I think it all depends on how you define SEO.

In the early days it was quiet easy. You had to have the wright keyworddensity, some nice metatags and description and lots of backlinks. That was it.

Now you have tons of factors you have to take into consideration.

But saying "build up a site with good and relevant content which is interesting for the user and you archieve a good ranking" is wrong. At least for hard keywords.

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Floating Hessen Schwebebad Frankfurt (Ffm) im Rhein-Main-Gebiet, Deutschland.