Most Important SEO Factor

[inter123]

If it could be just one thing, would backlinks be the most important factor to SERP?
Assuming on page SEO is reasonable and the site at no. 1 has 25 links, would 26 be sufficient to reach no. 1?

Cheers.

Jim

[RedEvo]

As you have noted links are vital but it's not about numbers, it's about quality.

d

[Mike Anthony]

The most important factor in Serps is the keywords you have targeted.

You can have 1,000 links and can't crack the first page if you choose keywords poorly

You can have less than 50 links and get number one if you have done good keyword research.

[butters]

Getting quality backlinks is the important factor, no matter what keyword you choose, poor, mediocre, good, you are going to need backlinks and them backlinks will need to hold relevance.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by butters

Getting quality backlinks is the important factor, no matter what keyword you choose, poor, mediocre, good, you are going to need backlinks and them backlinks will need to hold relevance.

OF course you are going to need backlinks but you start first with good keyword research. Theres no other effective way. It is without a doubt the most important factor. The decision of what words to target affect on page and off page SEO

[butters]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

OF course you are going to need backlinks but you start first with good keyword research. Theres no other effective way. It is without a doubt the most important factor. The decision of what words to target affect on page and off page SEO

Keyword research isn't an SEO factor, its a research factor.

[kkchoon]

Both picking the right keyword and backlinks is important.

If your competitor has 25 PR 6 backlinks, you need at least 26 PR 6 backlinks for the job. However, most of the time when we look at those link count, it just means Yahoo Site Explorer indexes 25 of them, there may be more indexed by Google. Usually I use 2 times of what Yahoo Site Explorer shows to out rank my competitor, even so, it all depends on the quality of my competitor vs my own backlinks.

Kok Choon

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by butters

Keyword research isn't an SEO factor, its a research factor.

LOL! Really?

So the anchor text you use is not an SEO factor. Take some time off the forums. Time to hit the books.

[butters]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

LOL! Really?

So the anchor text you use is not an SEO factor. Take some time off the forums. Time to hit the books.

Anchor Text = Backlinks... So, backlinks is most important?

[Underground SEO]

what counts are good quality backlinks = backlinks from authority sites (or sites that have various sites linking to them), who provide you with backlinks with your keyword anchor text. But you do need to choose a do-able niche to start with or you could be doing seo for months/years without any results. It all depends on the keywords you choose and how aggressively your competitors market their websites.

[seostone]

Backlinks are definetly the most important factor, but they will only play an important part if you have a good formatted and SEO's site for them.

Check this out: seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

Andrew

[paulgl]

Boy everybody is all over the map.

The thread's title is misleading. It asks for SEO
factor, then tosses in SERPs.

People jump on backlinks, but what are backlinks for?
To raise SERP? Hmmmm.

I would not say backlinks. I rank #1 with less than 5 for
one site.

One must further digest the question. There is much more
to a high SERP than backlinks. In fact, I'd say backlinks
have little to do with it.

What counts is how google views your site. Does it warrant
top billing in the SERPs?

Most of you forgot title, content, authority, etc.

Remember the question was for SERP, not PR.

How many of you have come here and bragged that your brand
new site, very few backlinks, is now #1, at least for a short time?

Let's have a real debate. What IS the number one thing to do
for a high SERP? I would contend it would not be backlinks.

Paul

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by butters

Anchor Text = Backlinks... So, backlinks is most important?

Wrong. You can have a thousands backlinks with ZERO anchor text and you can also have ton loads of backlinks with the WRONG anchor text and get no traffic.

SEO is about getting results in the serps by the KEYWORDS that people search for on Google. Thats search engine 101.

SEO is worthless without targeting a keyword but hey if you think different and don't want to learn no skin off my back.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by paulgl

Let's have a real debate. What IS the number one thing to do
for a high SERP? I would contend it would not be backlinks.

Paul

I've said it

KEYWORDS. That site you rank for with a few backlinks will not rank without the keywords.

I share your amazement Paul. Its obvious to me now having read several posts today that the backlinking subject has totally bamboozled people. They think all that matter is backlinks because thats all we push AND because keyword research isn't a push button and I am done factor.

I don't have to build ANY backlinks to rank Blue Fridge SEO. IF Google finds this post and finds Blue Fridge SEO it will rank my site number one for that term especially in quotes.

