how are people doing seo in 2026?

Narrower and deeper. Fewer pages, each one properly covering its topic, with a real name on it and a reason that person knows the subject. I'd also spend more time in Search Console comparing impressions against clicks per query - plenty of queries still show you but don't send anyone any more, and knowing which ones tells you where the traffic actually is. Getting your brand mentioned on other sites matters more than it used to as well, since the AI answers seem to draw on that.

The fundamentals haven't moved: crawlable, quick, and the page genuinely answers what the searcher meant. what has changed is the click side - ai answers take a slice of the informational queries, so the same ranking earns fewer visits than it did two years ago. that's an argument for going after queries where someone actually needs to reach a site.