Oddly, that is precisely wrong. SEO used to be about manipulating search engine rankings -- having the word "mortgages" in white text on a white background 5000 times on all your pages, or building a giant link farm to inflate pagerank.
Now it's about getting people to read content -- by creating content people like to read. I guess there's something to be said for appealing to smaller, less trendy groups (but that's part of SEO, too; the ROI on dominating obscure searches is often higher than for more mainstream searches, simply because a long search string is more likely to lead to a sale -- you Google [web design] (http://www.google.com/search?q=website+design) to learn about web design; you try [nyc website design firm] (http://www.google.com/search?q=nyc+website+design+firm) when you're ready to hire, e.g., the company I work for).
The problem a lot of people have with SEO is that when they notice it, it's done badly. But another way to restate the problem is that most people have no problem with SEO, because they only notice it when it's done badly.
Now it's about getting people to read content -- by creating content people like to read. I guess there's something to be said for appealing to smaller, less trendy groups (but that's part of SEO, too; the ROI on dominating obscure searches is often higher than for more mainstream searches, simply because a long search string is more likely to lead to a sale -- you Google [web design] (http://www.google.com/search?q=website+design) to learn about web design; you try [nyc website design firm] (http://www.google.com/search?q=nyc+website+design+firm) when you're ready to hire, e.g., the company I work for).
The problem a lot of people have with SEO is that when they notice it, it's done badly. But another way to restate the problem is that most people have no problem with SEO, because they only notice it when it's done badly.