Until recently, strong performance in organic search came down to two key factors: keywords and inbound links. By using specific keywords in a piece of content, you got on Google’s search radar for those terms; and by increasing the number of inbound links pointing to your website, you boosted your site’s authority ranking, which helped it climb higher in search results.

Well, search engine optimization isn’t that simple any longer. Keywords and inbound links are still important, but search engine algorithms have evolved to incorporate a number of other factors in their decision making.

An important reason for this change is that “Black Hat” marketers had developed unethical techniques, such as keyword stuffing and inbound link planting, to obtain higher search rankings for spammy sites, meaning your legitimate site would drop in the results. Fortunately, Google updates such as Panda and Penguin have tackled these practices head on.