12 SEO Best Practices for 2025

Search engines regularly update their algorithms to adapt to ever-changing user patterns. This makes it important to keep up with SEO best practices and trends so you can effectively improve your website's search engine ranking. With increased visibility comes a broader audience, better organic traffic, and ultimately more revenue.

With the guidance of our experts, we’ll outline the 12 SEO best practices for 2025 to ensure your website stays ahead of the competition.

1. Perform an SEO Audit

Before you can deploy strategies to improve SEO performance, it is important to know where you stand. An SEO audit dives deep into your website’s current performance and identifies issues that must be remedied to improve your search rankings.

SEO audits evaluate the following:

• On-page elements
• Off-page elements
• Technical SEO
• Content
• User experience
• Competitor analysis

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On-page elements

• Title tags: Ensure they’re between 50 and 60 characters, with primary keywords in the beginning. Each webpage should also have a unique title.
• Meta descriptions: Keywords should be incorporated naturally into compelling copy that encourages clicks. These should be between 150 and 160 characters.
• Headings: Every webpage should have an H1 tag that includes the main keywords. H2, H3, and H4 headings structure content logically — relevant keywords should be included without overstuffing.
• Keyword usage: Keyword density should be 1% to 2%.
• Internal links: Webpages should be interlinked in logical and relevant ways. Descriptive anchor text should include relevant keywords
• Content quality: Content must be relevant to the target keyword and audience. Blog posts and articles should cover the given topic in depth.
• URL structure: URLs should be clean, concise, and easy to read, with hyphens separating words. The primary keyword must be in the URL.

Off-page elements

• Backlink profile: Evaluate the quantity, quality, and diversity of backlinks. High-authority websites and a varied mix of blogs, news sites, of forums are ideal.
• Social signals: Assess engagement rates on social media platforms and evaluate how often your content is shared.
• Negative SEO: Identify and disable spammy backlinks. Look for penalties or warnings resulting from unnatural links.
• Affiliate networks: Audit the quality and quantity of affiliate links pointing to your site and make sure they are marked as nofollow.

Technical SEO

• Crawlability: Verify that your XML sitemap is up-to-date and submitted to Google Search Console. Review server logs to identify issues and resolve crawl errors.
• Broken links: Check for and fix any broken internal or external links on the entire site.
• Improper indexing: Use Google Search Console to check which pages are indexed and identify any that are not but should be.
• Mobile usability: Ensure your site is fully responsive and provides a good user experience (UX). Identify page loading issues on mobile devices.

Content

• Freshness: Old content must be regularly updated with fresh statistics and new insights.
• Duplication: Identify and resolve duplicate content through canonical tags, redirects, or content consolidation.
• Images and video: Visual elements should be optimized to enhance search engine visibility and user experience.

User experience

• Navigation: Menu structure, internal linking, breadcrumb navigation, and mobile responsiveness must make it easy for search engines and website visitors to find and access content.
• Page speed: Optimize images, browser caching, and streamline code to improve page loading speeds.
• Engagement: Metrics like bounce rate, time on page, and pages per session indicate how users interact with your site and how long they engage with your content. Identify high-exit pages to uncover content or UX issues.

Competitor analysis

• Performance comparison: Analyze competitors’ high-ranking content and evaluate depth, format, and user engagement.
• Content gaps: Look for topics or questions that your shared audience searches for but aren’t adequately addressed.

This will give you a detailed roadmap outlining the specific actions needed to improve SEO performance.

Houston Barnett-Gearhart, Director of SEO at Victorious, notes that the most valuable insights from an audit often lie in the strategic blind spots that quietly erode performance, beyond just technical fixes like tags or crawl errors. 

"The key to making these insights actionable is showing clear, verifiable data. When possible, I also include competitive examples that highlight the gap. It’s not about scare tactics. It’s about helping teams see what’s not working, what others are doing better, and why ignoring it means leaving traffic, visibility, and conversions on the table."

2. Focus on Search Intent

It is important to understand why users look up certain terms so you can precisely deliver content that they will engage with. Furthermore, search engine algorithms are continuously updated to better cater to user intent. Optimizing your strategies to focus on search intent will enhance user satisfaction, increase traffic, and improve overall SEO performance.

