What to Expect in the coming year
The new year is rapidly approaching and, with it will come new laws and developments in SEO, Accessibility and Data Privacy. Below is a quick breakdown of what you can expect in 2025 in each of these areas.
SEO
In 2025, it’s likely that we’re going to see a continued growth in AI search. This has the potential to loosen the stranglehold that Google has had on the search market, and several services are making a solid case for their tools. Of course, Google and Microsoft have their own generative AI. But they’re playing catch-up and aren’t the top dogs in the AI world at the moment. ChatGPT is the obvious giant in this field at the moment, but there are other tools that are potentially doing it better. Tools like Andi, Perplexity, Waldo, Komo, etc. all have their strong points.
This is an exciting time for website managers and SEOs because new opportunities are opening up. But it’s also daunting because, after years of optimizing for Google, folks will need to understand if the same practices will reward them in AI searches. Content will always be the most important factor. But what other factors determine which sites will be reviewed and linked in AI searches?
Additionally, the rise of AI search will likely cause a significant drop in traffic for information-based websites. We are no longer using the traditional method of search where we’d ask a question, and get several different results that may have the answer we’re seeking. Now, it’s one question into your AI search of choice and you’ve got your answer. Yes, there are links to original sources of that information. But how many people are going to follow those links once they already have the information they wanted?
Considering how rapidly things have evolved on this front, we’d expect that by this time next year, search may look entirely different than how it does now. All of the players in the AI game will continue jockey for position, trying to unseat Google as the dominant tool on the market. Whether one does is anyone’s guess, though I’d still bet on Google continuing to remain the big dog. In the meantime, don’t waste your time trying to figure out how to game each AI search tool. The E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) model remains the best model to follow in all cases.
Accessibility
The biggest news on the accessibility front is that Europe will be adopting a comprehensive accessibility law in 2025. For US companies, you may feel that this information doesn’t apply to you. But just as with the GDPR (Europe’s comprehensive data privacy law), this law applies to anyone doing business in Europe. If you are a US-based ecommerce site, but you ship to Europe, you must be in compliance.
As with US law, the European law will require that sites meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards. Though this will update to WCAG 2.2, so you will want to make sure your compliance efforts target 2.2 standards. The European law was adopted in 2022, and the deadline for businesses to be compliant by June of 2025.
The GDPR was the first major data privacy law, so it caused a major disruption for websites all over the world in 2018. For this new accessibility law, US-based companies already must comply with WCAG standards. So this European law shouldn’t shake things up for US companies like the GDPR did. Of course, if you’re a US company that is not exempt, and your site is not yet compliant with WCAG standards, you should really consider making accessibility a priority in 2025. Roughly 4,000 accessibility lawsuits were filed in 2024. Filing an accessibility lawsuit is easy, and a major headache if you’re on the receiving end of one. So, get ahead of it while you can.
Data Privacy
The US has yet to pass a federal data privacy law. So, individual states continue to pass their own laws. In 2025, 8 states have data privacy laws going into effect. This brings the total to 20 states that will have active data privacy laws. Businesses in the US should determine if they must comply with data privacy laws or if they are exempt. One of the frustrating aspects of the lack of a federal law is that each state has different standards for who must comply. Of course, websites aren’t confined by state lines. So, as a business, you need to determine the lowest threshold for compliance across all states. We recently wrote a guide that breaks down the various thresholds, so you may find that helpful.
If you think that you may be impacted by these data privacy laws (US, GDPR, or both), we’d recommend that you check out services like OneTrust or TrustArc. They have complete, customizable data privacy suites that they will walk you through to make sure you’re adhering to all applicable laws. This will take a lot of tedious and confusing work off of your plate.
In Closing
With new laws and regulations continuing to take shape to regulate the web, managing a website is an increasingly daunting task. Fortunately, there are many resources available so you don’t have to shoulder that burden alone. Of course, even knowing who to reach out to can be overwhelming. So if you aren’t sure what to do, or where to go, we can help clear things up for you and point you in the right direction. So please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. We’re always happy to help.
