Almaz

Dec 01, 2024

2025 Digital Marketing Trends - Local SEO and More

July 2024 marks the third year that I have been working professionally as a digital marketing expert. Over the three years of my career, one thing has remained constant—digital marketing trends are never stagnant.

Take, for example, in 2022, keyword clustering was the trend, video content was all the rave in 2023, and 2024 is the year of AI.

2025 is just a few days away, and from history, we can expect to see a major shift in digital marketing trends. However, unlike the sudden advent of AI, the 2025 digital marketing trend will be an increased focus on what we are already familiar with.

Web users are increasingly growing impatient and will appreciate quality results tailored specifically to their needs and location. This makes local and hyper-targeted SEO the main focus of the 2025 digital marketing trend. However, a shift towards local SEO is just a part of the trend. Major other trends are expected to become mainstream in 2025. 

I am Almaz, the lead digital marketing strategist and founder of Skiie.org, your go-to agency for digital marketing and Web/App development. In this article, I will discuss some of the top digital marketing trends, local SEO, and other areas to focus on in 2025 to boost your website visibility.

Key takeaways:

• The top three trends to watch out for are hyper-targeting to attain the EEAT standard, preparing for AI and Voice dominance, and Gen Z's shift toward social media. 

• Now is the time to create high-quality content to stay relevant. With an influx of AI-generated content on the web and Google focusing on the EEAT concept, having helpful content can help you dominate. 

• The new SearchGPT is expected to significantly impact Google's dominance in 2025. Therefore, it is essential for forward-thinking businesses to prepare for these changes.

1. A shift towards local and hyper-targeted SEO

If you’ve been keeping up with SEO trends, you must be familiar with web users’ reduced attention spans and Google’s increasing shift towards prioritizing Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EEAT). 

While these have been long-term knowledge, we can expect more businesses to prioritize these demands in 2025, especially with the advent of AI, which has resulted in an influx of bulk-generated content.

It turns out human writers are not the only ones worried about AI taking over their job, Google has been equally hard at work to filter the noise and rank the best content on the internet. As we all know, AI suss at creating content with the touch of a human; they aren’t human after all. 

This is why EEAT is more important than ever for local SEO digital marketing trends.

What is the EEAT concept?

EEAT is basically an acronym for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Let’s take a little history lesson to understand this concept. Don’t worry, I will be your teacher.

In the early days of SEO, Google’s primary way of identifying relevant content was simply by looking for related terms that match what a user is searching for. This means webmasters can easily add a bunch of popular phrases, and their content will rank higher, even if it is not relevant to the query.

However, Google is tasked with improving its users' experience, hence the importance of showing the most relevant results. To achieve this, Google introduced a concept over time that prioritizes the experience of whoever is writing the content, their expertise, their authority in the niche, and the trust existing users have in them.

This has been the standard for a while now, but with the advent of AI, the competition is stiffer. The most effective way to beat the competition is to increase your focus on the EEAT concept. Remember, Google isn’t necessarily penalizing content written by AI, so whether you write your content with AI or by a human, it must have a unique touch of human knowledge and expertise.

Incidentally, a great way to improve your EEAT content strategy is to create relevant content by hyper-targeting the most relevant location and audience. This allows you to showcase your expertise and build trust with your audience. 

The geofencing and hyperlocal targeting trends

If your business benefits from the residents of a specific location, local SEO digital marketing trends are essential to targeting these audiences. This approach helps your business grow, improves your business listings, and helps increase foot traffic to your location while helping your audience locate what they need more easily.

Google’s new focus is helping users find what they need on the web in as little time as possible. By understanding the importance of local SEO in enhancing your online visibility and digital marketing strategy, you can benefit from a new digital marketing trend to grow your business.

A local SEO strategy generally involves the following:

• Creating location-specific landing pages. 

• Creating domain/location-specific content. 

• Doing on-page SEO for local search. 

• Leveraging the Local Pack and Google Maps Pack.

• Gathering and managing online reviews. 

Let me explain each strategy:

a. Creating location-specific landing pages

Your website landing pages should reflect the locations you serve. The language, tone, and content should speak directly to the local community, which can make them feel at home and make decisions easily. 

Skiie.org website developers can help you design and develop landing pages that resonate with your target audience. The best part? You will also be contributing directly to noble causes; 7% of all our revenues are donated to charities.

b. Creating domain/location-specific content

A key EEAT concept is expertise. This means proving to Google that you are an expert in your chosen field. You can achieve this by creating hyper-targeted content. 