Its Keyword on the page, Its related content to the keywords and its keywords in the backlink.

PERIOD. It s not debatable.

[Aaron H]

I'd say it's knowing the weak points (if any) of the competition sitting on page 1 and knowing whether the time/money spent trying to achieve a page 1 spot for a certain keyphrase is going to be worth it.

every 1st page of results is filled with different levels of competition for many different keywords. No single method is going to be the magic bullet for every situation.

[butters]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Wrong. You can have a thousands backlinks with ZERO anchor text and you can also have ton loads of backlinks with the WRONG anchor text and get no traffic.

SEO is about getting results in the serps by the KEYWORDS that people search for on Google. Thats search engine 101.

SEO is worthless without targeting a keyword but hey if you think different and don't want to learn no skin off my back.

It's simple, if you want to be seen by google in most niches, you will need backlinks. If you want to tackle any niche above slightly competetive, you will need backlinks. Now I am not saying that keyword isn't relavent, it is highly relavent but the simple fact is, if you want to be seen, you will need backlinks. SEO is all about being seen in my opinion and achieving top spot.

Keywords are defined before SEO takes place, that is why they call it keyword research. What SEO does is allow that keyword to have it's full potential, hense the definition of Optimisation: to exploit fully; get the maximum use out of.

If you think that keyword is SEO, thats fine, then its a catch 22 situation. Know the right keyword and not be seen or be seen for all the wrong keywords.

[butters]

Originally Posted by paulgl

Let's have a real debate. What IS the number one thing to do
for a high SERP? I would contend it would not be backlinks.

Paul

I vote backlinks, you can do all the onsite optimization you want but without backlinks, you ain't going to be seen in any mildly competitive niche.

[SEOArbiter]

Although many factors can play into your SEO, you still need backlinks and they are THE #1 Factor.

[Spot the Ball]

OK, Lots of relevant keyword rich content.

Backlinks.

Good internal linking structure.

I havent studied silos for internal linking but since applying anchored internal linking on page and sidebars I have noticed my rankings improve quite a lot in the past week alone.

For instance I can now even see these internal links on first page google as well as the main content (sidebar links with search term among them).

In theses instances I am getting multiple first page rankings.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by butters

It's simple, if you want to be seen by google in most niches, you will need backlinks.

Butters read what you wrote. Tell me how you define a niche in search engines without keywords. Thats pretty funny. You can't do ANY good backlinking campaign without concentrating on your keywords. In ALMOST every circumstance if you want to rank for a term you need to have the keyword content on your page not just in your anchor text.

So you need keywords before you backlink and you need keywords on your page so what does that tell you about the importance of Keywords in SEO not BEFORE seo?

This thread is fun though and important. Do you know how many people I deal with that have no clue why they don't rank despite buying all kinds of backlinking services. I'd say upwards of 90 per cent of the time the problem is keyword related not their backlinks.

Keywords are defined before SEO takes place, that is why they call it keyword research

Oh brother. Well you can lead a horse to water but if he's stubborn he still won't drink. When you find a book on SEO that doesn't talk about keywords let me know. You have no clue what SEO is if you can say that keyword isn't SEO. You research the keywords so that you can implement them in SEO. anything else is pure nonsense.

Some of the wort posts on SEO have been posted today. IF it was last week I'd say its an April Fool's joke but it isn't

Keywords in Title, Keyword density, Keywords in anchor text and people stillclaiming Keywords are not a part of SEO itself but only what you do before ? You can't optimize a site at all without reference to keywords.

I'm out. This is hopeless

[paulgl]

Backlinks will not cut it.

Don't mix up PR with a high SERP.

If your site is indexed, it has a chance to be
high in the SERPs.

I can type "blue dog yellow zebra baseball"

And in 15 minutes, this thread will be #1 for that phrase.
And not a single backlink to this thread.

It has to be related to content and authority.

Paul

[Spot the Ball]

Can I play devils advocate here ?

I think Butters understands exactly what you mean, he is just saying that even with the best keyword in the world you aint going to rank without backlinks for anything remotely competetive.

Having said that, keyword analysis comes before anything.

So, proper keyword researche is the first step and in my eyes followed by good keyword content.