Ammar Naeem, marketing strategist at AstrillVPN, adds that aligning with user intent also means adapting to privacy-conscious behaviors:

"Search engines reward content that aligns with user intent — but with growing concerns over privacy, brands must balance relevance with responsible data handling.

At AstrillVPN, we see intent matching evolve toward more anonymized behavioral insights, which supports both performance and trust."

Here are the four basic types of search intent you should know:

Informational

Billions of users use search engines to look for answers to their questions. Blog posts and other types of content should deliver comprehensive and relevant information that answers these questions, solves user pain points, and provides value to site visitors.

For example, the top three post-snippet, non-sponsored results for “how to improve posture” outline clear and specific ways to do so. These posts should have calls to action for further engagement with the brand (e.g., a link to a health newsletter or free consultation with a physical therapist).

Navigational

Users want to find a specific website for their query. Primarily branded search terms will deliver precisely what they need. Make sure your website is the top result for brand queries and that users can quickly navigate to specific landing pages. If you have a brick-and-mortar store, localized SEO strategies can boost your rankings on Google Maps.

Commercial

Users are in the research stage of the purchase process and looking up more information about certain items in preparation to buy. Detailed reviews and product comparisons will help them make informed decisions. Make sure your content type and angle align with these inquiries, such as lists of top products and detailed reviews.

Transactional

Consumers looking up transactional keywords (e.g., “purchase casual dresses online” or “book hotel in Austin”) indicate that they are ready to buy and are more likely to engage with purchase links. Present your brand offerings in the best light through detailed and keyword-rich descriptions, high-quality photos, and customer reviews. Product pages and detailed how-to guides will facilitate these conversions.

3. Find the Right Keywords for Your Niche

Keyword research helps identify the words and phrases people use to look up information, products, or services related to your business. Knowing which keywords to target optimizes your website's content and improves your chances of ranking higher in search engine result pages (SERPs).

Leverage advanced keyword research tools like Ahrefs to find related keywords, track search volume and difficulty, and perform competitive analysis.

To conduct keyword research, follow these simple steps:

• Step 1: Start with seed keywords
• Step 2: Use keyword research tools
• Step 3: Perform competitive analysis
• Step 4: Prioritize keywords

Step 1: Start With Seed Keywords

First, define your niche and choose a "seed" keyword that you will use to generate other keywords and phrases. For example, if you sell insulated water bottles, your seed keywords are “water bottle” and “reusable water bottle.” These aren’t necessarily what you will use for ranking, but they are broad ideas and core topics that your more specific strategies will stem from.

Looking up these seed keywords on Google Keyword Planner generates almost 2,000 related terms. You can choose which ones will lead your target audience to your website. Focus on long-tail keywords (phrases that are three to five words long), as they are more specific and align more closely with search intent. They also lead to higher conversion rates.

For example, the seed keyword phrase “reusable water bottle” can be used to create long-tail keywords to capture users with different search intents:

• Informational: benefits of reusable water bottles, reusable water bottle features
• Commercial: top reusable water bottle brands, affordable reusable water bottles
• Transactional: buy a reusable water bottle

These will then guide your content strategy, providing a broad idea of the concepts related to your business. This helps you brainstorm specific content ideas that address various aspects of these topics.

For example, from our previous example, you can generate topics and subtopics like:

• Popular reusable water bottle brands in 2025
• Benefits of using reusable water bottles
• Reusable water bottle features to look for
• Types of reusable water bottles
• Care and maintenance of reusable water bottles

Make sure your chosen keywords are directly relevant to your content and audience. Using irrelevant keywords won’t increase conversions and may lead to penalties from search engine algorithms. Popular keyword research tools like Ahrefs can help you narrow your list of target keywords.

Step 2: Use Keyword Research Tools

Tools like Ahrefs can also help you generate relevant keyword ideas. These can give you a general idea of the search terms that people look up, so you can further narrow your search for the best options to use in your content.

When you look up your seed keywords on Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, you can find a list of related keywords along with the following metrics:

• Keyword difficulty: The score that estimates how difficult it is to rank in the top 10 results
• Search volume: The average monthly search volume
• Global search volume: Total search volume across all countries
• Traffic potential: Total organic traffic captured by the top ranking page
• Cost per click (CPC): Average cost for paid search campaigns

Use search filters to narrow down the list of criteria based on these metrics. For example, you can set a minimum search volume to focus on keywords that attract healthy amounts of traffic that can contribute to your SEO ranking.

