Surefire Website and SEO Tactics for Your Growing Business in 2025

If you’ve landed here, you already know that search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t just a ‘nice to have’ — it’s essential for sustainable growth in 2025. Between core updates and algorithm changes, SEO is continually evolving. For businesses to continue to reap the benefits and thrive, they must regularly adapt their SEO strategies. Effective SEO can be a game-changer, helping even small- and medium-sized businesses be found online without the expense of paid search.

As an account manager and content writer at Keystone Click, I help our clients boost their online visibility through tailored SEO strategies. In this guide, I’ll walk you through the SEO tactics my teammates and I implement to help clients grow their online presence, from quick wins to longer-term plays.

1. Conduct Thorough Keyword Research for Your Niche

Before implementing any SEO strategies, it’s necessary to do keyword research. Taking a deep dive into your ideal customer’s search behavior will help you capture the right traffic. (If you’re a beginner, start by reading our blog Key Metrics to Help You Switch Gears with Your Keywords.)

To find relevant keywords, utilize online tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Google Keyword. When using your tool of choice, turn your attention from single keywords to long-tail keywords – phrases of 3 to 5 words – and phrases relevant to your niche. Though long-tail keywords typically have a lower search volume, they are more targeted and will help you drive higher-quality traffic to your website. And while you’re exploring relevant keywords, don’t forget to analyze your competitors’ keywords for inspiration.

Pro Tip:

The best place to start with keyword research is the words and phrases your clients and prospects use when they first discover your business. This gives you great insight into the terms they’re likely searching for in Google. At Keystone Click, we employ a sifting and winnowing process: we add any somewhat-related keyword to a long list and then edit the list based on traffic volume, competition, search intent and related searches.

2. Create High-Quality, User-Centric Content

Keyword research on its own won’t generate more traffic. The key is to leverage the results to create engaging content that meets the needs of your prospects searching online.

To create the kind of content that will show up in search results, you need to write directly about their pain points or needs. When it makes sense, incorporate multimedia elements, like images and videos, to improve engagement. And don’t forget about formatting! Incorporating sub-headings, short paragraphs, and lists makes your content easier to read than large blocks of text. While you’re at it, check the mobile view to ensure it’s readable on cell phones too.

HubSpot’s Guide to Content Marketing provides a comprehensive overview of content marketing to help you get started. 

Pro Tip:

Similar to keyword research, we start our content development with the questions our clients are asked most often. That way, we can develop content that contains the information people are already searching for. After we have that insight, we consult our keyword list to find the phrases that best align.

3. Optimize On-Page SEO with the Latest Best Practices

When you optimize individual pages on your website, customer-centric content is a solid start. The next step is to apply SEO tactics to the metadata of your website, which is essential for making content accessible and user-friendly.

Integrate your target keyword in your title tag, meta description, headers and alt tags for any photos. If your website is built on WordPress, we recommend using Yoast SEO to guide you and ensure your on-page optimization efforts are actually improving the page. Don’t forget that your keyword should be included in the URL as well; if your site’s URL structure isn’t already SEO-friendly, make the necessary updates page by page.

Pro Tip:

SEO is always changing! Though Google is the dominant search engine, people are looking to other apps, AI and voice search as alternatives. One easy tweak you can make to your SEO strategy is to write more conversational, question-based content to match searches more closely. That’s what we’ve seen major search engines (like Google) prioritizing recently.

4. Leverage AI and Automation Tools for SEO Efficiency

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a buzzword for a while now. Though many are skeptical or even fearful about it, AI is another tool to add to your toolbox to help you work smarter, not harder.

With select AI tools as your “marketing intern,” you can streamline your SEO tasks and data analysis, freeing you up to do more deep, creative work. SurferSEO’s free and paid tools help you analyze marketing content (by checking for AI, giving content suggestions and more). Clearscope’s Discover tool uncovers important topics on which you can optimize content to drive traffic to your website. Don’t forget to add automation into the mix! Platforms like Semrush and Moz can monitor keywords automatically and make reporting a snap.

Resources: 

Check out this article from Forbes about how AI is changing SEO and the importance of using AI tools.

Pro Tip: 

If you have a wide variety of services or a few different free downloads available, we highly recommend email drip campaigns to help you stay connected with prospects! Drips allow you to have automated communication that feels customized based on what prospects have already expressed interest in.

       5. Implement a Solid Technical SEO Foundation

SEO is about more than drawing visitors to your website. Technical SEO focuses on your site architecture (think URL structure, page redirects, and XML sitemaps), which affects how search engines interact with your site, impacting search engine rankings. Aspects of technical SEO, like page speed and mobile responsiveness, also impact user experience, thus making the case for laying a solid technical SEO foundation.

