Dofollow Digest #42: What SEJ's "State of SEO" report forecasts in 2026

Hey, it's Eric 👋

Search Engine Journal released its State of SEO 2026 report this week, surveying 371 professionals across 52 countries about the current state and future of our industry.

The data reveals an interesting tension: 66.3% of SEO professionals say original content creation delivered their best results last year, yet 77.9% worry that AI-generated answers will reduce website clicks. Meanwhile, nearly half (49.6%) plan to invest in E-E-A-T as a response to these AI concerns.

Here's what matters for SaaS companies thinking about their SEO and link building strategies.

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🔍 DEEP DIVE: What Search Engine Journal's State of SEO Report Tells Us About 2026

Search Engine Journal's "State of SEO 2026" report provides valuable insights into the industry’s direction and how professionals are adapting to the growing influence of AI on search.

The survey captured responses from 371 SEO professionals, most with significant experience (78.5% have 4+ years in the field). Their insights reveal both what's working now and what concerns them about the future.

The Content Production Challenge

The report highlights a fundamental challenge facing SEO teams: content creation is both their most effective tactic and their biggest bottleneck.

Two-thirds (66.3%) identified original content creation as having the greatest positive impact on their SEO outcomes. But 42.6% also say content creation is their most time-consuming activity and hardest to scale effectively. This creates a practical problem – teams know what works but struggle to produce enough of it.

The industry's response to this challenge is telling. Only 22.4% plan to rely primarily on AI-generated content. Instead, 58.5% are choosing a hybrid approach: human-authored content supported by AI tools. Most teams want efficiency gains from AI while maintaining human oversight for quality control.

A Measurement Misalignment

While 60.4% of teams prioritize qualified leads and sales conversions when measuring SEO success, only 33.7% plan to invest in conversion-focused SEO strategies.

This disconnect means many teams are being evaluated on metrics they're not actively optimizing for. It helps explain why 28.6% of respondents struggle with ROI attribution – they're trying to prove business value while their actual work focuses on traffic and rankings.

For SaaS companies, this misalignment represents an opportunity. Those who align their SEO strategies with business outcomes (rather than just traffic metrics) will have an easier time demonstrating value and securing continued investment.

Algorithm Volatility and Investment Stability

Nearly 60% cite algorithm volatility and SERP disruptions as their biggest challenge. Google's push into AI overviews and zero-click results is clearly affecting how SEO professionals think about their work.

Despite these concerns, the investment picture remains stable. The majority (56.6%) of organizations haven't reduced their SEO investment, and 65% don't plan to in the coming year. Businesses recognize that SEO's value extends beyond traffic generation to include brand building and market positioning.

The Underutilized Collaboration Opportunity

Cross-functional collaboration currently shows the lowest impact on SEO success at 9.4%, yet 37.7% of organizations plan to increase it. This gap represents significant untapped potential.

SEO increasingly requires coordination across teams – product for technical implementation, sales for customer insights, content for creation, and engineering for site improvements. Companies that break down these silos position themselves to handle SEO's growing complexity.

What This Means for Link Building Strategy

The planned increase in E-E-A-T investment (49.6% of respondents) directly impacts how link building should evolve. As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, demonstrating genuine expertise and experience becomes the primary differentiator.

For link building, this means:

Quality over template volume. Generic guest posts and templated outreach are becoming less effective. Publishers can identify AI-assisted, low-value content easily. The links that matter now come from demonstrating actual expertise – original research, proprietary data, and insights only your team can provide.

Entity building matters more. Professionals are preparing for search experiences where traditional rankings matter less than being recognized as an authoritative source. This shifts link building from pure SEO tactics toward building recognized expertise in your space.

Technical foundations enable authority. The 32.3% planning technical SEO improvements understand that clean site architecture and structured data help both search engines and AI systems understand and reference your content. Technical excellence makes your content more likely to be cited and linked to.

Implications for SaaS Companies

The State of SEO 2026 report shows the industry is adapting rather than panicking. The 58.5% choosing hybrid content strategies recognize that AI is a tool, not a replacement for strategic thinking and genuine expertise.

For SaaS companies, your competitive advantages remain strong. AI or competitors can't replicate your product data, customer insights, and industry expertise. These assets become the foundation for content and link building strategies that withstand algorithm changes.

The companies reducing SEO investment (18.1% have already, 13.5% plan to) may be misreading the situation. SEO isn't disappearing – it's evolving into something that requires more sophistication, where technical excellence, genuine authority, and strategic link building become even more important.

Successful SEO in 2026 will depend on building real authority through expertise and experience, not gaming metrics. For link building, this means focusing on relationships and value creation rather than volume and automation.

🔗 LINK ROUNDUP

• How Ahrefs Built 36 Backlinks to One Statistics Page

• AI Overviews Now Show Up for 16% of US Searches

• Internal Linking Data Study: What Actually Works

• How Examine.com Rebuilt to 1 Million Monthly Visits

• Programmatic SEO Case Study: 38% Traffic Growth Without Writers

Til next time,

Eric