Good internal linking for a solid foundation then build links to your hearts content.

[Mike Anthony]

Told you I could rank this thread for Blue fridge SEO with no backlinks


Blue Fridge SEO - Google Search

Thats how powerful keywords are. No its not a competitive term but it shows you how Google will rank a site based on keywords being on the page besides keywords in the anchor text backlinks.

[paulgl]

Going back to the original question,

If it could be just one thing, would backlinks be the most important factor to SERP?
Assuming on page SEO is reasonable and the site at no. 1 has 25 links, would 26 be sufficient to reach no. 1?

I (and many others) can give you examples where #1 has a a dozen
backlinks, and #10 has 10,000.

Backlinks can't possibly be the deciding factor as far as google goes.

Research would be done before a site was made. After a site was made,
now what?

I have some guesses, like google giving your site more authority if
found and there is no click back to the search results page.

Backlinks may be related to authority, but not in all cases.

Paul

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by Spot the Ball

, he is just saying that even with the best keyword in the world you aint going to rank without backlinks for anything remotely competetive.

Butters might but what his posts are saying point blank is that keywords is not a part of SEO but what comes before and thats false. You do keyword research first because you use keywords THROUGHOUT the whole SEO campaign and because if you mess up and target the wrong keywords you've blown alot of time and resources and won't rank.

I take this notion on because it REALLY IS becoming a problem with newbies. they really think that backlinks will get them where they want to go without recognizing what good keyword targeting can achieve. Some start dropping backlinks and when Google visits they don't even have the keywords in the right places.

[butters]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Butters might but what his posts are saying point blank is that keywords is not a part of SEO but what comes before and thats false. You do keyword research first because you use keywords THROUGHOUT the whole SEO campaign and because if you mess up and target the wrong keywords you've blown alot of time and resources and won't rank.

I take this notion on because it REALLY IS becoming a problem with newbies. they really think that backlinks will get them where they want to go without recognizing what good keyword targeting can achieve. Some start dropping backlinks and when Google visits they don't even have the keywords in the right places.

Just think I should clarify something, I never considered a keyword SEO because I considered it Research and part of content creation. The reason why I also consider it not SEO is because of the word optimization. For you to be able to optimize something, you must first have an initial value/entity, in this case, a keyword. I fully understand how important a Keyword is to the entire picture and the vital role they play.

[chimeara27]

For me the important SEO factor are good content, proper keyword, and link building.

[GeorgR.]

Originally Posted by inter123

If it could be just one thing, would backlinks be the most important factor to SERP?
Assuming on page SEO is reasonable and the site at no. 1 has 25 links, would 26 be sufficient to reach no. 1?

Cheers.

Jim

the most important SEO factor is content, content relevance and content quality.

[Wayfatwhitey]

Agree with Butters.
If you are talking about ranking, then its assumed that you have an idea of what you want to rank for....

So whatever that is, blue widgets, the most important thing for ranking is backlinks for blue widgets.

(I also assume that when people say backlinks, you understand that higher PR backlinks are worth more than lower quality backlinks)

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by Wayfatwhitey

Agree with Butters.
If you are talking about ranking, then its assumed that you have an idea of what you want to rank for....

So whatever that is, blue widgets, the most important thing for ranking is backlinks for blue widgets.

Nope. You are optimizing a web site page to rank for a particular search which is the words being entered when the user searches. So the keywords you are targeting also need to be on the page and optimally placed on that page. Furthermore you can have "an idea" of what to rank for and end up with an idea that you can't rank for even with 20,000 backlinks. Over emphasizing backlinks over keyword content is a common mistake

You should start out with the right keywords
You should place your keywords in your backlinks
You should place the right keywords in your H1 tags
You should place the right keywords in your articles
You should place the right keywords in the title of your page

noticing a trend?

You should even have words related to your keywords that are different from your keywords.

and on and on with KEYWORDS.

This is why when you look in the serps you will COMMONLY see sites with less backlinks outranks sites with more even after you account for quality differences (and yes that matters big time too).


So are backlinks critical - YES but only after you have got the right keywords selected and on your page and on your links and in your content. Keywords control everything because search engines try to rank on relevance and relevance is determined by phrases the searcher is putting into the search.

