SEO is not dead, but Google has indicated it is trying to de-emphasize it, in favor of ranking sites with 'natural' looking content and sites higher than more throughly 'optimized' ones. It's helpful to learn to implement other methods of obtaining targeted traffic, from social media, to mobile device traffic, etc. Basically, mastering how to steer a targeted fragment of visitors from sites with massive traffic may be the best alternative way going forward---think of Yahoo Answers, as one example.