Here we go again. 2026 will be here in just a couple of weeks. This means it’s time for our 2026 SEO predictions.
Before we go there let’s congratulate ourselves. Our 2025 ranking factors all checked out.
We still don’t have that crystal ball, what we do have is unmatched SEO expertise and over a decade of experience.
So what will move the SEO needle in 2026.
Some things never change. Links continue to be the king of SEO. Ranking for competitive keywords without domain authority is not possible and we don’t see that changing in the foreseeable future.
What we do see is a lot of SEO practitioners struggling with link building. It’s by far the most desired and difficult to learn and execute part of SEO.
Just like links, content has been a constant factor since a long time. In particular since Panda.
Your pages will still need well researched and optimised content.
Don’t look for shortcuts in AI, you will be very disappointed.
Another constant here and the guiding principles have not changed. Accessibility, consistency and clarity is the key. One thing to keep in mind is that search engine crawlers are getting impatient. What we mean by that is that due to so much AI slop, engines are much more selective in what to crawl and what to index. Making their job easier will help you.
Search Engine Optimisation trend predictions where is the internet going
Is the AI bubble going to burst?
We’re not sure. One thing is certain, the sheer quantity of spammy AI content is staggering. This creates crawling and indexing challenges for the search engines.
For users, it creates a lot of disappointment. Imagine researching a topic and every other piece of content you stumble upon is a rehashed AI slop.
Ironically, the quantity of AI slop is also affecting the AI models themselves. Many users have been reporting new versions of chatbots not actually getting any better. Some suggest the reason for that is that they run out of material to train them on and they started training on their own rehashed content. You can only imagine the output 🙂
According to S&P Global Market Intelligence's 2025 survey, 42% of companies abandoned most of their AI initiatives this year.
AI Overviews in SERPs are also a new development which will become more important in 2026.
These affect a lot of informational queries and will affect you especially if you are a content producer who makes revenue from content. So blogs, informational sites etc.
Your content could be taken by AI and served to users by a search engine. With everyone on the way making profit and not sharing it with you. It will not be long before we see a pushback here from EU regulators.
The second solution and one we would recommend if you are a blogger creating unique content is to build community and consider gating your content. Monetise via subscription and platforms like Patreon. Of course you should not do it without thorough research.
If you are still getting a ton of valuable traffic from organic search and you are monetising that traffic, then there is no need to act just yet.
However if you already have a massive community, huge email list and presence on platforms like Patreon, then it may be time to start experimenting.
It’s 2025, and Google Analytics has been getting worse and worse with every update — especially for SEO.
It all started back in 2011, when Google removed most keyword data from Universal Analytics (“not provided”, anyone?). Since then, it’s been a slow and steady decline. GA4 is just the latest chapter — and for SEO professionals, it can feel borderline useless. Landing page data is harder to find, keyword info is non-existent, and the UI feels like it was designed to make reporting as difficult as possible. To make things even worse, big chunk of organic SEO traffic is now being lumped into the dreaded “direct” bucket, making accurate attribution diffcult.
This post is very much written from an SEO perspective. If you're a developer or data analyst, you might see GA4 differently. But if you're trying to improve rankings, track organic performance, or just make sense of your content’s reach — you need something better.
So, if you're ready to ditch the chaos, here are three GA4 alternatives we’ve tested, used, and actually recommend.
Matomo is like Google Analytics — if it was built by people who actually care about your privacy and data ownership. You can self-host it or use their cloud version. Either way, your data is yours.
It gives you real-time stats, goals, campaigns, funnels, and everything else you’re used to — without needing a PhD to build a basic report.
✅ GDPR-compliant
✅ No data sampling
✅ Clear and familiar interface
✅ Bonus: You can import your old UA data
It’s not as pretty as some others, but it works. And that’s more than we can say for GA4 most days.
If you’re on WordPress, Burst is a clean, privacy-friendly plugin that gives you all the essential stats right inside your dashboard.
