Ask HN: "Basic SEO"?

I see this phrase thrown around like a magic spell from time to time, a la "Put up a site about a profitable niche, do some basic SEO, and bam! presto! Instant $50/month!" But what is "Basic SEO" to you? Blogging? Adwords? Paying dudes via MechTurk to write articles for you? Googling "Basic SEO" brings you a few good articles, but a LOT of "buy our ebook" articles too. I just feel that if it were so basic, it'd be more common to find. So what do you consider to be "Basic SEO", HN?