SEO in 2025: Why Your Strategy Probably Needs Fewer Tactics, Not More
Here's what I've noticed scrolling through SEO Twitter lately: everyone's obsessed with the next tactic. AI overviews! Entity optimization! Topical authority mapping! Meanwhile, half the websites I audit still have broken internal links and pages that take seven seconds to load.
The gap between what SEO experts talk about and what actually matters for most businesses has never been wider. And I say this as someone who genuinely gets excited about schema markup (yes, I'm fun at parties).
Look, I'm not saying advanced tactics don't matter. They do. But here's the thing: if your foundation is shaky, stacking sophisticated strategies on top is like putting racing stripes on a car with a broken engine. It might look faster, but you're not going anywhere.
The Complexity Trap
Somewhere along the way, SEO became a contest to see who could implement the most intricate technical framework. I've sat in strategy meetings where teams spent 45 minutes debating the perfect URL structure for a blog that published twice a month. That same blog had a bounce rate of 73% because the content was, to put it gently, not great.
The reality? Google's gotten better at understanding what users actually want. We've gotten worse at delivering it because we're too busy optimizing for algorithms we think exist.
Recent data from Ahrefs shows that the top-ranking pages for most queries share three characteristics: they load fast, they answer the query comprehensively, and they're linked to from other relevant pages. Not exactly revolutionary. The sophisticated part isn't the strategy—it's the consistent execution over months and years.
What Actually Moves Rankings in 2025
Let me save you some time. After analyzing ranking changes across about 200 client sites this year, here's what consistently correlated with upward movement:
Content that matches search intent so obviously it feels almost boring. If someone searches "how to change a tire," they want steps. With pictures. Not your brand story or a 600-word preamble about the history of rubber. Shopify's blog does this brilliantly—their how-to content is almost aggressively practical.
Technical basics executed flawlessly. I mean truly flawlessly. Every page loads in under 2 seconds. Mobile experience is actually good, not just "passes Core Web Vitals." Internal linking makes sense to humans, not just crawlers. Zapier's documentation is a masterclass here—fast, clear, interconnected.
Backlinks from sites that real humans visit. Not DA 40 blogs that exist only to sell links. Not "guest post opportunities" on sites with more sponsored content than actual readers. The kind of links you'd be proud to show your CEO. When Notion gets linked from a developer's personal blog or a productivity YouTuber's resource page, that's worth more than 50 directory submissions.
Notice what's not on this list? Keyword density formulas. Exact-match anchor text ratios. The perfect number of H2 tags. Because Google's language models are sophisticated enough now that they can figure out what your page is about without you gaming the system. (They're not perfect, but they're good enough that the old tricks mostly just waste your time.)
The Search Intent Obsession You Actually Need
Everyone says "match search intent." Sure, great advice. Right up there with "create quality content" as actionable guidance.
Here's what matching search intent actually means in practice: open an incognito window, search your target keyword, and look at the top 5 results. What format are they? How deep do they go? What questions do they answer?
If the top results are all 2,000-word guides with comparison tables, your 500-word blog post isn't going to crack page one. Doesn't matter how well-optimized it is. The format itself is wrong.
I tested this with a client in the project management software space last quarter. They had a page targeting "project management tools" that was basically a sales page for their product. Ranked on page 4. We rewrote it as a genuine comparison guide that included competitors (yes, really), added a filterable table, and expanded it to cover different use cases. Jumped to position 8 in three weeks, position 3 in two months.
The content got worse for conversions but better for rankings. So we added a separate, clearly marked "recommended" section at the end for people ready to buy. Best of both worlds, but it required accepting that the primary purpose of the page was to inform, not to sell.
Technical SEO: The Unglamorous Stuff That Matters
Nobody wants to hear this, but technical SEO in 2025 is mostly about not screwing up the basics.
Your site needs to be fast. Not "acceptable" fast. Actually fast. Google's data shows that as page load time goes from 1 second to 3 seconds, bounce probability increases 32%. From 1 to 6 seconds? 106%. Your beautiful content strategy doesn't matter if people leave before they see it.
