This post only refers to a specific breed of SEO. That is the independent SEO whose main interest is strictly in finding ways to become a self-sufficient work from home person. This kind of SEO usually only works on his/her own sites, rather than taking on clients (although they may do this occasionally as a way to supplement income).
This SEO has one goal in mind - make income. For the sake of this post, let's assume that his goal is to make a living without having to have the typical 9-5 job. Essentially, he wants to provide for his family. In this quest for income, this SEO hunter may consider 100 different ideas on what kind of website to create and how to earn money from it. He may very well start out by buying a few how to make money on the internet ebooks, fumble around for a while trying them out, and then realizing that maybe these were just a waste of time and money.
Eventually, if this SEO hunter doesn't give up, he will start to find his way. He may discover along the way that there are a couple of different things that can happen.
1: The SEO can become a Wooly Mammoth Hunter and accomplish his goal.
2: The SEO can become a Small Game Hunter and accomplish his goal.
If the SEO becomes a Wooly Mammoth Hunter, he targets a highly competitive, highly lucrative niche, in the hopes of making large amounts of income. This is like hunting for the wooly mammoth. If you find and kill the wooly mammoth, you've got enough food to feed your family for a year with one strike. If, however, you fail to find or kill a wooly mammoth, your family starves for a year. Likewise, if you target a highly competitive market, and fail to rank for your terms, your family may starve. If you target that same market, and succeed in ranking, there's probably a lot more than a year's worth of food that you can supply to your family.
If the SEO becomes a Small Game Hunter, on the other hand, he targets a series of low to medium competitive niches, in the hopes of supplying a steady stream of income. He spreads his net out far and wide, capturing rankings for many terms. Each term, by itself, only generates a small income, but collectively, they add up to a nice income that keeps the family alive throughout the year.
If you are just starting out, you might want to consider first becoming a Small Game SEO Hunter, while working your way up to becoming a Wooly Mammoth SEO Hunter. You will be able to have some successess and some failures while you are hunting the small game niches, while learning what it may take to hunt the SEO wooly mammoth. Of course, if you do start out hunting the wooly seo mammoth, you might just get lucky and rank for that big, lucrative term right away. It's up to you what risks you take, but just remember that there is more than one way to hunt for that internet income.
Side note: It should be interesting to see what kind of Adsense ads will show up on this post.