There is at leas one SEO element that you can do without compromising your ethics: Study which the most searched keywords are in your niche, and use those keywo

There is at leas one SEO element that you can do without compromising your ethics: Study which the most searched keywords are in your niche, and use those keywords in what you would have published anyway (home page, blog posts, press releases, whatever). This is not just SEO, it is adopting the language of your users, which is good in itself.