The short version is yes, but probably not the SEO you are picturing. The version of SEO from five years ago, where you memorize keyword research techniques and chase backlinks, is not the best use of a small business owner's time in 2026. The version that matters now is smaller, more local, and closer to common sense.
Three habits are worth your time. None of them require a course, a subscription, or a tool.
Know what your customers actually search for. Not the words you use in your marketing, but the words they type into their phone when they need something, and the only honest way to learn those words is to ask. Ask your five most recent customers how they found you. Ask what they typed. Write it down. Those are your keywords. They are more useful than anything a paid tool will hand you, and they are free.
Keep your Google Business Profile honest and fresh. Hours, services, photos, posts. The example I see most weeks: a one-shop business that updates its profile twice a month outranks a regional chain that has not touched theirs since 2024, on the very queries the chain should win.
The third habit costs nothing and most owners skip it. Write your pages like a person talking to another person. Tools like ChatGPT and Google prefer plain prose with accurate facts, and so does every visitor in a hurry. Cut the marketing speak.
Skip everything else. Link-building schemes, paid directory submissions, weekly SEO blogs, any tool that promises to ten-times your traffic. Your time is worth more than the marginal gain.
The one new thing worth learning is AIEO: optimization for tools like ChatGPT and Google. It is not a whole discipline yet. Mostly it is structured data, accurate business information, and plain prose that a machine can quote without embarrassment. If you want a twenty-minute primer, read What AI search is, and why your small business cannot ignore it. Everything else is detail.
Three habits and a skip list. Done by you, the three habits will outperform most of what the SEO industry sells to a small shop. Knowing what your customers actually type. Keeping your Google Business Profile honest. Writing pages like a person. That is the whole job for most rural businesses in 2026. If you want the structural side done once and never thought about again, that is what The Website covers. The habits stay yours either way.
Mark Ulett builds websites and Agents for rural small businesses from Columbia Falls, Montana. He has been at this work since long before AI was on every business card, and writes the Learn library alongside the build.
For the keep-it-fresh routine: your Google Business Profile matters more than your website.
Or read the AIEO primer next: what AI search is, and why your small business cannot ignore it.