How to Rank #1 on Google in 2025 [Free SEO Checklist]
Neil Patel, a leading digital marketer, shares his updated 8-step SEO system for ranking #1 on Google in 2025. In this article, I address the main points that struck me the most. Download the free SEO checklist I compiled after research into the topic.
Drawing on over 24 years of experience, Neil Patel explains in his recent video that SEO success today requires more than just optimizing for keywords – it’s about technical excellence, smart content, brand building, and adapting to Google’s evolving algorithms.
Are you running websites and doing SEO?
Hello there, me too.
If you landed here to understand what happened to the HowTo and FAQ schema markups, don’t worry. I will explain it as simply as I can.
Here I will talk about
- Neil Patel’s 8-step SEO system to rank #1 in Google
- Sharing free SEO checklist 2025
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8-step SEO System 2025 Insights by Neil Patel
In the mentioned video, Neil Patel shares his updated insights on how to rank number one on Google in 2025. These insights are based on his experiment with 68 sites and 744 articles.
I’m sure all of these points will be obvious for you.
We all hear them all the time, for years.
But still, these so often stated SEO definitions are worth to focus your often overloaded attention and remind yourself of them so as not to lose track.
That’s why I made a short SEO checklist of the mentioned website optimization takeaways that you can free download below. I highlighted my most favorite which I adhere to and added some more context (my personal view I experiment with).
SEO Checkllist to Rank in Google Search
My Favorite SEO Tips so far
Today SEO requires more than just optimizing for keywords, but it’s about smart content and adapting to Google’s evolving algorithms.
SEO is a race against your competitors, not Google. Or and Google? Taking into account the scaling performance of Google AI Overviews.
Track your competitors’ rankings and content to reverse engineer what’s working.
Pay attention to money-making keyword research – with high CPC and low difficulty. I would also not ignore transactional keywords since informational webpages sink in the the AI Overviews with no incoming clicks.
Use AI content with caution. Based on Neil Patel’s experiment with almost 70 sites and 800 articles, human written content outperforms AI content by 5x in traffic. Google rewards E-E-A-T content which AI struggles to replicate.
Use AI for ideation, tonality, translation, and scaling, not as a replacement for expert content.
Backlink strategy is still a deal. If a site links to three plus competitors, they are likely open to linking to you if you offer better or fresher content.
Brand building is still a major ranking factor as always. Distribute content across multiple channels like social media, emails, messages to increase brand searches.
Refresh your content. Update old content with new stats, better formatting, and fresh information. Use Google Search Console to find declining posts. Google favors up-to-date content like Wikipedia.
Avoid common SEO mistakes. Don’t have multiple pages on the same topic. It confuses Google. Build a clear website structure and logical hierarchy, main page, supporting articles, and internal linking.
