late, Google has started highlighting sentences or parts of sentences and putting them within the featured snippets. So, when looking for something, the search engine will retrieve a direct answer instead of giving you hyperlinks to web posts.
By adding FAQs, SEO experts are trying to optimize for this feature. First off, you add questions related to the underlying topic. These questions usually have a high volume, and it would be beneficial to rank them. Then, right below the question, the writer would add a direct answer to them.
Having a question and an answer just below it helps create a connection between the two. In theory, it would make it easier for the search engine to recognize that one is related to another, increasing the relevancy of the answer.
What type of questions should you add?
Aside from doing keyword research and assessing the volume and difficulty, you can also use tools such as Ask the Public. Google also has a section at the top of the page called People Also Ask, which shows you a few commonly-related questions.
7. Passages
Another major change has to do with the 2021 update called Passages. Similar to quick questions and answers, Google now creates snippets by extrapolating sections of the article. However, it’s worth noting that this is one of the new SEO trends that won’t have much impact on your optimization.
With this new algorithmic change, the search engine ranks sections of an article instead of the whole post. Each passage is allocated a score according to its quality and, specifically, how well it addresses the subheader topic.
In theory, Passages would provide an equal playing field. The update would give you numerous chances to rank for different keywords, sometimes allowing small bloggers to topple large news outlets. However, keep in mind that the algorithm doesn’t analyze paragraphs in a vacuum; you still need links and best SEO practices to rank.
8. Mobile and voice search
Mobile search is nothing new. The MiroMind team has talked about mobile-first indexing for a while now, and we’ve specifically talked about the importance of having an optimized site for phones. Given that most users nowadays access the web through these devices, it makes sense to prioritize this type of browsing.
On the other hand, voice search is a relatively new (although not brand new) technology. While it’s not a perfect system, and it often feels redundant, browsing the internet with your voice is great when driving a car and in some other situations.
According to Google’s representatives, there will be more emphasis in the future on these two types of browsing. Interestingly enough, mobile search and voice search go well hand-in-hand, given that most people perform voice browsing via their phones.
In other words, by optimizing your web pages for both of them, you can reap much more organic traffic in the upcoming years. Specifically, you need to ensure your website opens properly on mobile devices and that it has a fast loading speed.
To learn more about the site’s performance, we suggest you check Core Web Vitals.
9. Video snippets
Google did a great job diversifying its snippets and providing different answer types to its users. Nowadays, readers can get receive much more relevant information in the form they desire. Based on that, it isn’t surprising that videos are frequently featured on search engine ranking pages.
The trend of browsing YouTube for answers is nothing new. It’s especially common for How-To and DIY queries, where you have to perform certain actions with your hands. Video content is also popular among movie buffs and gamers. Here are a few things that might help you rank in Google for videos:
Whether accessibility optimization is a thing or not, you should still implement these small tricks. That way, when the new updates kick in, you’ll also have well-built pages. Not only that, but accessibility optimization can also improve your reputation, especially among this segment of the population.
12. Local SEO
Local SEO isn’t anything new. However, you would be shocked by the number of businesses that haven’t done this type of optimization.
Whether you’re a small company that relies on local customers, or a major international brand, it’s crucial to implement the best local SEO practices. Aside from allowing you to rank in Google for local keywords, this would also increase the reputation and authority of your business.
Specifically, adding the website to all major aggregates helps users determine that your brand is legit. And while this might not be as important for most of your customers, you can rest assured that bigger businesses perform a thorough background check.
Aside from helping you gain more local clients and achieve better rankings, local optimization might open new partnership opportunities. In other words, the star-scoring system can tell a lot about a company’s policies and the legitimacy of a business.
13. Link building
Historically, link building was always one of the most controversial topics within the SEO community. There was always a lot of talk as to what’s ethical and what’s not, with opinions varying significantly from expert to expert.
Although Google has become much more sophisticated nowadays, it still uses links as a vital ranking factor. The same premise remains as before: If top-tier sites are willing to feature your posts, this means they’re also of high quality.
In 2025 and after, you’ll have to pay attention to the following link features:
There’s much more to structured data than just basic crawling. They are also critical for getting more placements within the snippets, which are, nowadays, the bread and butter of successful sites. By adding schema markup to Q&A, recipes, videos, and other content categories, you can gain a major boost to organic traffic.
15. Engaging content
The days of making an impact with simple blocks of unintelligible text are long gone. Nowadays, you need to invest a lot of money to make your pages stand out. Specifically, you should add videos, images, infographics, and other types of visual and interactive content to move the needle.
With all the improvements to Google’s algorithms, people can get answers to their questions rather easily. They don’t have to waste time browsing through countless pages just to find a line or two of text. In the end, this is why the snippets are invented.
So, if you truly wish to retain their attention, you need to add lots of interesting solutions that would keep them engaged. Among others, here are the types of content you could add to your pieces:
- Images
- Embedded videos
- Charts and other statistical data
- Links to studies
- Infographics
- Games and other clickable content
- GIFs, etc.
Basically, you’re looking for all sorts of ways to break up your texts and add life to them. All these elements and content types have an indirect impact on your optimization by keeping people glued to your pages. In other words, they help increase retention, time on site, and other metrics that will help you break into the top results.
16. Product SEO
If you’re a web store, you should definitely implement the best product SEO practices.
In the last few years, Google has introduced several features that would help it compete with the biggest online stores. Specifically, when people are looking to buy something online, they first go to Amazon.com and use their internal search engine to browse products.
Google doesn’t want that. The company wishes to be the best, direct source of information for online shopping, overshadowing all internal engines of individual stores. Because of that, they added a few new functionalities in 2022 that would help improve shoppers’ experience while browsing.
To be more precise, Google has made a major improvement by adding Pros and Cons snippets. This feature provides more information during product reviews. They also introduced other improvements with product structured data.
If you wish to make a bigger impact, you should add this data and optimize it for Google. With this feature, the search engine can detect and rank your product photos in image search. The product structured data also helps Lens function by helping it find information about items in your store. Lastly, make sure to add drop-down menus and FAQs.
17. Multiplatform signals
Historically, Google has mainly focused on links from other websites to assess the quality of a page. They worked as a vote of confidence from other bloggers, indicating that the article is good enough for their own fans but also other users.
However, with the rise of social media and other types of platforms, the linking game has become much more convoluted. While getting a mention on social media is still not as powerful as getting a link, it has become something that might drive your rankings up.
How does the concept work?
While the links are still crucial for passing link juice, they can also be important vehicles for driving quality traffic. In many cases, a link from an irrelevant site can be much less powerful than a single social media mention.
Why is that, you might ask?
As Google is slowly switching to user signals for assessing content quality, spamming irrelevant links has become much less important. Instead, it’s much better to drive solid traffic, thus boosting your time spent on site and CTR stats.
In other words, we theorize that it’s much more beneficial to get a link from a large site’s Facebook profile than a low/medium tier website link. Even if the social media link doesn’t pass any link juice, it can help with other UX ranking signals.
Of course, this is all in theory right now, and we need much more data to get to the bottom of this. Furthermore, this doesn’t mean that links have suddenly become irrelevant. Instead, we’re just trying to say that you can no longer neglect other sources of traffic and the multiplatform approach.
Struggling to find your footing with all these new Google updates? Get Miromind SEO services to help you with day-to-day optimization.