You can also set a maximum keyword difficulty score to find long-tail keywords that are easier to rank for. Sorting by CPC or clicks will show you the commercial value of each keyword for paid ads.

Click on each keyword phrase to see top-ranking pages and analyze them for content quality, backlinks, and other SEO factors. This information should inform your content creation strategy so your webpages can climb quickly up the rankings.

Step 3: Perform Competitive Analysis

To rank higher on search results, you should also know what keywords your competitors and the best-ranking pages are using. Here’s how you can do this:

3.1 Identify Your Competitors

You can look at three different types of SEO competitors:

• Direct competition: These are businesses that offer the same products or services in your niche.
• Search competition: Websites that compete in search rankings but are not direct business competitors
• Top competition: Websites ranking in the top 10 positions of your primary keywords

3.2 Use SEO Tools

Enter competitor domains into analysis tools like Ahrefs Site Explorer for an in-depth look at their SEO performance. You can focus on keywords where they rank in the top 10 and find opportunities to compete for those positions. Aim for low to medium-difficulty keywords if your site is relatively newer or less authoritative.

Create content around these keywords and discuss relevant topics as thoroughly and expertly as possible to compete with existing webpages. You can develop an action plan to outperform your competitors given this data.

3.3 Analyze Content Gaps

Content gaps are keywords or topics that your competitors rank for, but you do not. These are excellent opportunities for new content or updates for your website.

In the example above, there are 234 keywords that Ahrefs’ top two competitors appear in the top 10 for, but Ahrefs doesn’t. An important element of its content strategy is to create webpages to compete for the keywords “pillar page,” “advanced SEO,” and other relevant keyword phrases on this list.

Step 4: Prioritize Keywords

With a list of hundreds, maybe even thousands of potential keywords on your list, how do you decide which ones to use for your content? Here are some parameters to narrow down your list:

• Keyword metrics: Balancing keyword difficulty, traffic potential, and cost per click will help you determine the keyword phrases that you can use to potentially reach the first page of search results. High-volume, low-competition keywords will help you get there.
• Search intent: If you are targeting “best reusable water bottle 2025,” your content should be highly informative, such as a list of popular options, with an angle to sell your own products.
• Strategy: Choose keywords that align with your most immediate SEO goals. Do you want to increase conversions or focus on traffic? Do you want to improve brand awareness or boost sales?
• Long-tail keyword phrases: They are easier to rank for and bring more qualified leads. Instead of using the general term “shoes,” which has a massive search volume and very broad search intent, you can use “best running shoes for flat feet” to attract a more targeted audience.

4. Optimize On-Page SEO Elements

Beyond the primary content of every webpage, search engine algorithms crawl and index various on-page elements. It is important to integrate keywords and optimize the following to improve SEO performance:

• Title tag: They must contain the primary keyword and should be accurate and attention-grabbing, within 50 to 60 characters.
• Meta description: These passages appear in SERPs and should include the primary and secondary keywords and a call to action within 140-160 characters. An effective meta description is unique, showcases the article’s value, and convinces searchers that it will satisfy their search intent.
• Headers: H2s and H3s divide the content and make the page easier to navigate.
• URL: The page URL should be short, includes its primary keyword separated by a hyphen, and incorporates categories to improve site navigation.
• Internal and external links: Use keyword-rich anchor text to link to high-authority external websites and relevant internal web pages.

5. Use Keywords Strategically in the Content

Mentioning the target keyword early in the content can improve the relevance and visibility of the page for the given keyword.

When search engine crawlers go through a page, they gauge the content’s relevance based on various signals, including the text on the page. By placing the target keyword near the beginning of the content, you are signaling the page’s topic to search engines, which can help it rank higher in search results for that keyword.

On the user side, when someone searches for a particular keyword, they are more likely to click on a result that includes it in the title or earlier in the content, as this confirms the page is relevant to their search query.

Include the target keyword in the following:

• Title tag
• Headers
• Meta description
• The first paragraph of the content
• URL

However, avoid over-optimizing or using a keyword too often or unnaturally on one webpage. Keyword stuffing can harm user experience (UX) and the page's ranking potential.