This is perfect for bloggers, small business owners, and anyone who just wants to answer simple questions like: “How many people visited my site?” As of May 2025 it has 300k active installs on WordPress .
✅ Lightweight
✅ Privacy-focused
✅ Easy to install (especially on WordPress)
✅ Great for beginners
No complex tags, no separate logins — just the basics, done well.
👉 https://wordpress.com/plugins/burst-statistics/
Plausible is simple, fast, and fully open-source. The dashboard is a joy to look at, and it tells you what you actually want to know — without overwhelming you with options.
Best part? It doesn’t track personal data, so it’s fully GDPR/PECR-friendly right out of the box.
✅ No cookies
✅ Gorgeous UI
✅ Lightweight script
✅ Integrates with Search Console
It’s a great fit for privacy-conscious businesses or SEOs who want a quick overview without the GA4 bloat. It’s not free, plans start from £9 /month for 10 sites so quite affrdable.
GA4 may be the default, but it’s not the only game in town. Whether you want full control (Matomo), quick insights (Burst), or sleek simplicity (Plausible), there’s life beyond Google Analytics.
If you're thinking of making the switch and want help migrating, you know where to find us. https://blendcreativeminds.io/contact-us/
It's 2025 and we still don't have a crystal ball. We are however one year older and snarter than when we've published our insights for 2024.
As always we've correlate what we know about ranking websites and what was happening with search in 2024. lus, a recent leak from within Google has revealed some insights we’ve long suspected: Google isn’t entirely transparent about its inner workings (to put it mildly).
Before we start. I think it's fair to say that we've been 100% correct in our predictions so fra. So fingers crossed we can do the trick again in 2025.
##2025 SEO Search Ranking Factors
Last years we have warned about reliance on AI generated content and oh boy we haven't missed.
Google is having a field day deindexing oceans of AI spam. In fact, many would suggest that Google has shifted to not indexing by default. Vincent Schmalbach wrote a great post on it a couple months ago. Check it here: https://www.vincentschmalbach.com/google-now-defaults-to-not-indexing-your-content/
While in the past the problem we had was often Google indexing something we did not want to index by mistake, now getting a new page indexed requires hard work.
That's the indexing part. As far as ranking is concerned, content will continue to be a massive ranking factor in 2025. Longer content (1000 words plus) continues to perform better.
hmm... was this a real thing or is Google simply favouring bigger brands and sites with higher Domain Authority and how do we go around it? We'll reserve answer to this one for our paying clients.
Knowing how to find and optimise your pages for keywords remains a top factor. This of course goes hand in hand with what we just said about content. A generic or AI content may include keywords but these will not be what we call well researched keywords. It simply won't rank high enough.
Links continue to be number one ranking factor. And the ability to find, prospect and acquire the right quintity and the right type of links at the right time is what makes a difference ebtween mediocar SEO and a tru master of the arts of SEO. It's a zero sum game, you either rank or you dont.
Intresting parts from the Google Leak:
(E-E-A-T) experience and expertise
hmm... was this a real thing or is Google simply favouring bigger brands and sites with higher Domain Authority and how do we go around it? We'll reserve answer to this one for our paying clients.
There’s no escaping it: technical SEO remains the backbone of any successful website. Ensuring your site is free of errors, loads quickly, and is mobile-friendly is as important now as ever. Technical mishaps can literally break your SEO. One thing we've noticed is that speed, while important, does not correlate very much with rankings. So do not obsess over PageSpeed Insights.
Crawling isn’t free, and search engine bots have a limited budget when it comes to indexing your pages. In 2025, optimising how search engines crawl your site is more critical than ever.
If you use a lot of AI content, you may be in for rude awakening this year.
As in 2024 and before. Social has zero effect on your organic rankings. So do not invest efforts there with the hope of improving your SEO. That simply won't happen.
