Local SEO in 2025: banes, blessings, and predictions

Sponsored by Semrush, written by Miriam Ellis edited by Nichola Stott

The bane of making local search predictions is that local SEOs and local business owners simply don’t control so much of the online environment in which we work. The blessing is that some aspects of our industry have hardly changed at all since the dawn of commerce, making them at least somewhat predictable and dependable.

Prepare your team for the year ahead by keeping a close eye on the following core trends and stories:

Protect your local customers amid deregulation and monopoly

In August of 2024, a U.S. judge ruled that Google had violated antitrust law and created an illegal monopoly. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland hailed the ruling as a “historic win for the American people”, and while Google quickly responded with a public notice of its intent to appeal the ruling, SEOs began speculating on what a Google breakup might mean for our search environment. 

Now, with a change of government administration, multiple news outlets now foretell that Google will not be broken up. Alphabet and Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, was quick to congratulate incoming President Trump on his re-election: 

What it means to local businesses: While change is constant in Google local platforms, it is unlikely that the local brands you market will have to navigate a radically-changed Google resulting from a break-up in 2025. 

However, instability may result from further deregulation of consumer protections during the second Trump presidency. During his first administration, Donald Trump celebrated historic deregulation as a catalyst to economic growth, but local business owners know that building profitable long-term customer relationships is dependent on earning consumer trust.

If an increasingly-deregulated environment subjects the average consumer to more fraud, scams, and hassles over the next four years, it will be important for local businesses to emphasize messaging surrounding the steps they take to protect their patrons. Such messaging could range from online security, to food safety, to environmental practices, to consumer guarantees. Demonstrate that, regardless of shifting politics, your local business is committed to keeping customers safe.

Look to fill the local news gap with a podcast

Some commentators place the blame for the U.S. political divide on the loss of local newspapers. More than half the counties in the nation either no longer have access to local news or have limited access, meaning that millions of Americans are missing out on investigative reporting that connects federal policies to local outcomes. 

Meanwhile, Statista predicts that the podcasting boom will continue and projects that there will be an audience of 110 million listeners in the U.S. by 2029. This is about ⅓ of the country’s current population. If it’s true that an over-consolidation of media has turned U.S. politics into a team sport instead of an ongoing experiment in democratic policy and public service, then perhaps restoring sources of local news could reconnect citizens with the narrative of how legislation impacts local life. 

What it means to local businesses: If you are marketing a local business that is looking to expand its voice and reach in a town or city that has lost its local newspaper, podcasting could be a solution. Depending on the culture of your community, your podcast could cover everything from serious local news to lighter human interest stories. 

You could interview fellow business owners, build a sense of community, and tackle topics like commercial planning, water quality, the real estate market, and other factors that have a direct impact on your neighbors’ lives. Check out Hot Springs Village Inside-Out from Arkansas, Bremelore from Washington, and We Are One Marin from California to help you consider whether your business has the time and talent to podcast as a community service.  

Separate your social media by use case

While there is plenty of reporting on big brand social media fails, 2025 looks like it could be the year in which local businesses of all sizes may need to improve at how they bucket their social media. In 2024, Google began experimenting with replacing Google Business Profile Updates with direct posts from brands’ social media accounts. Sources could include Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, X/Twitter, and YouTube, as these are the platforms you are allowed to link to from your Google Business Profiles (GBPs). If there is a wide rollout of this feature in the new year, it could pose a challenge for your company.

What it means to local businesses: When searchers are interacting with your GBP, they are nearing the last mile of the customer journey. Your GBP’s content, therefore, should emphasize aspects of your business that drive transactions. This sits at odds with social media best practices that emphasize sharing over selling and with the guidelines of many communities that forbid self-promotion. Because of this dynamic, brands work at socializing to avoid accusations of hard-selling.

However, you do not want a customer on the verge of deciding to do business with you via your GBP to get distracted by fluffy social posts about cats and company field trips. If Google begins showing a random-seeming selection of your social content, a new best practice would be to pick one or two platforms that you will restrict to more commercial messaging and remove GBP links to your less sales-oriented channels. LinkedIn and YouTube stand out as more natural fits for sales and conversion-based content.

