It's been my experience that most people fall into one of the following categories when it comes to SEO:

(1) It's a big mystery and I don't know what to do.

(2) Putting a META keywords tag is all I need to do to get into search engines.

(3) I know some of what search engines like, but I'm too lazy or busy to write keyword-rich, legitimate content for my site, so I'll write a script that just produces SPAM pages for search engines. Or, I'll resort to other tricks of the moment to spam my way to the top.

(4) They hire search engine marketing companies to do the optimization for them.

(5) People who actually know how a site is properly optimized for a search engine and spend time writing content that is both relevant for the surfer and the search engine.

(6) They can't be bothered with any of the above and just buy Google Adwords.

I find that most adult webmasters or websites don't want to spend a lot of time and effort on SEO. They want quick, they want guaranteed, they want a top 10, they want it now - they want to spin bullshit into gold.

dzinerbear