SEO has two parts... ON Page Optimization and Off Page Optimization. and you have to give full attention on both of them.
For On Page Optimization - It's always important to use Relevant Title, Meta Description & Keywords.
Use fresh and original content on your site, give more focus on internal linking.
For Off Page Optimization - It's basically link building process where you build inbound links for your website. There are many ways for it like:
Directory Submission
Article Submission
Blog Commenting
Forum Commenting
Press Release Submission
Social Bookmarking
The first step in SEO is doing your keyword research and understanding the importance of using the right keywords. If you just blindly write articles and hubs and randomly come up with titles, you are not going to achieve good rankings. They've got be targeted, hopefully in a sub-niche that does not have a tremendous amount of competition.
Search engines are not without flaws in their business models, but there is nothing immoral or illegal about testing search algorithms to understand how search engines work.
People who have extensively tested search algorithms are probably more competent and more knowledgeable search marketers than those who give themselves the arbitrary label of white hat SEOs while calling others black hat SEOs.
When making large investments in processes that are not entirely clear trust is important. Rather than looking for reasons to not work with an SEO it is best to look for signs of trust in a person you would like to work with.
-> DO proper keyword researching.
-> Use various off page SEO methods for link building.
-> Link wheel method is very helpful in improving page rank of your website.
-> On page SEO is the important part of SEO so you should do it wisely.
There is one more thing you need to be good with and that is ****yzing your competitors. This surely helps in getting good backlinks and as well as rankings in a less time. Competitors ****ysis is also one of the important part of seo.
SEO is an art and not a science with definite process and you need to implement a combination of link building and promoting strategies and later ****yze which one is yielding result and work accordingly.