When I worked at NBC in the 90’s, The Clapper spent a boatload advertising on Seinfeld, and Friends, and probably even on The Cosby Show. Of course they would spend millions in advertising on TV as would the George Foreman Grill, as would Ron Popeil and his amazing Pocket Fisherman, as would pretty much any brand that wanted to sell the entire country something. Moms spent a lot of time watching As The World Turns, so it made sense that Cool Whip would want to be there. The problem with Cool Whip is it wasn’t as entertaining as Donny & Marie*:

Then again, those adorable Osmonds couldn’t help you if last minute company was arriving in 30 minutes and you needed a tasty dessert that also signaled you were not a failure as a mother, or worse, as a hostess.

So brands kind of did their thing, solving life’s problems for you, while the media did their thing, helping you avoid all of life’s problems for as long as possible.

Enter the Internet.

I like to imagine that in 1989, Tim Berners-Lee was sitting in his office at CERN around lunchtime thinking “Damn that grilled cheese looks incredible. If only I could send a picture of it to the entire world, then everyone would see what an amazing life I am leading and I could die happy.”**

Enter Google.

Suddenly, while watching Notre Dame get their ass kicked by Bama, you could actually search for what is the best damn beer in the world instead of drinking beer-flavored water just because a team of horses gave you all the feels***.

So SEO in 2021 is not too different than SEO in 2020 or in previous years. Your SEO program will be somewhere on this graph:

The problem with beginning of the year SEO predictions posts is that most brands have already set their SEO budgets for 2021, and I guarantee 99% of them did not include building an in-studio ice rink for dancing skaters to help rank #1 for “queen sized mattress” in their Powerpoint decks.

If you are not prepared to be as entertaining as Donny & Marie, you should be prepared to be at least as informative as WikiHow****. Better yet, be prepared to be both.

Marginalia:

*Thank you Todd Mintz

**According to Herodotus, the happiest man is he who dies happy

***The origin of the Clydesdales is pretty great. Bud should do a Superbowl ad with the Clydesdales delivering Bud to quarantined homeowners; like an equestrian DoorDash.

****Full disclosure: At some point in time, LSG may have helped Wikihow figure out how to do SEO

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