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26 Comments

๐Ÿ” The most important factor that has an impact on SEO?

What do you think is the most important factor that has an impact on SEO?

UPDATE: According to the comments, the most important factors seem to be content and backlinks. I created a poll for SEO impacts. Please choose the most valuable for you.

Which one is the most important factor that has an impact on SEO?
  1. Backlinks
  2. Content
  3. Pagespeed
  4. Links
  5. Headings
Vote
  1. 7
    1. Content
    2. Links
    3. User signals
    1. 2

      Yes you are right. But can sites that fail to meet these three criteria be successful?

      1. 2

        Yes. However, not in the long-term. There are many websites using black-hat techniques to rank and these still work. The problem is that these techniques will become obsolete one day or another, just like the previous black-hat techniques 10 years ago.

        If you want to focus on the long-term, content is by far the most important aspect. Google got pretty good at figuring out what people what to read.

        Then links - this gives more reason for Google to crawl your website and rank you higher.

        That is pretty much it. Of course, your site has to work well for the users, but that's kind of obvious - no one likes websites that load slowly, have broken links or pages, etc.

  2. 5

    Everyone is saying content. But content can be short or long. Quality is subjective.

    My most important factor is being able to relate to the searcher via text, and answering their question.

    But I don't even like this question. There's too many variables. There's no such thing as "the most important". All of it is important.

    1. 2

      Content is also a little too broad. The content needs to meet search intent and help build topical authority.

      1. 3

        I agree Maeva!

    2. 1

      Absolutely all is important. I agree with you. But not everyone can achieve full SEO harmony so they need to prioritize some SEO factors.

  3. 4

    Not in order. And these are necessary but not sufficient conditions (unfortunately)

    1. Content or asset. (You can have a calculator or a tool that ranks versus writing 10,000 word blog post ;))
    2. Mobile friendliness
    3. Backlinks
    4. Page speed
    5. User engagement / time on site.
  4. 4

    If you ask for one important factor, I would say it is off-page backlinks.

    We have used different strategies for building SEO, and backlinks seems to have the biggest effect.

    1. 1

      Yes, and I guess this is the most difficult SEO criterion. Did you see the SEO impact in a short time?

    2. 3

      This comment was deleted 4 years ago.

  5. 4

    Content quality, links, and the title. This will be Google-specific advice but it applies to other search engines. There's not really 'one factor', SEO is about putting your site in the best position possible to rank and that means understanding what Google looks for and how you can best align with their mission as a search engine.

    Google cares *a lot * about the quality of content these days, their success as a search engine depends on the quality of the results they return, if they return crap results people won't come back and they lose market share. The content quality guidelines by Google are super in-depth and provide a fascinating look at how they view search.

    Links are also crucial if you really want to improve your rank. Google stemmed from how the best academic papers were referenced more often than papers that were not, and it's the same today. Websites that get linked to are recognized as authorities in their niche, so the more links you can get the more authority Google will see that you have.

    As far as a ranking factor, every page must have a title. It's one of the most important on-page ranking factors (next to quality content of course) so pay close attention to giving each page a unique, descriptive, and engaging title.

    1. 1

      After reading this comment I think you are an SEO expert ๐Ÿค”

      1. 2

        Yep I've had experience in SEO consulting, marketing, and am building an SEO SaaS app.

        1. 1

          Great! I have an SEO SaaS app Screpy. I recommend you review it.

  6. 3
    1. Search intent
    2. Topical authority
    1. 1

      In addition, can these items be successful without internal SEO work?

      1. 2

        What exactly do you mean by internal SEO work? The way I see it, these ARE internal SEO work

  7. 3

    Content, content, content. Start publishing the best content that you can. Make it interesting, useful, educational, entertaining, answer questions that people have etc. Do it regularly say once a week. Do it for a longer period of time say three months. Then look at your search traffic and compare before and after publishing the first post. And don't stop.

  8. 3
    1. Content Quality
    2. Titles
    3. Pagespeed
    1. 2

      Hmm. Thanks, btw what do you pay attention to for quality content?

      1. 2

        The priority of the content is to meet the needs of the user.

        1. 2

          I absolutely agree with you. Someone who thinks of their users can never fail on SEO.

  9. 3

    Whether or not your website is up! You can have the best SEO, but if no one (including google!) can reach your website, then your SEO value is 0.

    1. 2

      I guess this is the most important factor that never comes to mind ๐Ÿ˜…

  10. 2

    Consistently delivering value

  11. 3

    This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

    1. 2

      Thanks for your reply. When you say user behavior, do you mean users' length of stay on the site?

      1. 2

        This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

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