Caravan,
first things first.
SEO is a marketing discipline. Get to understand your market category. Get to know where you sit in the value chain. Understand the needs and motivations of the market participants.
I have a theory that over time
SEO will segment down market categories. Finance specialists, travel specialists, retail specialists etc.
Just remember there are more bad SEOs than good ones. The good ones get to understand the conversional needs of the increased target traffic. The bad ones are still struggling with rankings.