Here’s where things get really interesting. A recent (2024) leak from within Google has confirmed what we’ve long suspected. There are undisclosed signals and internal tweaks at play in the ranking algorithm. We will have more on that later 🙂
This report shows which plumbing and bathroom retailers have the best visibility in organic search engine rankings.
We reviewed their rankings, keyword presence, and traffic to see who’s getting the most exposure in the organic results and who might need to improve.
The Domain Authority (DA) chart shows each website’s ranking strength. Sites like qssupplies.co.uk and victorianplumbing.co.uk have high DA scores, which helps them appear higher in search results. However, DA alone doesn’t drive traffic; keywords and content are also crucial.
The Top 100 Keywords in 2023 chart shows how many keywords each site ranked for in the top 100 search results. Sites like plumbworld.co.uk and victorianplumbing.co.uk performed well, increasing their visibility to potential customers.
In 2024, wolseley.co.uk and bigbathroomshop.co.uk improved their keyword rankings, which may increase their visibility. Meanwhile, qssupplies.co.uk saw a decline in keyword rankings, which could reduce its presence in search results.
The Percentage Change in Top 100 Keywords YoY chart shows which sites gained or lost visibility. wolseley.co.uk saw a 22.73% increase, while victorianplumbing.co.uk and qssupplies.co.uk experienced declines.
The Traffic chart shows visitor numbers. plumbworld.co.uk and victorianplumbing.co.uk attract high traffic, likely due to their keyword rankings. Sites with lower traffic may need to focus on keyword and content strategies to increase their visibility.
Ready to Lead the Bathroom Market?
If you found our report valuable and want your website to dominate the bathroom market, or if you're looking for more insights into your competitors, call Blend Creative Minds at 0121 630 2350!
This annual report, prepared by Blend Creative Minds, analyses the top solicitor firms in Birmingham, from large national brands to specialised local firms.
In our SEO market analysis for solicitors in Birmingham, you’ll discover who's winning in search rankings (SERPS) and who’s falling behind. We focus on key factors such as Domain Authority and keyword rankings. Find out how your competition is performing and where your firm stands in comparison. Are you leading the pack or losing ground in the organic search results?
The Domain Authority (DA) by Website chart (above) represents the ranking strength of each website based on a metric primarily focused on links. Domain Authority is a score that predicts how likely a website is to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s calculated based on the quality and quantity of links pointing to the site from other websites (aka Root Linking DOmains).
Websites with higher Domain Authority, such as slatergordon.co.uk and irwinmitchell.com, are more likely to perform better in search rankings because their link profiles are stronger. A higher DA generally means these sites are trusted more by search engines and have a better chance of appearing at the top of search results for relevant queries. Websites with lower DA scores may find it more difficult to rank highly.
In short, Domain Authority reflects how authoritative a website appears in the eyes of search engines, and it’s a strong indicator of a website's potential to attract organic traffic.
The Keywords in Top 10 (2023) chart shows how many keywords each website ranked for in the top 10 search results (on average) in 2023. The more keywords in the top 10, the more traffic the site is likely to get. This is because most people only click on results from the first page of search engines. If a website's keywords aren't in the top 10, it will struggle to get significant traffic, as the click-through rate (CTR) drops sharply beyond page one.
In the Keywords in Top 10 (2024) chart, irwinmitchell.com and slatergordon.co.uk continue to dominate with the most keywords in the top 10, which means they are likely to attract the highest traffic. Shma.co.uk also shows strong keyword rankings, indicating solid visibility. On the other hand, clarkewillmott.com and wilkes.co.uk have fewer top 10 keywords, suggesting they may face challenges in driving significant traffic this year.
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The Percentage Change in Keywords (2023 to 2024) chart reveals clear “winners” and “losers” in terms of visibility. Duncanlewis.co.uk stands out with the largest growth, with a 47.37% increase in the number of page one keyword rankings. This kind of surge suggests a significant boost in online visibility, which will likely translate to more traffic and enquiries. Similarly, Shma.co.uk saw a strong rise with a 30.23% increase, reinforcing its keyword rankings. Mfgsolicitors.com also improved, growing its page one keyword count by 17.65%.
