Originally Posted by seozero

There is no correct or wrong answer. Everything is important.

1. Content - No content, no traffic, no money. Nothing to optimize.
2. Titles - Explain what is this content about.
3. Backlinks - Indicate that site is worth reading.

I agree to this answer. Content is still king. Titles/keywords and backlinks come for next.

SEO Tip #1: Find the Best Keywords
SEO Tip #2: Discover Your Competitors
SEO Tip #3: Optimize Your Title,Optimizing Your Website Title

Big bonus
SEO Tip #4: Optimize Your META Tags

Originally Posted by ben777

3 factors and why?

Content
Link building
on-page and off-page optimization

SEO or search engine optimization is a process of optimizing a website and from that, I guess there are a lot of things to consider if you're asking about 3 most important factor for SEO. And those factors would vary depending on the purpose of a website.

In general, I can say that the 3 most important factor for SEO (if I understand your question correctly.. )
1. Backlinks - this will help you to get better place in a SERP
2. Meta Tags - (same as backlinks)
3. Content - this will give your visitors the reason to came back in your site. (especially in a blog)

SEO or search engine optimization is a process of optimizing a website

Correct
So, in that case,

1. Backlinks - this will help you to get better place in a SERP

what HAVE backlinks got to do with optimising?

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Correct
So, in that case,

what HAVE backlinks got to do with optimising?

Maybe I can divide SEO into two major parts. The off-page and on-page optimization. I can categorized backlinks in the "off-page optimization".

Backlinks (PR as I may say) is one of the factors that search engines considered in ranking a website in their search results page.

In that case, backlinks plays an important role in "optimizing"

Nope, Links are MARKETING and advertising You cannot "optimise" something that is not in your control.

http://www.webmaster-talk.com/the-go...tml#post810081

Content is king, after that are backlinks and page SEO(title, meta tags,...)

heres what I think

good content
quality backlinks
good keywords

Important Seo factors:
Onpage:
1.Url Optimization
2.File name optimization
3.unique content
Offpage:
1.Social bookmarking
2.one way link building
3.Forums signatures

Originally Posted by Providentestate

Important Seo factors:
Onpage:
1.Url Optimization
2.File name optimization
3.unique content

Amazing how you managed to get two most useless "factors" and miss out the most important one

Originally Posted by Providentestate

Offpage:
1.Social bookmarking
2.one way link building
3.Forums signatures

NOTHING "offpage" is "optimising"

I keep seeing that the most important part of SEO, in all of everyone's suggestions, is missing.. RESEARCH!!

Every last one of you will fail because none of you are even pretending to understand what is really important.. You can not, and will not, succeed if you don't know where you are starting from, who you are competing against, and what is really important for success..

All I see is a massive group of mimics doing whatever they read was the "hot thing" this week that some random person on a forum told them was the hot thing.. Never mind if it's true or not.. Never mind if the person is an idiot or not.. There are awful lot of them in this thread alone.. The bulk of the SEOs out there simply follow the pack and do the exact same thing as everyone else. Regardless of whether it's right for them, works, and even matters, they just do it and then wonder why they suck so bad at it..

1. Inbound links
2. Keyword rich content/post title
3. Domain name

They just don't stop, do they??

Nope. It's relentless. And maybe it's just me but the normally low quality of "experts" seemed to take a sudden drop today as well. Did school break up today or something?

I think India accredited another 100k SEOs today..

1. Your Title. Your title is the first thing that people see in the search engines. This is your first shot of getting them to click your URL.

2. Your Description. After people read your title and have found that interesting, they will continue to read your description. this is you second shot of getting them to click your URL.

3. Page Content. Once their have clicked your URL from the search engines, you need page content that is going to keep their attention. The page content should be related to your title and description, otherwise they will move on to what they were originally looking for.
Web design is very important as well and I consider that part of the page content. Your site should be laid out so it is easy to navigate throughout your site and that your page content is easy to read. Make sure that your theme colors work well together. Using a bad color theme will drive your visitor away.

Three factors are
1.Keywords
2.unique content
3.Links

title, meta tag and h1