Some website owners may look back fondly upon the good old days when things were simpler. Back then, optimizing a website to rank well didn't require a lot of thought. It was easy to repeat some key phrases on a page and then buy a lot of cheap links to give the website and the page authority. However, Google caught onto these antics and took steps to stop rewarding both keyword and link spam.
What SEO Tactics Don't Work Well Today?
Keywords, key phrases, and even links are still very important. However, Google and other major search engines have improved the way that they scan both text and links. The search 
engine bots have lots of spam filters, so stuffing keywords on a page multiple times is a poor idea. They also pay humans to review pages, so even if some artful use of phrases achieves a high rank for awhile, it probably won't last unless the page really contains decent content.
engine bots have lots of spam filters, so stuffing keywords on a page multiple times is a poor idea. They also pay humans to review pages, so even if some artful use of phrases achieves a high rank for awhile, it probably won't last unless the page really contains decent content.
Also, Google runs checks for unnatural links every so often, so the practice of buying or creating a lot of low-quality links is not one that will help keep ranks high for long. In fact, it could even get a site penalized.
Today's SEO Tactics
To rank in competitive niches, any SEO Denver will say that it's still important to obtain links from other websites. However, it's better to concentrate on getting a few links from good and relevant websites than thousands of links from websites that don't have any authority and appear to be low quality. Also, SEOs need to be wary of using the same keyword linking text all of the time. It's better if links look more natural and only a few actually contain keywords.
It's fine to use key phrases and keywords on a page. However, it's probably better and safer to use a light touch and also rely upon synonyms and the context of the page. Today's search engines are pretty good at figuring out what pages are about.
Finally, user intent should be considered as much as keywords. If a site does rank for a phrase, that site needs to satisfy users who visit the site via a search engine. That will keep them on the page longer and increase the ratio of clicks from the search engine page.
