Year in Review 2025 and Outlook 2026

The year 2025 is drawing to a close and it is once again time for our year in review and outlook. Let us not wait long and dive right in…

The ongoing topic of AI and the missing added value

Developments in the field of AI are advancing at a breathtaking pace. Even now, the internet is being flooded with countless AI contents (junk?). AI has come to stay – unfortunately also with many drawbacks.

For example, on YouTube, Pinterest, Reddit and so on, it is increasingly being reported that users are flooding the platforms with AI content (AI slop) (source). Thanks to these advancements, it is also becoming increasingly hard to tell AI content apart from human-written content.

For many, AI is a convenient shortcut, but unfortunately a very poor one in many areas. Some market players have already been working for a while with AI workflows and automations, for example to create entire glossaries (in terms of SEO) for their clients … which then, of course, do not rank at all or barely rank (such agencies then like to keep quiet about this little detail ;-)).

Good SEO

No matter how great the temptations may be: good SEO cannot be shortcut. Outstanding results come from real work – from content that contains information which is not already present a thousandfold in AI training data.

Unique content, technical improvements, optimizations for real people and much more make Google rankings in the classic SERPs rise and bring traffic and leads … and that simply involves a heck of a lot of work!

Here is an excerpt from two client projects that really rocked in 2025 thanks to our SEO measures.

A minimal use of AI (90 % human-written content), ongoing on-page optimizations, the expansion of categories, link building (yes, still highly relevant in 2025) and much more catapulted these clients of ours, among others, to the top:

Changes in Google Search

Classic Google Search was the traffic driver par excellence in 2025 and will presumably remain so in 2026.

Google AI Mode has so far not brought any noticeable decline in Google traffic. Many users use a chat AI differently than a classic search engine. I chat with the AI, ask questions and try to obtain in-depth information. In regular search, users continue to use short search terms and click their way through the blue links. Both methods still have their raison d'être and are used intensively.

Whether there will be a tipping point beyond which Google Search is no longer used at all, of course no one knows. We strongly assume that search will endure – similar to radio, print media and TV: despite the internet, there are still numerous print publishers, TV media and so on. They just had to adapt to the new medium of the internet. We SEOs have to do exactly the same for ourselves and our clients.

Our new and old direction

That is precisely the crux of the matter. We have grown, have new employees and can adapt superbly to the new circumstances. By now we help clients not only to be found in regular Google Search, but also in chat AIs. In 2025 we already had the privilege of managing and advising some large projects for clients who wanted to focus exclusively on GEO. SEO remains our core business, as many GEO measures build on SEO. That is why SEO will continue to remain highly relevant.

Thanks to the new employees already mentioned and their associated know-how, we were able to add further services to our portfolio and now, alongside optimizing organic visibility, also offer services in the area of paid media. Our main focus with the new services is on Google Ads and Meta Ads.

Performancetour is here

With Performancetour, our new sister agency, we can position our new services under a new flag and demonstrate the corresponding know-how.

We already manage numerous clients across the two channels Google Ads and Meta Ads and would like to achieve strong growth here as well, just as we have already managed with Farbentour. You must not make yourself dependent on a single traffic channel. With Performancetour.de we now have the opportunity to help all our clients break free from this dependency.

We decided on the name Performancetour because it is a variation of Farbentour and performance marketing. We do not want to put clients into dependencies and therefore offer, with Meta Ads and Google Ads, two very strong performance marketing channels as lead channels.

Content, content and even more content

“Thanks” to AI, old visibility strategies are no longer enough. No one needs the hundredth glossary on a topic. What does it take to keep holding your ground in both the new and the old search results?

Exactly: real expert content that no one else has. Real opinions and experiences. Tips and advice that no AI knows. Such content can also rank well in 2026 and beyond.

We will align ourselves accordingly as well and slowly phase out our glossary, which has been very neglected. Instead, we will focus more on expertise and offer real guides.

We are planning exactly the same with our YouTube channel. We want to move away from weekly short videos and toward long, detailed video content that has depth and that every AI makes you miss. So for the beginning of 2026 we are planning two big blockbusters right away: “Introduction to Search Engine Optimization” and “Introduction to GEO/Generative Engine Optimization”.

Thank you!

We thank all our clients who stay loyal to us and with whom we can achieve great results. An equally big thank-you goes to our numerous business partners, with whom business life is always a little easier, even in currently such difficult times.

I personally thank our great team a thousand times over, with whom we rock every client project. :-)

And a big thank-you goes to you too, dear reader, for reading this article. We will read/see each other in the new year 2026 and I wish you a good start into the new year.

– Fabian