Believe it or not, SEO is not indispensable to build traffic. SEO is a more determined, structured and pre-defined way to exercise your right to be positioned based on your skills, but that does not ultimately determine your permanent position on the search engines. Your permanent ranking has more to do with your off-page criterion as opposed to all the keyword repetition and teaks commonly involved in SEO.

I have been able to publish several high-traffic articles and pages that I have not done SEO plan for at all. This is because regardless of how important the individual-page aspect of search engine authority is, the fact is that your site drives authority over all your individual pages. With that said, the more frequent, fresh, interesting and logical content you publish the more reputation you build over time.

While I create and publish my articles, the only actual structure I apply was a clear Title and Heading, a Body and an End. My Title and Heading were both there to identify what my page was about. Other than that, I did not apply keyword repetition, density and weight using a state of the art software. I did not analyze competitive edge with other sites and I did not engage in a formal link building program (not that I did not somehow get inbound links but I just didn't engage in a formal way to do this).

SEO has become more like the Hollywood obsession for lipo-suction, balanced weight and botox. They all feel it is important to stay on top, but it really isn't. See, when you watch a movie with Sean Connery, do you really care how old he looks, NO, you don't. You enjoy his movies because how content-rich and well performed his movies are. So in the end, the general public is the one who really decides who stays on top. In the same way, the readers are the ones who determine what your position will be on the search results based on density and importance of your content. Hey, search engines are learning this better and better every day.

I suspect one of these days, even link popularity will be obsolete. Search engines will give you a temp ranking based on relevancy and your readers will determine who is the best based on the time they spend on your website. This is my vision and I BET ON IT!

In the mean time, there is still the frivolous SEO. The lady with plastic surgery who always thought could manipulate its audience by fooling the channels. Remember this, search engines are looking for quality content; the day they are able to figure how to calculate this accurately, that day, whether black or white hat SEOer, they will all be gone. And writers with purpose and skills will prevail for the rest of the Internet days. Just like the old book publishing and reading saga. You buy a book because it is interesting in it's content. But the day you bought a book because you found several commercials promoting it, you will read the first three pages and return it if you didn't like it.

Think about that same concept and start designing your pages with quality information. Letting YOUR READERS know what your content is about, by clearly defining your Title, Headline, Body and End. Your content will prevail. Today you need to be discovered by the search engines and be ranked for your content. The best way to do this is by using Social Media or Bookmarking (read related articles below), collaborating with your network of webmasters, blogging to drive blog traffic to your website and collaborating by commenting on relevant forums for a link back to your site. The rest, will just give you a temp boost and will require your constant teaking until the day of your final rest.