Whether your audience is concentrated in a specific location or industry, your content should focus on this specific demographic. It’s a bad idea to target everyone and everywhere. The more specific content Google can find on your website, the more likely it can gauge your expertise, provided these contents are relevant. 

In summary, local SEO digital marketing trends prioritize creating content for your chosen location or audience to improve your chances of ranking higher in search engine result pages (SERPs).

c. Doing on-page SEO for local search

The bane of digital marketing is SEO, and it’s impossible to talk about SEO without keywords. These are phrases used by web users when looking for specific information on the web. They help search engines understand what your page is all about.

If you want to rank for local search results, you need local keywords on your pages, which is also known as on-page SEO. You can use keyword research tools to identify terms specific to your location. Once you have these terms, incorporate them naturally into your web pages and content creation.

If you are unsure, Skiie.org also offers SEO services, and we can help you create SEO-optimized landing pages and content.

d. Leveraging the Local Pack and Google Maps pack

Local Pack is a Google search feature that displays a list of local businesses relevant to a user’s search query. Along with Google Maps, the Google Map Pack can help you target the most relevant demographic for your business and ensure your Google Business Profile listing is optimized.

You can take advantage of the Google Local Pack by:

• Claiming and optimizing your Google Business Profile: Google offers this free feature to help you claim your business on the map. You should ensure that the name, address, and phone number (NAP) on this profile are consistent with other business information on the web.

• Regularly updating your business profile: As soon as there is an update, keep your business profile active by regularly uploading recent photos and videos. 

• Analyzing competitors to see what works: There are likely existing businesses that are performing better in your chosen demographic. Analyze how they describe their businesses, their relationships with customers, and anything unique they are doing. Take note and adjust your approach to outrank them.

Lastly, reviews are essential to building trust. You should ensure to get as many reviews as possible.

e. Gathering and managing online reviews

A key way to build trust with your audience is to get accurate information and reviews from existing customers, including addressing any negative feedback. Data speaks—9% of online shoppers will consider a business review before making a purchase. This means they are more likely to trust a business with positive reviews.

Remember, a key EEAT concept is trustworthiness. Hence, the more positive reviews your online business gets, the better you can utilize the local SEO digital marketing trend. 

You can politely request your customers to leave a review. Keywords are also important here, so encourage reviewers to mention whatever service or products they are reviewing. The names of these services or products can also serve as keywords.

In addition to building your trustworthiness and expertise with local and hyper-targeting, you should also focus on building your authority and showcasing your experience. 

Strategies to boost authority and showcase experience

Another critical EEAT concept is authority and experience. In digital marketing, we build authority through back-linking. 

Backlinks are those links that point to your website from other websites. Search engines see these links as a vote of confidence, signifying your website as an authoritative source. This vote of confidence builds what is technically known as domain authority (DA).

You can generate backlinks to your website by:

• Collaborating with local influencers: You can partner with a local influencer to co-publish content that links to both your websites. 

• Publishing helpful, insightful content: The most effective way to build backlinks is by publishing content that others will find helpful. These typically include case studies, statistics, etc. An agency like Skiie.org can help you develop a content strategy to build your domain authority. 

• Guest posting: Many authoritative websites offer guest posting opportunities. You can search for a website offering such a service by using the term “Your Industry: Guest Post.” You can use this opportunity to have your link on these authoritative websites to build your authority. 

Lastly, you want to showcase your experience when creating content. You can achieve this by:

• Highlighting your achievements when introducing yourself. 

• Highlighting personal experiences wherever suitable. 

• Include testimonials and endorsements on your website. 

That’s all for local SEO digital marketing trends. Another trend I believe we can look out for is businesses gearing up for the impact of the newly introduced search experience and AI search. 

2. New search experience, Voice and AI search

On May 14, 2024, Google announced a new search experience—AI Overview. This feature was added to give users a quick summary of their query. Remember Google has been prioritizing delivering relevant results as fast as possible. 

However, while this feature can significantly save time and improve user experience, it’s not all good news for businesses. AI overview means web users don’t necessarily need to visit your website to get an answer, even if it is the first result on SERP.

This is why I believe businesses are going to pay more attention to optimizing their content for this new experience. On my end, I have the following tips:

• If you’ve recently used Google AI Overview, you will notice it now includes links to its source. Well, while you typically won’t get clicks by appearing top, you are more likely to get clicks from these overviews. Just keep on publishing great content, as usual. 

• 

• While I don’t encourage creating content with AI, a great way to make AI understand your content is to ask it to rewrite it. After creating your content, feed it into Gemini or ChatGPT and ask it for suggestions on how to improve it. This can help AI understand your content better, thereby improving your chance of being referenced in AI overviews.

