Search engine optimization has changed…again. If you follow marketing, you’ve probably read sensationalized headlines recently like “SEO is dead” or that ChatGPT has dethroned Google. While the SEO landscape has experienced seismic shifts in recent years, it’s a dynamic discipline that, for decades, has always adapted to new platforms, expanded capabilities, and evolving user preferences.
The brands thriving in the latest era of SEO are doing what successful SEOs have done since the beginning – anticipating user expectations and not anchoring themselves to one platform. In this guide, we’ll tackle the myths, cover the platforms you should be paying attention to, and explore the best practices to continue to be found online.
Google Still Matters—A Lot
Despite the rising prevalence of social media and AI in customers’ journeys, Google is still king in 2025. The 27-year-old search engine still commands over 90% of the global search market share, and yes, its search volume is still growing!
Google Search experienced a major facelift in 2024 with the rollout of AI Overviews. While some claimed this signalled the death of organic search traffic to brands’ websites, the same had been said of past changes, like the introduction of featured snippets. Most local businesses have not felt the effects exaggerated by some headlines. Brands can instead seek to benefit from being featured in AI Overviews by maintaining SEO best practices, including optimizing webpages’ structured data.
Traditional search engines, especially Google, remain the top traffic source of most websites’ visits. While brands should pursue the traffic opportunities presented by newer channels, they shouldn’t abandon the massive traffic available through traditional website SEO. In fact, these best practices build your visibility on other channels.
Optimizing for Social Search
Searches aren’t exclusively occurring on search engines anymore, though. Increasingly, younger audiences are turning to social media platforms to augment their searches or to skip Google completely. According to HubSpot, “24% of consumers (ages 18-54) are already searching for brands on social media platforms more often than through a search engine.” Google has even recently given a nod to the importance of social content through an agreement to feature Instagram content in its search results, similar to its more established partnership with Reddit.
How can your business capture its share of these searches? Like with your website, you should start search-optimizing your social content. Consistently create engaging content that attracts people, and incorporate high-value keywords in areas such as your post text and captions. For example, a bakery would benefit from a video captioned “3 Easy Birthday Cake Designs Anyone Can Make” versus “Check Out This Cool Cake!”
The Rise of AI Search and GEO
AI-powered search tools like ChatGPT are reshaping how people find information. Instead of manually reviewing a list of linked search results, users can quickly receive an insightful summary of information from AI. This growing trend has created a new branch of search optimization called Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).
GEO focuses on optimizing your website content so AI tools can easily access it, trust it, and include it when generating answers. The same practices for traditional SEO can improve a brand’s GEO. These include creating unique and well-structured content that demonstrates your expertise within your field and provides value to shoppers. As with search features like featured snippets, schema markup (structured data) also helps your content to be more easily understood and incorporated by AI tools.
A Holistic Content Approach
Rather than optimizing your content for each platform as a separate, siloed checklist, focus on the common ground of each platform’s best practices. Begin by ensuring your website and profiles are crawlable and display well for both indexing bots and human visitors. Your website, in particular, should be mobile-friendly and load quickly.
Focus on creating original content that demonstrates your expertise and provides value. Then, maximize the content’s delivery through multichannel marketing practices, optimizing aspects unique to each platform with popular keywords for your products or services.
Embrace the Shift
While Google still dominates the searches of your prospective customers, it’s not the only game in town in 2025. SEO isn’t dead – it’s just evolving, as it always has. For your brand to thrive in today’s environment, treat search visibility with a holistic approach versus an outdated Google checklist. By blending traditional best practices with new tactics like GEO and social SEO, your brand will be better positioned for growth—wherever your audience is searching.
