SEO tips for beginners

1) Internal linking on the site helps SEO
2) H1 is good -no evidence but semantic , H2, H3 so on...not of much use
3) Use meta desc but not meta keyword- easy for competitor or
automated key word detectors to steal keywords easily.
4) Key word density - not as important as most think
5) Keyword Variation- Variation of the keyword-like split phrase
or some other grammatical variation
6) Use Italic on Keyword once atleast-high correlation with ranking! -not causative so not be used excessively.-why not make all titles Italic?
7) Keyword location: Important in title and content-earlier the position the better
8) Brands matter to google- so Build the Brand