6. Publish High-Quality Content

When you publish original, insightful, and engaging content that provides value to your audience, you establish your brand as an expert in your niche. Consequently, this builds trust and credibility, which brings higher engagement, backlinks, and social shares.

Furthermore, if visitors find your content valuable, they're more likely to spend more time on your website to explore other pages. They will also likely return for more content in the future.

These best practices for SEO and content creation will help boost your rankings:

• Center your audience: Write for an audience, not algorithms. Determine their needs, preferences, and pain points. Answer their questions and present your products or services as the solutions they’ve been looking for.
• Deliver value: Unique approaches and unexplored angles to a popular topic will lead to more engagement and shares. Valuable and actionable information will engage more audiences and increase trust in your brand.
• Prioritize readability: Headings and bulleted or numbered lists will make your content easier to read and understand. Present the most important information near the top of the page and summarize the most crucial points at the end.
• Incorporate visual elements: Images, videos, tables, charts, etc. helps convey information more effectively by improving understanding and making it more engaging, appealing, and digestible.
• Publish unique content: Copying another website’s content can harm your website's authority, engagement, and relevance. Search engines may penalize your website for duplicate content, resulting in lower rankings, reduced visibility, and users losing trust in your brand.
• Establish niche authority: Long-form content like comprehensive guides, case studies, and white papers thoroughly cover important topics in your niche. Provide detailed, actionable answers to audience questions and cite reputable sources to back up your claims.

According to Barnett-Gearhart:

"The edge comes from focus and clarity. Most businesses have too much content that isn’t performing, which creates noise for both users and search engines. Businesses can streamline their content footprint around what aligns with demand by auditing and addressing issues like dead content, weak internal links, and intent mismatches."

7. Interlink Your Content

When you interlink pages within your website, you create a logical and intuitive structure that ensures users can easily navigate between pages and find relevant information within one or two clicks. This significantly improves UX, increases time on site, and reduces bounce rates typically caused by user frustration.

Internal links with appropriate and descriptive anchor text also help search engines understand the context and relevance of each page within your website, which can increase rankings on SERPs.

Here are some best practices for interlinking in 2025:

• Use relevant, descriptive anchor text. Accurately describes the linked page's content to encourage more clicks and helps users discover related content they may be interested in, which increases their engagement and time on site.
• Don't link to irrelevant pages. This harms UX, as visitors will feel betrayed if your links mislead them.
• Regularly review and update interlinks. Make sure they remain aligned with your content strategy and user needs.

Barnett-Gearhart also highlights how internal linking is often misunderstood, with many overlooking the importance of quality and context behind each link:

"Many site owners assume more internal links equal better SEO, but Google cares far more about where those links come from. I often show clients how their competitors strategically link from a smaller number of high-authority, highly relevant pages. That simple comparison often changes how they think about trust signals and prioritization."

8. Build Authoritative Backlinks

When other relevant and authoritative websites link to yours, it signals to search engines that your website is a trustworthy source of information. Backlinks also increase your website's domain authority and improve your rankings.

Users who click on a backlink to your website are referred from the linking website to yours, which boosts your website's referral traffic, potentially increasing leads and conversions.

Here are some backlinking best practices:

• Focus on quality over quantity. Aim for backlinks from authoritative and relevant websites in your industry or niche, including those with high domain authority, popular blogs, news sites, and social media influencers.
• Avoid acquiring backlinks from spammy or low-quality websites. These can harm your website's reputation and potentially result in a penalty from search engines.
• Regularly monitor and analyze your backlink profile. Identify potential issues like broken links and grab opportunities for improvement.

9. Optimize Images

Optimizing images reduces file size without ruining quality, improves website speed, and reduces bounce rates. Optimized images load quickly, improving the overall UX. Satisfied users usually engage and spend more time on the site, which sends search engines positive signals that your website provides engaging and valuable content.

Descriptive file names and alt text are also important parts of image optimization, helping search engines understand their context and relevance, thus improving search engine visibility and accessibility.

To optimize images for SEO, follow these practices:

• Compress images. This reduces file size and ensures quick loading even on mobile.
• Use file names and alt text. Accurately describe the image’s content and context.
• Use the appropriate image file format. JPEGs are best for photographs, while PNGs are best for graphics and illustrations.

