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"I've done almost zero SEO."

"I changed the title tags to match each page's content"

That's SEO

"I submitted a site map to Google Webmaster Tools"

That's SEO

"I added the relevant meta tags."

That's SEO.

Sites like this don't tend to grow with SEO, they grow because of a community and social sharing.

Yea I think he means link building, which is by far the most time consuming and daunting task of SEO.

What do you think linkbaiting on reddit etc is? That's linkbuilding too.

He said almost zero SEO.

The title says "No SEO". Just saving some people a read if they were expecting an article explaining how he did it with "No SEO".