What does "no SEO" even mean? That he doesn't use proper nouns in title or h1 tags? That he doesn't have any meta tags? That he didn't turn on a purported Wordpress SEO plugin?
* Analysing keywords to find an optimal set to focus on
* Optimising in favour of on-page factors, e.g adding well-chosen keywords in the page title and moderate coverage throughout your content.
* Actively building links using a number of strategies, e.g guest blogging or exchanging links
I guess "no SEO" could mean abstaining from actively improving your search engine rankings?
I don't think SEO is exactly the same as not doing paid SEM. As we all know, there are some factors we can optimise for free.