Is SEO Dead in 2025? 7 Strategies to Thrive in the Age of AI

Is SEO Dead?

No, SEO is not dead. SEO is simply changing as we get introduced to new AI-powered tools and platforms that prioritize user intent and content quality over traditional SEO practices.

Search engine optimization (SEO) has been a high-profile marketing strategy for years. As new AI-powered platforms and Google features grab our audience’s attention, it’s natural for marketers to question the relevance of SEO. Is SEO dead with AI search being all the rage? 

Luckily for us and your marketing team, SEO is not dead — the landscape is just changing. Keep reading to learn more about the status of SEO, why it is still relevant, and the details of how the SEO landscape is changing in 2025! 

At a glance 

• SEO is not dying. SEO best practices are simply shifting to adapt to a landscape dominated by AI search engines and Google’s AI Overviews. 
• SEO is no longer just about ranking well on Google — it’s about being present and authoritative wherever your audience is searching. 
• Zero-click searches make it essential for brands to provide unique, high-quality content that users can’t get from an AI-generated summary. 

Is SEO dead?

No, SEO is not dead. Instead, it is evolving as strategies and technology change and advance.

The Internet, specifically search engines, is constantly growing to better suit users. Google has implemented many changes over the years to serve searchers and help people get the content they want. Yet, through all these changes, SEO has persisted. 

Part of SEO’s function comes from its adaptability and scalability with changes. Since SEO is ongoing, most SEO specialists expect updates as they create campaigns. These changes point to SEO sticking around for a while! 

Why SEO is still relevant

It’s understandable why marketing teams might think SEO is dead. Many people are turning to AI search engines like ChatGPT to ask more detailed questions based on their unique circumstances. Zero-click search has also become a huge factor as features like AI Overviews (AIOs) and AI Mode in the Google search engine results pages (SERPs) reduce the likelihood of users clicking on any website. 

But here’s the thing — ChatGPT still leans on traditional search engines to grab information from the most relevant webpages. This means our SEO practices are still needed if AI engines want to provide quality answers. One study also found that Google still holds 79.1% of the global online search market. 

Even if your traffic has decreased, you must have noticed that you’ve gained more qualified leads and engaged users. This is because the users who do visit your website haven’t found what they need in AI Overviews and AI search engines. 

Your focus in SEO now is to make the click worth it by offering valuable information that users won’t find in AIOs. 

Your audience is still in the SERPs. The key difference now is only that we need to optimize for multi-platform visibility and be where our audiences are. That means optimizing your content so that AI search engines and AIOs cite it. 

How SEO is changing

SEO is changing, not dying. So, what can we do to keep up? Here are seven search factors that have changed lately that we need to consider when adapting our SEO campaigns. 

1. Enhanced focus on user experience
2. A need to be everywhere your audience is
3. Preference for mobile-friendly websites
4. Higher importance on brand awareness
5. Growing focus on valuable and high-quality content
6. Search intent is a primary consideration
7. Enhanced personalization

1. Enhanced focus on user experience

Google’s primary focus is on providing a seamless user experience. That’s why it ranks pages with a clear navigation and content structure. Google measures page performance with Core Web Vitals, such as: 

• Interaction to Next Paint (INP): This measures how long it takes a page to respond when a user clicks on a link. A good score is typically 200 milliseconds or less. 
• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This is the time it takes for the largest image or text block to load when the user opens a page. It should be around 2.5 seconds or less. 
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): This measures the number of times a page unexpectedly shifts while loading. The preferred CLS score is usually less than 0.1. 

How you can adjust your SEO strategy 

Do an audit of your website with Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to get a Core Web Vitals assessment. This tool will measure your scores for each of the above categories and provide suggestions for improving your scores. 

2. A need to be everywhere your audience is

Many people are using platforms other than Google for search. For quick answers, they turn to TikTok and voice search engines like Siri and Alexa. 

For more detailed answers tailored to their situation, many people use AI search engines, such as ChatGPT and Gemini. For advice or insight based on real experiences, people might turn to online forums like Reddit. And even AI platforms are citing Reddit more recently! 

These changes make it crucial to optimize your content so that Large Language Models (LLMs) for voice search and AI platforms can cite information from your pages. Doing so will increase your visibility among searchers. 

AI search engines and large language models (LLMs) prefer to cite and summarize pages that incorporate good LLM SEO best practices. These include good content structures, scannable formats, and clear answers. 

3. Preference for mobile-friendly websites

Mobile optimization is another factor you cannot ignore. Google primarily considers the mobile version of your website when indexing and ranking pages. 

This makes practicing mobile SEO important for ranking on Google and ensuring that AIOs can access your content. 

Aside from that, people spend 70% of their Internet time on a mobile device. So, if you haven’t already optimized your mobile SEO, now is the time to start. 

4. Higher importance on brand awareness

Your Google rankings improve when you have a more well-established brand. Google considers your brand awareness based on the amount of authority, relevancy, and trustworthiness it holds within the industry. 

It often tracks your brand growth by monitoring the number of search queries involving your brand name. This number reflects your brand awareness and user interest in your brand, especially considering that people searching for brands are likely ready to make a purchase. 

So, if you want to rank higher in the SERPs and get noticed by AI search engines, you need to establish your brand. 

5. Growing focus on valuable and high-quality content

To stand out among your competitors, you need to create valuable and unique content. High-quality articles include content that is engaging and informative. 

LLMs like content that they can confidently cite. This often includes unique perspectives, expert commentary, and original data. This makes it important to add authoritative, quotable insights to content and support your claims with credible sources. 

6. Search intent is a primary consideration

The search intent of your article relays how well you know your audience. Google has placed an increased importance on matching user search intent because it reflects badly on Google when users don’t get the results and information they need. 

If there is a disconnect between your content’s search intent and primary keyword, Google will avoid ranking the content higher for that keyword when it suspects you won’t meet the users’ needs. 

This type of mistake can also often happen when you avoid conducting keyword research or choose secondary keywords with a different search intent than the primary keyword. 

Consider this example. Let’s say you wanted to write content for the keyword “industrial automation.” The search intent for this keyword when you visit the SERPs is informational. Users want to know what it is, how it works, the benefits, and the types. 

When writing the article, you choose “industrial automation software” as the secondary keyword. However, this keyword doesn’t match the search intent of the primary keyword. If you search the term, you’ll notice that the SERP includes pages with commercial intent, most of them being service pages. 

When choosing topics, it’s important to fully understand the search intent, whether it is informational, commercial, navigational, or transactional in nature. 

7. Enhanced personalization

Google is working to provide more personalized search results based on users’ preferences, search terms, and locations. This makes it crucial for brands to start personalizing their content and websites to specific audiences. 

This will help ensure the right people visit the appropriate pages while increasing the likelihood of conversion. 

SEO is alive and well, but you need to adapt

SEO isn’t going anywhere. You just need to revamp your SEO strategy by accounting for the latest changes. The main takeaway is that you need to enhance your brand’s AI visibility. 

WebFX’s OmniSEO™ technology includes AI tracking capabilities to help monitor and improve your visibility across AI search engines. Learn more about OmniSEO™ today and contact our team of experts to learn how we can transform your SEO strategy.