Another increasingly popular digital marketing trend among web users that businesses are preparing for is Voice Search.

Voice Search optimization

With over 20.5% of global users, voice search is increasingly gaining popularity. Given its uniqueness, I, and many other SEO experts believe optimizing for it will become a trend in 2025.

Unlike the traditional method of using search engines, voice search involves speaking in a more natural tone, so businesses must adjust their SEO strategies for this new trend. 

I’ve got the following tips for you:

• Web users search in a natural conversational tone, so write your content in a natural, conversational tone.

• Since web users now have the choice to describe their query more accurately, you should focus on long-tail keywords relevant to such queries. It’s easier to say “digital marketing trends, local SEO” than to type it. 

• Consider publishing content that answers questions. Your website and content should also have a dedicated frequently asked questions (FAQ) section or page. 

The third trend I expect to become mainstream in 2025 is users preparing for the new AI search engine—SearchGPT.

The era of SearchGPT

Just as Google is recovering from ChatGPT's sudden dominance, the AI giant proves to have more weapons in its arsenal. In a move that threatens Google's very existence, OpenAI announced its latest product, SearchGPT, towards the end of July. 

SearchGPT is like Google search but more interactive and obviously powered by AI. While all this sounds exciting from a consumer perspective—I mean, who wouldn’t be excited about the possibility of a Google alternative? For online businesses, it means our foundation is being shaken by yet another turbulence. 

The advent of SearchGPT means Google can lose a significant portion of its customers to this new alternative. Preparing for this potential apocalypse is essential to keep your business afloat, and here is what I’ve got for you:

• While the product is still in its early stages, it currently references sources. As suggested for the AI Overview above, I will still recommend creating quality content that AI can understand to get featured and potentially get clicks. 

• While AI is increasingly dominating search, video has maintained its uniqueness, and popular platforms like YouTube are growing stronger than ever. If you don’t already have a YouTube channel, now is the time to start considering one. Creating helpful YouTube videos can serve as an alternative to driving traffic to your website. We also just launched our YouTube channel, you can check it out. 

That said, another increasingly popular digital marketing trend, especially among generation-z is social media.  

3. Social media search to get more popular

Now, let’s talk about my generation—the Zoomers. We are known as the social media generation, and that couldn’t be truer, especially as this social media love is likely to shift your digital marketing focus in 2025.

Data shows that 46% of Gen Zers prefer social media searches to traditional search engines. But that’s not all: Millennials aren’t left out, with an additional 35% of their generation making a similar preference. 

What does this mean for businesses?

Since the advent of SEO, search engines have been the focus of most digital marketing strategies. However, we have only focused on search engines because they command the highest traffic.

With the current trend of social media platforms gaining an advantage, forward-thinking businesses need to prepare for the inevitable. Catching up with this digital marketing trend is obvious, but here is a refresh:

• Have a dominating social media presence: Identify the most suitable social media for your business, create an account, and engage the community. For example, an artist will find Instagram and TikTok more relevant, while an SEO professional will benefit more from Twitter and LinkedIn professional communities. If you need help managing your social media presence, feel free to reach out to us at Skiie.org. 

• Engaging in local social media marketing: Search engine marketing has been the norm, but now is the time to consider other forms of advertising. Most social media platforms offer paid marketing. You can use this feature to run discounts and promotions targeting your local audience or demographic. This form of advertising can be useful in promoting special offers or getting new followers. 

Remember that the aim of having a presence on social media is to sell to your audience. You can either refer them to your website or make your offer directly from your posts and videos. 

However, don’t be too salesy, as we (Gen Zees) are sensitive to online ads. Focus on creating content we enjoy, and we will patronize you if we love your product; entice us, don't sell to us.

If you need help with your digital marketing efforts, don’t hesitate to contact us at Skiie.org. We offer comprehensive digital marketing solutions to help your business thrive. We are also committed to donating 7% of our revenues to charity, so working with us means you are having a direct impact on the world while building your brand.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Local SEO still relevant?

Yes, local SEO is still relevant. Local SEO has always been a powerful tool for driving highly-targeted traffic to your physical location. If you are looking for ways to improve your online presence, consider working with an expert like Skiie.org. 

Are 46% of Google searches local?

Yes, 46% of Google searches are local. This underscores the importance of doing local marketing for your business. 

What is local SEO in digital marketing?

Local SEO is a digital marketing strategy that involves optimizing your web pages and content for specific locations to attract local customers through effective local SEO efforts. This allows you to target a highly concentrated demographic, which can improve conversion.

How do I find local search trends?

You can use Google Trends to find local search trends.