Cloudflare and Vercel have made this easier than ever for new sites. For existing sites on WordPress (still about 40% of the web), you're looking at image optimization, caching, and probably having an awkward conversation about that plugin that adds 2 seconds to every page load but the marketing team loves.
Mobile experience needs to actually work. I mean really work. Not "technically functional" but "your CEO could complete a task on it without swearing." Google's mobile-first indexing isn't new, but I still see sites where the mobile version is clearly an afterthought. Your analytics probably show 60-70% mobile traffic. Act like it.
Internal linking should create a logical hierarchy that helps both users and crawlers understand what's important. HubSpot does this well—their pillar pages link to related subtopics, which link back to the pillar. It's not complicated, but it requires actually planning your content structure instead of just publishing posts randomly.
Content Strategy Beyond "Just Write Good Stuff"
The content advice in most SEO guides is useless. "Create valuable content." "Answer user questions." "Be comprehensive." Cool, thanks, very helpful.
Here's what actually works: identify the 10-20 queries that represent the biggest opportunity for your business (high volume, achievable difficulty, actual commercial intent), then create the single best resource on the internet for each one.
Not good. Not comprehensive. The best.
This means you're probably publishing less than you think you should. Maybe one truly exceptional piece per month instead of three mediocre ones per week. The math works: one page ranking in position 1-3 drives more traffic than ten pages ranking in positions 15-25.
Backlinko basically built their entire brand on this approach. Brian Dean published maybe 15 posts in the first two years. Each one was a 3,000+ word definitive guide that everyone in the industry linked to. That's the strategy.
For the rest of your content—the stuff targeting lower-volume keywords or supporting your main pages—the bar is different. It needs to be good enough to satisfy the query and link appropriately to your priority pages. Not every piece needs to be a magnum opus.
The Backlink Reality Check
Link building in 2025 is weird. The tactics that scale (guest posting, directory submissions, link exchanges) are mostly low-value. The tactics that work (creating genuinely link-worthy content, digital PR, building actual relationships) don't scale well.
Most businesses need to accept that building high-quality backlinks is slow. You're looking at 5-10 genuinely good links per month if you're doing it right. Not 50. Not 100. Single digits.
Those links come from:
- Creating data or research that people want to cite
- Building tools or resources that solve real problems
- Getting featured in industry roundups and publications
- Developing relationships with people who have audiences
Ahrefs published their "State of Content Marketing" report and probably got thousands of backlinks from it. That's not because they did outreach to thousands of sites. It's because they created something actually worth linking to, then told the right 50-100 people about it.
The shortcut everyone wants doesn't exist. Or rather, it exists but it's called "paid links" and it works until it doesn't, at which point your rankings crater and you're starting over.
AI, SGE, and the Changing SERP
Let's address the elephant. Google's AI overviews (formerly SGE) are changing what SEO means. When Google answers the question directly in the SERP, traditional organic traffic drops.
But here's what I'm seeing in the data: informational queries are getting hit hard. Commercial and transactional queries? Not as much. Google still wants to show you shopping results and service providers because that's where the money is.
Your strategy needs to account for this. If your entire SEO plan depends on ranking for "what is [industry term]" queries, you're building on sand. Those queries are increasingly answered without clicks.
Focus instead on:
- Queries with commercial intent where people need to visit sites
- Specific, long-tail questions where AI overviews are less common
- Building brand recognition so people click your result even when alternatives exist
- Creating content experiences that are better than AI summaries (interactive tools, personalized recommendations, community discussion)
The sites that are thriving aren't fighting AI overviews. They're targeting the queries where human-created, site-based experiences still win.
Measuring What Matters
Here's an uncomfortable truth: rankings are becoming less useful as a metric. Not useless, but less useful.
When AI overviews appear, your position 1 ranking might drive 40% less traffic than it did a year ago. When featured snippets show, position 1 might drive more or less traffic depending on whether the snippet satisfies the query. Position tracking alone doesn't tell you what's actually happening.