10. Ensure the Website Is Responsive

Responsive design provides a consistent and easy-to-use interface across all devices, which increases engagement and reduces bounce rates. Google has transitioned to mobile-first indexing, which means that its algorithms primarily use the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking.

Responsive design also improves website speed, an important ranking factor for search engines. Here’s how to implement a responsive website design:

• Use a fluid grid layout. Instead of designing webpages with fixed widths, use flexible grids that resize all pages proportionally.
• Optimize visual elements. Make sure all images, videos, and other media elements maintain their aspect ratio.
• Clickable elements. Links, buttons, menus, and other interactive elements should be easy to tap or click.
• Test your website. Ensure a consistent user experience by accessing your website on various devices and screen sizes.

11. Reduce Your Website’s Loading Speed

Google’s Core Web Vitals indicate that the largest image or text block visible in the viewport should load within 2.5 seconds or less. Slow-loading websites don’t rank well on SERPs, which negatively impacts visibility and traffic.

Slow loading times also frustrate users and lead to higher bounce rates, negatively impacting UX and engagement.

To improve website loading speed:

• Minimize HTTP requests. Combine CSS and JavaScript files and minimize images and external scripts to reduce HTTP requests.
• Use a content delivery network (CDN). These systems distribute content quickly across multiple servers worldwide.
• Use website caching. Caches store frequently accessed data in a temporary storage area, so they load quickly on subsequent visits.

Loading speed can vary depending on website complexity, design, user device, and internet connection. Regularly monitor website loading speed and adjust to provide the best possible UX and improve search engine rankings.

12. Improve User Experience

A well-designed, user-friendly website keeps visitors engaged, reduces bounce rates, and increases time spent on the site. These are all positive signals for search engine rankings. Google’s ranking systems reward websites that provide good page experience and UX across various aspects:

• Core Web Vitals: Metrics like Largest Contentful Paint (render time of the largest block within the first 2.5 seconds), Interaction To Next Paint (overall responsiveness less than 200 milliseconds), and Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability score of less than 0.1) measure real-world user experience.
• Security: Hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTPS) is a secure and encrypted protocol used to send data between a website and a browser. This is a basic security requirement for all websites. SSL certificates are also crucial for data encryption and enhanced security.
• Mobile design: Responsive website design adapts to various screen sizes, ensuring a seamless experience. Google also primarily uses mobile versions of websites for indexing and ranking.
• Minimal ads and intrusive elements: Pop-ups, auto-playing videos, ads, and notifications obscure content and overwhelm visitors. Make sure these elements are easy to close with one click.
• Intuitive navigation: A clear menu structure helps users differentiate the types of content on each page and quickly find what they’re looking for.
• Accessibility: Descriptive alt text and Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) assist visually impaired users and screen readers to navigate your site easily.

Additionally, Barnett-Gearhart provides helpful insight on how a well-structured site benefits not just users but also search engines:

"... A leaner, more targeted site is easier and cheaper for engines to crawl, process, and serve. As AI-powered systems scale and evaluate content at massive volumes, efficiency matters.

Compared to bloated, unfocused competitors, a clean and strategically structured site can gain visibility simply by being easier to parse and better aligned with what search systems are trying to deliver."

SEO Best Practices Takeaways

Implementing the best SEO practices can help improve your website's visibility, traffic, and engagement. Each of the abovementioned practices is important. Done separately, they may improve some aspects of your website, but together, they will refine your overall online presence.

While implementing best practices for SEO and measuring the success of your efforts can be challenging, you don’t have to do it alone. If you need help at any part of your SEO journey, consider reaching out to one of the top SEO agencies we’ve listed for you.

SEO Best Practices FAQs

1. What are the benefits of SEO?

The benefits of SEO include the following:

• Increased website traffic
• Improved user experience
• Higher brand credibility
• Better conversion rates
• Enhanced visibility and ranking
• Long-term marketing strategy
• Cost-effectiveness
• Competitive advantage
• Mobile-friendliness
• Access to customer data and insights

2. What are some common best SEO practices?

Some of the common best SEO practices include:

• Performing an SEO audit
• Focusing on search intent
• Finding the right keywords for your niche
• Optimizing on-page SEO elements
• Publishing high-quality content
• Interlinking your content
• Building valuable backlinks
• Optimizing images
• Ensuring the website is mobile responsive
• Improving user experience