Diversify your concept of social communications

Looking back, 2024 might justly be dubbed “the year of Reddit”. Google signed a content licensing deal with the forum/social platform and began testing a special snippet just for the brand, leading to complaints of unfair practices. 

For me, the re-emergence of Reddit as a major player in industry conversation provoked thoughts about Google SERP content quality. If searchers (including local searchers) are struggling to find trustworthy-seeming content in standard results, and are turning to Reddit because they are hungry for authentic conversations amongst real human beings, it’s a trend worth noting. That being said, I’m not sure that Reddit meets authenticity criteria.

What it means to local businesses: Reddit’s rising popularity inspired me to rejoin the platform after having nearly forgotten about it over the years since its launch in 2005. Before I created my new profile, I asked fellow SEOs for advice about the environment there, and received multiple warnings not to use my real name. Anonymity and trustworthiness don’t go hand-in-hand, and if a community is made up of masked posters, it’s a difficult fit for local business owners who prioritize relationship-building via authenticity. 

This dynamic has drawn my eyes to another trend: the rise of Discord, which reached 200 million monthly active users in 2024. Originally created as a communications tool for gamers, Discord servers now exist for countless interest groups and, like podcasts, could merit consideration as a hub for local communities. In the Discord servers I’ve joined, trust tends to grow to the point that members begin to feel comfortable about sharing aspects of their real lives with others. Consider whether a local business you are marketing has the talents and resources to create a town Discord as a community service and a means of integrating your brand into local daily life. 

Redefine customer service

If the term “customer service” calls to mind a 20th-century image of a help desk on the premises of a local business, it’s time to refresh the picture. One of my clients, the reputation management platform GatherUp, has committed to ongoing publishing of consumer behavior trends surrounding reviews in the coming year, and a new stat they shared with me really grabbed my attention:

92% of consumers now consider owner responses to reviews as being part of customer service because modern people spend so much time online. 

What it means to local businesses: This stat is indicative of the much larger 21st-century transition from offline to online life. While customer service used to be confined to what happened in your store and on the phone, a significant portion of it now takes place via the accuracy of your local business listings, the ratings and reviews given to you by the public and your response to this content, your social media messaging and responsiveness, and the general helpfulness of all your digital assets. Before ever walking in the front door of your business, today’s consumers will have made a judgment about the quality of your customer service, based on their online experience with your brand.

This scenario makes it clear that all of your local search marketing efforts deserve priority in your budget, because online experiences have become so influential. In particular, make 2025 the year you become an expert at the art of writing swift, professional owner responses to reviews that resolve complaints, win back unhappy patrons, and prove to the public that you understand that this activity on your part is now part of customer service.

Customer satisfaction: the one thing that won’t change

My favorite local business tale of 2024 occurred when Ace Hardware’s customers rushed to the brand’s defense when a tweet questioned its longevity. I was inspired to do a full write-up of the story in hopes of identifying the causes of the company having achieved this magnificent and enviable degree of consumer loyalty. 

In a year in which our conversation was dominated by whether AI would replace SEOs (and possibly life on Earth), and we found ourselves questioning the veracity of Google in the context of API leaks, some firm ground to stand on is a welcome thing. I can confidently predict that customers in 2025 will still know whether or not they are satisfied by their experience with your brand and will make further transactions on the basis of their satisfaction. 

What it means to local businesses: When I analyzed Ace Hardware’s secrets to success, I found that the consumer public continues to place very high value on the following local business factors:

• Proximity – a location that is convenient to customers is a win. 
• Expertise – a staff of well-trained employees is a competitive difference maker.
• Adequate and friendly staffing – having enough employees to give customers a friendly greeting and assist them creates a memorable experience.
• Inventory breadth and quality – having products that can’t easily be found elsewhere in town and focusing on the highest-quality offerings is attractive. 

As you strategize for the year ahead, evaluate all four of these characteristics with the goal of earning and retaining a steady customer base, regardless of shifting external forces in politics, technology, and society. Wishing you the best of luck in your local search marketing in 2025!

Get ahead of local search trends, rank higher than your competitors, optimize your community profile and manage your posts using Semrush’s Local Search Tools.