On the other hand, ClarkeWillmott.com faced a steep decline, with a 21.43% drop in keywords. This will likely reduce its visibility and lead to a loss of organic traffic. Wilkes.co.uk also saw a notable decline, losing 12.5% of its keyword rankings, which could similarly impact its traffic.
In summary, gains in keywords correlate with better visibility and traffic, while losses generally suggest the opposite outcome.
As you can see on the chart above, organic website traffic closely correlates with Domain Authority (DA) and the number of Top Ten Keywords. The top two sites with the most traffic are irwinmitchell.com and slatergordon.co.uk, dominating in both visibility and rankings.
If you found this report useful and would like your website to dominate rankings in the solicitors' niche, or if you want more insights on your competitors, call us on 0121 630 2350 ! We can make it happen.
No, we don't have a crystal ball. However, with 15 years of experience in SEO, we can correlate what we know about ranking websites and what was happening with search engines in 2023. We can also see some developments like the rise of AI-generated low content and the most likely steps search engines will have to take.
2024 SEO Ranking Factors (As predicted by BCM SEO Team)
Well-researched and useful content is essential; you should avoid generic and AI-generated content at all costs.
Content length continues to be a factor, with longer pages (1000+ words) performing on average better. However, this is not a rule. A shorter, quality, well-researched piece of content, or content written from a position of real (E-E-A-T) experience and expertise, like the one you are reading now, will perform better than a much longer, generic piece.
It's no different from a school essay where some of the verbiage is added purely to reach the required threshold; it's never a good read. The same goes for AI content. It may sound okay, but as soon as someone with actual expertise (like the actual E-E-A-T) reads it, they can certainly tell. Search engines are also quite good at assessing content quality and expertise.
Knowing how to find and optimise your pages for keywords remains a top factor. This, of course, goes hand in hand with what we just said about content. A generic or artificial content may include keywords, but these will not be what we call well-researched keywords.
A tale as old as the hills. On one hand, everything changed; on the other hand, nothing has changed. While we had multiple algorithmic updates to fine-tune how the search engines understand link signals (starting with the now legendary Penguin updates), the basic principle remains. Pages with more links tend to rank better. Of course, what type of links, how acquired, when acquired, and so on has changed and will continue to change. As a fun fact, we may add that when prospecting a potential link, we are now looking at 60 different factors. 15 years ago, we would look at one (PageRank). TLDR: links remain a top factor 
So this is technically not a new one. It first appeared back in 2014 in the Search Quality Rater guidelines document. But from what we have observed in the last 12 months, it seems to have more weight, and we're expecting it to become even more significant SEO ranking factor in 2024. It is one of the ways search engines will be able to beat the oncoming sea of auto-generated generic content.
No changes here. Technical SEO has to be solid. Technical issues can literally break your site's SEO. Be mindful that some of these may be difficult to see and may be caused by things like your website theme. It would take a lot of time to explain in detail (that's what the first E in E-E-A-T stands for). So if you see your website performing really poorly for no apparent reason, give us a call on 01216302350 , and we should be able to help.
This will become (in our opinion) more important. If you're this far into this post, you can probably see the pattern now. Crawling isn't free, and spider bots have to prioritise. Would they rather check for one, high-quality expert article on a site they trust or waste time crawling auto-generated content?
Having a sitemap will improve your ranking - no, it won't. Good sitemaps can be helpful, but automated sitemaps can do more harm than good.
Social media has absolutely no bearing on your ranking. So just like the links from your FB 5 or 10 years ago had no impact on your ranking, so do TikTok videos today. (Fun fact: check if your TikTok profile page is indexed) The vast majority of social media activity is not even accessible to the search engines. This, of course, doesn't take away the "value" from using these channels, but they do not have any real SEO value.
