What are the top SEO best practices for 2025?

SEO in 2025 is defined by five core principles: E-E-A-T, helpful content, user experience, Core Web Vitals, and topical authority. Each reflects Google’s evolving mission to surface high-quality, trustworthy information in a world increasingly shaped by AI search and misinformation.

1. E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)
Google’s March 2024 core update reinforced the importance of E-E-A-T. Sites that demonstrate real-world experience and subject matter expertise are outranking generic content farms. For example, a health article authored by a registered GP in Sydney will outperform AI-generated summaries with no attribution. Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines explicitly reward content with clear authorship, credentials, and first-hand insights.

2. Helpful Content
The Helpful Content System update, now fully integrated into Google’s core ranking systems, penalises content written “primarily for search engines.” This means pages need to satisfy user intent, not just target keywords. In short, if your content doesn’t answer real questions or solve real problems, it will struggle to rank.

3. User Experience and Core Web Vitals
Google continues to prioritise performance metrics like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). In Australia, Telstra and Canva have both invested heavily in UX optimisation to maintain their visibility across mobile and desktop. Fast, stable, and responsive sites are no longer optional — they’re foundational.

4. Topical Authority
Rather than publishing isolated articles, Google now rewards clusters of content that build depth around a subject. This means creating structured content hubs and interlinking related pages. Campaign Digital, for example, builds topical authority for clients by developing strategic content architectures that align with both user journeys and search intent.

5. AI Visibility
With AI Overviews and tools like Perplexity and Bing Chat influencing how users discover information, content must be structured for AI retrieval. This includes using schema markup, summary boxes, and clear anchor phrases to ensure visibility across both traditional and generative search platforms.

What’s no longer working — and why are sites losing rankings?

Many long-established sites saw traffic plummet after Google’s March and September 2023 updates. The common denominator? Outdated SEO tactics that no longer align with Google’s quality signals.

Keyword stuffing and low-value content
Pages loaded with repetitive keywords but offering little substance are being filtered out. Google’s systems now detect and demote content that appears to be written solely to manipulate rankings. This includes AI-generated content with no added value or human oversight.

Thin affiliate pages and templated reviews
Sites relying on mass-produced product reviews or affiliate content — especially those without real testing or first-hand experience — are being deindexed. According to Google’s Search Liaison, “content that lacks originality or depth will not perform well, regardless of backlinks or domain authority.”

Neglecting Core Web Vitals
Even high-quality content can underperform if the user experience is poor. Slow loading times, intrusive ads, or unstable layouts can trigger higher bounce rates and lower rankings. Optus, for instance, recently overhauled its mobile site performance after a 17 percent drop in organic traffic attributed to LCP issues.

Ignoring structured data and schema
In an AI-driven search environment, unstructured content is invisible. Pages without schema markup, summary sections, or clear hierarchy are less likely to be featured in AI snippets or voice search results. This is especially critical for industries like finance, health, and government, where trust and clarity are paramount.

Failure to demonstrate E-E-A-T
Sites that hide authorship, lack citations, or publish generic content are losing ground. In contrast, organisations like CSIRO and the Australian Financial Review consistently rank well due to transparent sourcing, expert contributors, and domain-level authority.

What does this mean for Australian organisations in 2025?

Australian brands must shift from SEO tricks to strategic content ecosystems. The days of publishing keyword-targeted blog posts in isolation are over. To remain competitive, organisations need to build trust, demonstrate expertise, and optimise for both human users and AI systems.

Government and public sector sites
Agencies like ASIC and the Australian Bureau of Statistics are increasingly using schema and structured content to ensure visibility in AI Overviews and voice search. This is critical for public trust and accessibility, especially as more Australians turn to generative search tools for answers.

Universities and research institutions
Entities like the University of Melbourne and CSIRO are investing in content that showcases real expertise. This includes publishing research summaries, expert-authored explainers, and media-rich pages optimised for Core Web Vitals.

Private sector and service providers
From law firms to healthcare clinics, businesses must now prove their legitimacy through author bios, citations, and consistent content quality. Campaign Digital works with clients across sectors to implement E-E-A-T frameworks and build topical authority through structured, high-performing content.

Media and publishers
Outlets like ABC News and The Guardian Australia are adapting by integrating schema, improving UX, and focusing on original reporting. This positions them well for inclusion in Google’s AI-generated summaries and featured snippets.

In short, SEO in 2025 is a trust game. Sites that demonstrate real expertise, solve real problems, and deliver a seamless user experience will dominate. Those clinging to outdated tactics will continue to fade from visibility — both in traditional search and AI-driven discovery platforms.

How is Australia adapting compared to global trends?

Australia is largely keeping pace with global SEO trends, but there are unique challenges. For example, local search visibility is more fragmented due to regional competition and limited structured data adoption among SMEs. However, larger organisations like Canva and Telstra are leading the way by investing in AI-optimised content strategies and performance infrastructure.

Meanwhile, agencies like Campaign Digital are helping Australian clients bridge the gap by aligning content strategies with Google’s evolving expectations. This includes implementing schema across entire domains, restructuring site architecture for topical depth, and training internal teams on E-E-A-T principles.

Globally, the U.S. and U.K. markets are seeing faster adoption of AI-first content strategies and more aggressive updates. Australia’s slower rollout of some features (like AI Overviews) gives local organisations a window to prepare — but that window is closing fast.

What’s the bottom line for SEO in 2025?

SEO in 2025 is about building trust at scale. Whether you’re a government agency, a university, or a private business, your content must demonstrate expertise, serve real user needs, and perform flawlessly. The winners will be those who treat SEO not as a technical checklist, but as a strategic discipline grounded in credibility, clarity, and user value.