SEO is dead. That's some strong wording that sends any SEO expert into a rage. To get the magnitude of this controversy just read this article. What about some little prediction that was written early last year on the developments in website optimization? I believe SEO is not dead per se. What has actually happened is that Social Media is now being given much more airplay than SEO. Furthermore, we are living in times where demand  for an audience for any website is on a how-quickly-can-we-take-it-out-there basis. Let us go back to the pre-social media era. Back then, SEO was the means to getting a site off the ground and into the "popular/visible sites" group; in fact some SEO experts took it to the extreme, considering it to be an end in itself. PageRank here, Page Rank there, Page Rank everywhere, Page Rank was the talk of the SEO town. Every new webmaster could not miss to wade through information on Site Titles, Keywords, Site Description, Linking etc. just to get ranked on any search engine. PSSSST! Here is some history on the advent of Social Media over SEO. But what about now? Optimization of any website for search engines is just half of the work that should be done, the rest is now covered by social media activity. To ensure that your heavily optimized site does not grow cold, you'll have to actively prospect for the kind of visitor you'd like for your site and interact with them. By doing this you will be actually pre-selling your site to them.
Remember, SEO isn't dead if for every site you create you have to choose a good description, good keywords and a site title to boot. Here are some few aspects of SEO that you still have to look into; and they fall under the 2 main goals of website optimization: to improve USABILITY and ACCESSIBILITY.

Usability

1. Does your site have a cluttered apperance? It shouldn't.
2. Your site's navigation should be simple and easy to use.
3. Links. Broken links destroy the user experience.
4. Background color vs text color. An off-white or white background is the one that is mostly preferred for any site. Black text on a dark-brown background is a terrible #fail.
5. E.t.c

Accessibility

1. META Keywords. Try to think of words that a surfer would type into the search box to get to your site. These are your site's keywords.
2. META Description: Describe your site for search engines to rank you.
3.  "ALT" titles for your images.
4. Braille support for the blind.
5. Et cetera.

How does social media come in? You may have done all this (and much more) but you have to engage others to enhance your site's visibility in the long run. Using social media should mostly be aimed at kick-starting and maintaining the hype as in actively growing organic traffic to your site.Here is a short list on how it is used:

1. Sharing of links. A single link pointing to some content on your site can work wonders to your site's traffic.
2. Utilization of rich media content. Having videos or photos on your site can indirectly dent your wallet in some way through hosting charges. But you can post such media on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube for FREE!
3. Interact, talk, engage with the other users on the social networking sites. Ask questions, request for feedback, respond to peoples' questions, comment......
4. Provide some juicy information on your profile page about your site or your interests, occupation etc. You'll be pre-selling your site by doing this.
5. Promote your "listening" side using widgets and badges.

SEO and Microblogging

"Optimization of any website for search engines is just half of the work that should be done, the rest is now covered by social media activity" (a statement from the opening paragraph of this blog entry). Several of the methods listed above on how social media is used also work in microblogging sites. Sharing of links is the most common since microblogging sites allow short text-based messages. Photos and videos from your site can also be  posted on the sites.A fully descriptive Bio can be a powerful way of pre-selling your site. An active account attracts visitors from the microblogging site to your site.