It seems like every day some new “strategy” or technology comes out claiming to the next best thing for business owners. It then becomes hard to determine what actually works for growing your business and what’s just snake oil.

If you’re feeling disillusioned by the countless methods and tools out there, then you might also wonder whether traditional marketing methods are old news. It’s common for business owners to question whether strategies like search engine optimization (SEO) or search engine marketing (SEM) still work in 2020.

The reality is that SEO still matters in 2020, though many of the practices and methods have changed. For example, Google’s 2019 BERT update lit a fire under SEO professionals to focus more on optimizing content based on search intent rather than keywords. Many businesses still need SEO, but they’ll need to adapt to the shifting landscape.