Better metrics:
- Organic traffic to priority pages (not just overall traffic)
- Conversion rate from organic traffic (are you attracting the right people?)
- Share of voice for your target topics (visibility across all SERP features)
- Branded search volume (are people looking for you specifically?)
Semrush and Ahrefs both have features for tracking these now, though you'll need to set them up intentionally. The default dashboards still focus too much on rankings.
What to Actually Do Monday Morning
Strategies are worthless without execution. Here's where to start:
Audit your current rankings. Identify your pages ranking positions 5-15 for commercial keywords. These are your low-hanging fruit. Small improvements can jump them to page one.
Fix technical issues ruthlessly. Run Screaming Frog or Sitebulb. Fix broken links, slow pages, and redirect chains. This isn't sexy but it's probably costing you 10-20% of your potential traffic.
Identify content gaps. What queries are your competitors ranking for that you're not? Use Ahrefs' Content Gap tool or Semrush's Keyword Gap. Focus on queries where you have actual expertise or a differentiated perspective.
Create one exceptional piece of content per month. Pick your highest-priority keyword opportunity. Research what's ranking. Make something genuinely better. Promote it to the 20-30 people most likely to care.
Build relationships, not just links. Spend 30 minutes per week engaging with people in your industry. Comment on their posts. Share their work. Build actual connections. Links follow relationships.
The work isn't complicated. It's just consistent, unglamorous execution over months and years. Which is probably why everyone's looking for shortcuts.
The Long Game
SEO in 2025 rewards patience and quality more than ever. The sites winning are the ones that started years ago and never stopped doing the basics well.
You can't hack your way to sustained rankings anymore. The algorithm's too sophisticated, the competition's too strong, and Google's too focused on actual user satisfaction.
But here's the good news: most of your competitors still aren't willing to do the work. They're chasing tactics, looking for shortcuts, optimizing for metrics that don't matter.
If you're willing to play the long game—build genuinely useful content, fix technical issues, earn real links, focus on user experience—you'll win. Not next month. Not next quarter. But you'll win.
Start simple. Execute consistently. Measure what matters. Ignore the noise.
That's the strategy.
Top comments (2)
Great take on simplifying SEO. One potential gap: producing “the single best resource” monthly demands significant budget, design, and subject expertise—tough for small teams. How would you prioritize or scope ‘exceptional' when resources are thin without stalling progress?
You make a really fair point. Telling a small team to pump out “the best resource on the internet” every month sounds great on paper, but in real life it can feel… unrealistic. Most businesses don’t have a content studio sitting in the back room.
The thing I’ve learned, though, is that “exceptional” doesn’t always require a huge production. A lot of the pages that rank well aren’t winning because they’re flashy — they just happen to be the most genuinely helpful thing on the topic.
If resources are tight, I’d lean into a few things:
First, go after topics where the bar is low. You’d be surprised how many ranking pages are either outdated or clearly written just to check an SEO box. Beating those doesn’t take a giant budget — it just takes a clearer, more thoughtful approach.
Second, I’d define “exceptional” as “this answered my question and didn’t waste my time.” Not “this is 4,000 words long.” Sometimes adding one example or cleaning up the structure moves the needle more than a big rewrite.
I’m also a fan of building things in layers instead of all at once. Start with something solid, then keep improving it as you have time — add a comparison, fix a confusing section, drop in a visual. Before you know it, you’ve built something that feels way more complete than anything your competitors have.
And honestly, not every piece needs the full treatment. Pick a couple of pages a year that really matter for the business and put your energy there. Everything else just needs to be competent and useful.
One more thing: getting a subject-matter expert to talk for ten minutes can save you hours of research and give you material that instantly feels more authentic than whatever’s ranking now.
So yeah — small teams can absolutely create standout content. It’s just a matter of being intentional about where you spend time, instead of trying to swing for the fences on every single post.