Its the cornerstone of ALL search engines. So whats more important? The fact that controls everything else or just one factor as to why a site ranks like backlinking (critical as it is)?

People concentrate so much on backlinking they try to get thousands of backlinks and don't end up with any traffic while other spend time with keyword research and get a hundred backlinks that bring in traffic on long tail keywords.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by butters

J The reason why I also consider it not SEO is because of the word optimization. For you to be able to optimize something, you must first have an initial value/entity, in this case, a keyword. .

The word optimization in SEO refers to optimizing a page not a keyword. I might have a car dealership come to me for SEO. Do they have content already they want and have put on their site? Of course. So what do I have to do? I have to optimize the page which is called On page SEO. How do I do that? BY looking at their titles, content, navigation, H1 tags etc. in regard to the keywords they should be targeting.

Thats SEO. ON page SEO. Its not something I do before SEO thats something I am doing throughout and its all related to keywords. OFF page SEO I also look at the incoming links and I analyze them for keywords too.

Look I wish we didn't have these thread about whats more important. Its like asking whats more important food or water . You need both. BUT since people insist on asking these things and others insist on answering them I'll go with keywords. If I tell them get keywords off page back to their site and get them on their page then its all good. That covers most of SEO.

IF you answer backlinks then people do shoddy keyword research and shoddy on page SEO and get nowhere.

[Michi Kono]

Originally Posted by inter123

If it could be just one thing, would backlinks be the most important factor to SERP?
Assuming on page SEO is reasonable and the site at no. 1 has 25 links, would 26 be sufficient to reach no. 1?

Cheers.

Jim

For the sake of ranking your site to the top page, whether you are targeting a "buying' keyword phrase or not, it comes down to the "popularity contest" voted by both quantity and quality of backlinks, using an anchor text link for the keyword phrase.

That what i focus on for my clients websites and it's been successful

Checking up on competitions is also crucial though..

[cloteria]

I like that Ninja South Park character looking avatar. lol

[IntegratedS]

Great tips! so much to learn here in this forum...

[butters]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

The word optimization in SEO refers to optimizing a page not a keyword. I might have a car dealership come to me for SEO. Do they have content already they want and have put on their site? Of course. So what do I have to do? I have to optimize the page which is called On page SEO. How do I do that? BY looking at their titles, content, navigation, H1 tags etc. in regard to the keywords they should be targeting.

Thats SEO. ON page SEO. Its not something I do before SEO thats something I am doing throughout and its all related to keywords. OFF page SEO I also look at the incoming links and I analyze them for keywords too.

Look I wish we didn't have these thread about whats more important. Its like asking whats more important food or water . You need both. BUT since people insist on asking these things and others insist on answering them I'll go with keywords. If I tell them get keywords off page back to their site and get them on their page then its all good. That covers most of SEO.

IF you answer backlinks then people do shoddy keyword research and shoddy on page SEO and get nowhere.

I see your point I really do but I don't see it like that, the true value which is being optimised is the keyword and the page is basically where it lives...

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree, like most things, it's open to interpretations, this is how I have interpreted it and it is working fine for me. You obviously see it different and that's fine, that's how you see it.

[Alexander CPA]

On-page SEO isn't a very important factor when it come's down to overal ranking, it's all about the quality of the backlinks, also the content has a lot to do with your overal ranking, but unless you got a chimp to write your content, you shouldn't need to optimize your content.

[butters]

Originally Posted by Alex Brooks

On-page SEO isn't a very important factor when it come's down to overal ranking, it's all about the quality of the backlinks, also the content has a lot to do with your overal ranking, but unless you got a chimp to write your content, you shouldn't need to optimize your content.

Wrong, on page SEO is important, very important... Backlinks alone will not get you ranked, especially in a niche which is competitive. There are a lot of cogs which go into SEO and not one thing can work without the others, that being said, some things are more powerful then others.

[animal44]

If the keyword is non competitive then backlinks may not be necessary - on page can be sufficient, but looking at the whole picture backlinks are by far the biggest factor. Try searching on 'click here' - the number one is adobe and they don't mention 'click here' anywhere on the page. Also look at the size of the competition...

For the OP, if your site matches the number one in other respects, then yes, one extra backlink will do it, but there are more factors. If your PR0 and the number one is a high PR authority site, then you're unlikely to beat them until you match their authority.