Before implementing technical SEO strategies, conduct a website audit using tools like Screaming Frog or Google Search Console to uncover your site’s weaknesses – pay close attention to site speed, mobile optimization, and core web vitals. After these tools crawl your site, you will see where you can improve indexing and prevent crawl errors. As you make improvements to your site’s foundation, audit your site regularly to track its effectiveness.

Pro Tip: 

Our on-page SEO strategy led to increased organic traffic for one of our clients. Technical improvements to this financial company’s website resulted in them earning multiple pages in Google’s top 10 search results including a featured snippet! By ranking in the top 10, this business unlocked access to the coveted search engine results page (SERP) features, which are displayed above top organic results and garner more organic traffic.

6. Focus on Building Quality Backlinks

A backlink is a referral link to your website from another website. Aside from driving referral traffic to your website, quality backlinks serve another key function: improving your site’s credibility with search engines. When a reputable website links to yours, it signals to Google that your site is reputable too (this is known as link equity). Having many high-quality backlinks improves your site’s authority, which factors into how search engines rank the search results. 

To garner positive backlinks to your site, work to build relationships with reputable sites so they can guest post on your site and vice versa. ProfNet, Qwoted and SourceBottle are platforms that help connect people and businesses with journalists and can help with this process.

Though backlinks help your site with link equity, don’t ignore your internal linking strategy. Internal links point visitors – and search engines! – to other relevant pages on your site. Not only do internal links help people and page crawlers navigate your site, but they also extend link equity to other pages and signal to search engines that other pages are important and relevant. 

Pro Tip: 

We take a holistic approach. Begin by sorting your existing backlinks, then invest time in thanking the positive and disavowing the toxic backlinks. Not only does this improve SEO, but it improves your site’s technical health, too!

7. Optimize for Local SEO (Especially for Small and Mid-Sized Businesses)

If you’ve ever googled some variation of “craft store near me,” your results were thanks to local SEO. This offshoot of SEO helps businesses reach prospective customers in their service area. So if your business has a physical location (e.g., restaurant) or provides a service (e.g., landscaping), optimizing for local SEO must be included in your strategy.

The easiest way to get started with local SEO is to set up and optimize your Google Business Profile – it’s free and it helps your business be found in search results in regular Google and Google Maps. To optimize your profile, be sure to fill out as much information as possible. Then, leverage announcements and posts to keep your profile active and help rank higher in search results.

Conduct local keyword research to discover how people in your target area search for the product or service your business offers. Once you have a list of target keywords, incorporate them into your URL structure by creating location-specific pages.

Don’t forget local online directories like Yelp, Bing Places, your chamber of commerce, or Angi for home services. For most directories, you can claim your free business profile and optimize it as you did for your Google Business Profile.

Pro Tip: 

Whether or not your business is local, ensuring your Google Business Profile is complete is essential. Though Google can pull some information from your website or social media, you need to set your business’s hours and add the link to your website. 

Did you know that other people can add images to your business profile? Post the pictures you want representing your business first! If you have a brick-and-mortar business that isn’t easy to find, your images can be especially helpful to prospective customers who want to visit your business in person. Take advantage of the announcements feature and add updates about your business such as special holiday hours or sales.

8. Stay Updated with SEO Trends and Algorithm Changes

Good news and bad news: SEO is always changing. There are trends to follow and changes to search engine algorithms that you need to know about so you can adapt your SEO strategies appropriately. 

Follow reliable SEO news sources like Moz Blog, Search Engine Journal, and Google’s Search Central Blog so you’re continuously learning and updated on SEO changes.

Regularly review the performance metrics of your website and Google Business Profile and make adjustments based on your new knowledge and what’s working.

Pro Tip: 

As we mentioned in #3, searches are happening all over the Internet, not just on Google. Think about how you use social media, like Instagram or TikTok – you’re searching there too, aren’t you? When it comes to SEO and digital marketing, it’s important to have an omnichannel strategy.

Drive Results With Strategic SEO

The key to a successful online presence lies in a well-rounded approach to SEO. Start with thorough keyword research to target the right audience, create engaging content that meets their needs, and optimize on-page SEO to improve visibility. Leverage AI tools and automation for efficiency, build a robust technical SEO foundation, and cultivate quality backlinks to boost credibility. For local businesses, local SEO ensures you’re visible where it matters most, and staying ahead of SEO trends ensures you’re always prepared for the next algorithm update.

SEO is a continuous journey of improvement and adaptation. By focusing on these proven tactics, your business can achieve long-term growth and sustainable success. Ready to elevate your online presence? Contact Keystone Click today to learn how our team can help you implement SEO strategies that deliver measurable results. Let’s grow your business together!