Keywords, Backlinks, or Content. Which is more important?

What do you think is the most important when doing SEO? Keywords, Backlinks, or Content? Or do you think all 3 are equally important?

Or something else is more important than those three?

Content is and will always be king of ka-ching.
And a picture is still worth a thousand words, more than ever.

That being said, keywords (tags and captions for pictures) get them indexed.
Backlinks should be a natural result of doing the first two correctly, ie: sharing.

Clarification, this post was about SEO, not marketing in general.
If you just want to sell a product using an affiliate website then
all you need are the right keywords or well placed links/backlinks.

If you want your own website to rank then content should be the focus.

Audience.

Your targeted audience is most important, but from an SEO perspective, that will be determined via keywords.

Once you've figured out EXACTLY what you want to say to your audience, then focus on quality content.

Backlinking comes on the tail end.

Don't rule out paid advertising, either, like Facebook ads.

I think of keywords, backlinks, content and SEO as I would a 3-legged stool. If SEO is the seat, then keywords, backlinks and content are the legs that support it. Remove any one leg and the stool will collapse.

However I wouldn't say that the legs are "equally" important, because they each have completely different characteristics and functions. It would be like trying to compare apples, oranges and grapefruits.

But I would certainly tip the scales in favor of content as the element with the most influence because the buck stops there... so to speak.

Hermas

Content and backlinks are SEO'ing. Anything that can be done to help get organic free traffic is important and great.

I think its a little bit of all the above and some. Especially if your marketing a specific website that you use for blogging or as an affiliate website/link. You may want to look into some free software that helps you generate great keywords. There are many free sites out there for marketers trying to get an online presense. Just do a Google/Bing search. Wordpress is also a good platform that has specifc themes for SEO optimization

A8ch: I think of keywords, backlinks, content and SEO as I would a 3-legged stool. If SEO is the seat, then keywords, backlinks and content are the legs that support it. Remove any one leg and the stool will collapse.However I wouldn't say that the legs are "equally" important, because they each have completely different characteristics and functions. It would be like trying to compare apples, oranges and grapefruits.But I would certainly tip the scales in favor of content as the element with the most influence because the buck stops there... so to speak.
Exactly - Google is now penalizing overly optimized sites, so be careful with "keyword stuffing" and use variations of your keywords, along with LSI. Write great content that's useful and informative (and original), a natural linking process and you'll experience success for the long term.

You need all 3 like oxygen, water and food. Your site will literally die without those essential elements in place. High PR backlinks generate free organic traffic for the life of the link. And what is organic traffic? It's real people searching for your product or service in real-time. Keywords are the GPS system which navigates online surfers to your domain.

But content is the most important of them all. Not having decent content is like having a gas station with no gas in stock. Once the customers arrive they'll quickly become disappointed, and probably won't return.

With Google's changes, I think content is becoming more important than ever before. Too many keywords can get you a penalty these days. Too many unnatural looking links, ditto.

But content - content that visitors love and are seeking is the Goldilocks-just-right spot to focus on. It's safe to focus on it, because if it's original and high-quality you can get some awesome natural backlinks and word of mouse (like Facebook sharing, etc.), which will lead to Search Engine happiness!

So I am of the opinion that content is superior.

You sound like you just wanna narrow your seo work to one thing. lol! there's no such thing. they are all equally important - better start using the seo software that takes care of all those aspects. seo powersuite for example has 4 tools combined together to take care of all your seo issues, this is the soft I've been using since last year, so can only recommend this one. but I'm sure there are alternatives too, not sure which of those are good though

I am under the impression that as far as getting ranked in Google goes, content rules. I have also heard about some "content spinning" type programs out there that will help you with article marketing submissions. These programs basically allow you to re-word your article content in a unique fashion many times over, so one article is re-written many times, each being different so you are able to submit them everywhere without getting flagged for duplicate content.

I myself have not yet tried any such software.. this is just something I have been looking into. Hope that helps you get some of your stuff out there a little easier!

- Michael

Content, hands down. If you've got content that's good enough to go viral, you won't even have to worry about keywords. One of the big things that tend to go viral these days: infographics.

Content is the most important thing for a website to rank well. It's not meant that keyword and back links are not important but in comparison these are less important.

Good question,

Having seen it all when it comes to internet marketing, and evaluated every known strategy ever introduced, the one thing you can count on is what worked yesterday does not mean it will work tomorrow. With Google attacking all the long standing proven strategies like rank, backlinks, content, etc., the rules have changed thanks to Google's ZOO of Panda, Penguin and Gorilla, or who knows what is next shock and surprise which will knock your sites out of organic search results. The latest attacks has killed the proven strategies of past, so get ready for collapse of traditional SEO marketing as I see it.

Content including keywords ruled over last few years while backlinks have slowly faded into the past. When I go back over the years of internet marketing, I saw many strategies work like gold for years, then POOF, they were attacked by Google and sent into oblivion, and it has gotten worse and worse over past couple years. Remember when press releases got you indexed on top of organic Google search results, worked great for a couple years a few years back, now you will rarely see any of these press releases show up in search results. Then we saw HUB pages perform great and got indexed in lightening speed. Now, forget about it, I haven't seen a HUB page come up in search results in many months, including mine which were on top for better than a year. Look at all the free classified sites which performed well for years, these too are gone with the wind. Then we say explosion in blogging which often got you indexed, now, again, last Google attack wiped out most blog advantages and stopped being indexed. On and on, what use to work no longer does.

While everyone is trying to figure out what the newest strategies are, SEO has become near useless and more time consuming than ever before due to constant attacks by Google's ZOO. There will always be new strategies to drive traffic to our web sites, but it won't be as easy as it was. If you study marketing as I have over decades, we see cycles often repeating when it comes to what attracts new prospects, and as more get frustrated with SEO, we will see traditional marketing come back around again, and direct mail and TV-Promotions are coming on strong. New white list email blasts are booming, social business media is booming and bonus incentive marketing is leading the way, so when I look at what works, there are too many variables and while content still is most important as I see, you have to constantly refresh your content, and above all, do not copy even small parts from others as Google attacks these templated type sites first and foremost, so beware of this killer.

Good luck to all,

I would have to say content.. its all about social media these days..

There is an order that must be followed when doing SEO. You can not build a house with out the right foundation. One must have a solid site first, before any optimization a is done. You can build a million backlinks but if your site isn't right, they won't matter. Work on your content first. Original and unique, add fresh posts regularly. Then perform all the on-page optimization that applies. Then slowly and steady build links (naturally and safely). Keep producing great content, then build links to the content.

Content is the big boss of all. Your link is worthless if you have crappy content especially after the recent Google updates. Content is more significant in all SEO works as Google is penalizing those websites that have low quality content.

It's hard to rate 3 things like this because they all serve a different purpose. Without good writing you're probably not converting as well as you should. Without links you're like an island and you won't get any traffic. If you're not using keywords your content can't be found and probably wont make sense. They're so interconnected that most people think of them as part one one system.

Content is king every SEO knows this. Though keywords and backlinks are also valuable but these are after content.