[Dimitris]

To rank high in search engines for your main keywords, you need:

-SEO optimized page
-a lot of backlinks

People usually jump over the first step and build a lot of backlinks and then when they get stuck on the Google second page, they wonder why.

Back to basics, first optimize your page for your keywords and then build backlinks.

[samoset2003]

Awesome responses! Referring back to the original question....

Onpage SEO Ranking Factors (Keyword Specific) in Order of Importance:

1) Kewword usage anywhere in the title tag
2) Keyword usage as the first word(s) of the title tag
3) Keyword usage in the root domain name

Onpage SEO Ranking Factors (Non-Keyword) in Order of Importance:

1) Existence of substantantive unique content
2) Freshness & frequency of new content
3) Usage of anchor text links pointing to other URLs on domain

OffPage SEO Ranking Factors in Order of Importance:

1) Anchor text of IBLs
2) Quality & quantity of IBLs
3) Good link source diversity

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by butters

like most things, it's open to interpretations.

Lots of things are open to interpretation. That ain't one of them. On page SEO is when you optimize a page for a particular set of keywords. Its what you do to the page. The keywords is how yo do it not what is being optimized. If you don't understand thats fine but millions of people do onpage SEO every month by looking at the same keyword placement criteria on their pages. Don't want to learn and claim it isn't SEO to a page but to a keyword thats fine. We get all kinds on these boards. You welcome to believe whatever you wish.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by animal44

If the keyword is non competitive then backlinks may not be necessary - on page can be sufficient, but looking at the whole picture backlinks are by far the biggest factor. Try searching on 'click here' - the number one is adobe and they don't mention 'click here' anywhere on the page.

Not a good example. No one gets the kind of backlinks that Adobe gets because of pdf readers. Its an exception because the sheer volume of quality links they get (that you and I and even most fortune 500 companies will never get). So its an exception not an example.


Plus there is little competition for that term. No one is trying to rank for "click here" Even the domain clickhere.com is targeting something else. Thats another idea that needs to die that keeps propogating itself. the results number doesn't mean anyone is competing for a term. Its just a count for the words in the index. I guarantee you 9 million pages are not competing for this term

Thomas dog apple - Google Search

[arttse]

If you want to maintain a long term, high ranking in the search engines, the most important SEO factor - without a doubt, is making sure the content of your page is RELEVANT to the keyword/s you are targeting.

Every other factor is considered secondary.

[webeserve]

Backlinks is an important factor only if your site is added on the white list of google.... and how to be added on the white list?

You need to have good content and information that people needs... You need give your visitors quality information

[paulgl]

Oh, please tell me how I can get on this white list!

Paul

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by paulgl

Oh, please tell me how I can get on this white list!

Paul

$27 inclusion fee coming to a WSO near you.

[Fernando Veloso]

Originally Posted by paulgl

Let's have a real debate. What IS the number one thing to do
for a high SERP? I would contend it would not be backlinks.

Get to the basics: Content.

[4morereferrals]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Not a good example. No one gets the kind of backlinks that Adobe gets because of pdf readers. Its an exception because the sheer volume of quality links they get (that you and I and even most fortune 500 companies will never get). So its an exception not an example.


Plus there is little competition for that term. No one is trying to rank for "click here" Even the domain clickhere.com is targeting something else. Thats another idea that needs to die that keeps propogating itself. the results number doesn't mean anyone is competing for a term. Its just a count for the words in the index. I guarantee you 9 million pages are not competing for this term

Thomas dog apple - Google Search

Speaking of propagating ideas that need to die ...

Actually it appears - nobody is optimizing for that term.

"Thomas dog apple" - Google Search


And "click here" is a bad example of backlinks efficacy?

866m pages for that exact term in the db

"click here" - Google Search

interesting to note also adobe.com is PR9 - that page is a PR10. PR debate aside - google doesnt arbitrarily give that out PR10 on a lark, was the PR assignment for the killer relevant content that lives on that page?

Here's the bad ass on page seo and killer relevant content rockin a PR10. Do lots of links work .... ALSO? I'll let ya'll sort it for yourselves.

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[giseo]

high pr related backlinks.

[eduprograms]

Relevancy and the inbound links from the web pages from the higher PR.