What is the most important step of SEO?

Creating internal links, backlinks, website speed, keywords, and writing quality content. That's all

 

I think that the most important steps in SEO is on page. Because the success of SEO is mostly depends on proper on page optimization.

 

Keyword research is the most important step of SEO

 

Selecting the right keywords!

 

I don't think there is a most important step when it comes to SEO because they're all important. However I'd say the very first step is figuring out what keywords to use.

 

Hey! I started this thread...

Glad to see it's still going strong

I said it in the beginning and I will say it again - Keyword research is by far the most important step in SEO.

With proper keyword research, there is hardly anything you can't rank!

 

Meh, not really. While on-page SEO is important, it's not difficult to do right, and for competitive search terms, it's off-page SEO that is the difference.

 

Having a humanistic approach is the important step in SEO.

We, humans are very complex. Google is trying to adapt this complexity to their algorithm. When the matter is complex, you will need a complex approach to solve the matter.

So, I think there is no "Most important step in SEO", but there are "many important steps" . To me those steps are

1. Product/business design: Carve a product you are passionate about and knowledgeable on. I should be the first one who love my product. Else you and your product will face a premature death.
2. As you have said already "Keyword research"
3. Content: Fresh, Unique and valuable content which is helpful to people.
4. User experience: Provide best user experience to your visitors with easy navigation, comment and social features etc.

I would like to tie these 4 steps together, and call them "Humanistic approach".

So If you ask me again which is the most important step in SEO, then my answer will be "Humanistic approach".

Now think yourself as a reader.

1. Readers are looking for a solution. ( Your product design decide what type of problem to solve, and keyword research help you to find the problems)
2. If they find a helpful piece, they will show their gratitude by commenting, sharing or spending more time on your website. (you should have good content to help them and make them stay on your website.

This is what Google trying to Mimic. They continuously evaluating how visitors interacting with websites and trying to implement the same pattern to their algorithm.

Ever wondered why your ranking is falling in search results? Because visitors are not engaging with the content of your blog. Make your friends to comment (not random comment, but related to post topic) on your blog, and watch your ranking is increasing.

So, Get them (visitors) and make them stick. This is what we, humans do (We stick with good things)

This is the new definition of SEO (my personal opinion).

 

I agree with you,

However - I have found a keyword so amazing before, I actually was able to rank an auto blog. They weren't even full posts, just snippets from other websites via an RSS feed.

On the other hand, let's say you write the most epic post on SEO - do you think you will rank on page one for "SEO"?

The sad news? Many newbies believe they will...

 

I may or may not. But eventually I can.

To me, these are flaws in product design (1st step out of 4) rather than lack of keyword research. If your blog is on art niche why do you want to rank for SEO? In other hand, if your blog is all about SEO, you will surely rank somewhere, not today but tomorrow. Only thing is, you have to work more on step 3 and 4.

But SEO is a broad topic. You don't have to rank for all all keywords related to SEO. Rank for few, then make your visitors to stick to your blog by supporting and advanced information. This is a pillar strategy where you give importance to conversion.

You convert your visitors to subscribers/direct visitors. So you don't have to depend fully on organic traffic. But when your bounce rate decrease and user experience increase, you will start to get more traffic from search engines too.

So plan your product first. Start with small and get authority in that. Slowly you will be ready for bigger chunks.

I wish if I could add a signature here saying “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. The art of SEO is to outrank your enemy without competing"

 

But how do you know which keywords to target without keyword research

It's like building a house without foundation.

 

Oops. Sorry to being funny

I am not speaking against to what you have said about keyword research.

In my 1st message I have stated that "keyword research is ALSO important". Since you have already spoke on that part, I thought it is Better to leave that unattended. Even in the 2nd message, I didn't say keyword research is of no use. I clearly said

How can you choose keyword without doing keyword research

In short words what I am trying to say is,

As far as SEO is concerned, there is no single important step, you have to do something complex to yield results.

Glad that I could make someone smile

 

quaility and unique content then create very strong backlink

 

What will the content be about?
What will the anchor text be for the backlink?

 

Thanks a lot friends for sharing this useful information it would be very helpful for newbies like me.

 

Keyword Research. Articles with said research. Backlinking on said topic. Rinse and repeat.

 

Keyword research and On-page Optimization is the most important part of seo

 

Exactly.

 

I'd say it's all about making your website content great, but w/o keywords even the best content in the world remains not visible for users. So, I'm voting for keywords.

 

Keyword Research and Onpage