old school or new school

another discussion.. its interesting to see what others think about onsite SEO.

Old school or new school SEO? Which are you? We'll assume for this that your coding and methods are correct.
Do you theme 'naturally' by using a mutlitude of different H tags, titles, sub headings etc etc, leave it to chance and write good long formatted paragpraphs about relevant subjects, and rely on others linking to you, and hope for the best..
or
do you still use the tried and (once) tested H1 copying meta title, H2 main keyterm, sprinkle the main terms in the description a couple of times, alt tags with keyterms, proper hierarchy etc etc (i'm generalising here). We all know this method works with yahoo but is it still a winner with google for instance?

Which do you prefer? are you having success with writing the page purely naturally, and to a degree forgetting about SEO? or are you having better success with liberal sprinklings of your main terms where you think they count?

I don't have a direct answer to this. I mix and blend the two

"? are you having success with writing the page purely naturally, and to a degree forgetting about SEO?"
forgetting about seo then means no web site optimization at allfor a page do you mean that by new school seo? the rules for seo havent been changed over the years i think, the basics are still there.

I don't recognise the division.

I think for the most part it's a matter of 'being aware' of the guidelines about Hx, etc., while making a page that meets visitor needs. As the SEs get more and more sophisticated, the more 'natural' approach is actually what the SEs are seeking - Less Is More.

In fact, slavishly adhering to some 'checklist' of keyword density etc., is a single ticket to sick site syndrome.

But it's not me that's changes, or SEO 'style' ... it's the SEs that have rumbled most of the 'tricks'. And those the SEs have missed, you can be fairly sure your rivals will spot.

SEO evolves; we all need to evolve with it.