I think alot of people nowadays forget about original content, alot of sites get decent traffic at first with totally useless sites reposting other peoples work (whether it be manually reposted or automatically), their success is short-lived in most cases.
Techniques like manual link building with different keywords, description etc help greatly. Whether it be social bookmarking, link submission or forum postings.
Content categorization. Your site needs to be categorized. Categories need to be virtual folders. Posts (news items, forum posts, whatever) need to have a static link, with a date and relevant keywords and information within the post. Optimized links are easy, just think logically about the absolute most logical way things should be categorized. Humans like categorization, so do search engines.
But first and foremost, you need REAL content. Without original, new content you're doomed from the beginning. Using typical SEO techniques will increase your SERPs dramatically, quickly, but only with real content. Without real content, you'll just be another link indexed at the bottom of the barrel.
I realize we are talking about search engine optimization, as in, optimization after content. However i feel it's necessary to say the content and its merit itself is absolutely the key element to success.
Excuse my use of BOLD words, perhaps google will like them.
My 2c.
