Content Is King, I Agree To Disagree

We all have heard content is king... if the content was king then why in the hell is Joe Schmoe ranking with spun content?  BTW I apologize if your name is Joe Schmoe!  There are many factors that come into play when it comes down to SEO and while the content is king theory but what about the kings' army (links)?  Because without juice or links pointing to your content then how is content king when it's never seen.

Personally, I believe what this comes down to is Black Hat or White Hat.  This is because even a terrible piece of content and a bunch of authority links your content will still rank.  Which sometimes Black Hat really is more work!!! Yes, I said it, sometimes it really is more work.  I am not saying do or don't build links but without some form of action, the odds that your article about content is king is most likely not rank or even come close to those in the top positions.  This is because they typically have decent content and tons of good links they have acquired over many years!  So if content is king then why am I not ranking?   Is it because behind every good king there is a queen?  Which would be links in this scenario?  If your content is the best possible copy ever written and it's never seen then how is it the king?  Let me explain it because I think many SEO's fail to interpret this in ways that make sense. 

Without backlinks, you probably will never get the exposure your content deserves!   So the same applies to great backlinks with terrible content as you will most likely not achieve very many natural backlinks.  So what does content is king really mean?  It means with crappy content you can rank with great backlinks, structure, and other tactics but it's more than likely going to result in short-lived rankings.  If you want crappy content to rank long term is going to require you to continue building backlinks and editing your content as over time it will become stale.  However, if you have written great content and obtained a few backlinks and you get a little exposure the person reading it will be so impressed that they will link to the article naturally.  This will save you time and/or money as you won't have to spend your time doing research, outreach, or purchasing links over and over to keep your half-ass content at the top of the SERPS.

I saw a post that someone said "I want to find one SEO that tells you that content is King that ranks without links.

While I wouldn't expect to rank simply by creating great content because that just isn't how it works at least not without using a pyramid, pillar, or some type of pillow strategy.  This means targetting very low competition keywords and interlinking to your primary keyword that is more competitive over and over until your primary content gets some exposure thus finally that great content will get some exposure and will start obtaining natural links.  Alternatively, you could take the grey hat approach which would be to write the best content you possibly can and obtain some manual links whether through outreach, paying, PBN, or whatever other method you use so that content can actually be seen!  Then never touch it again and let nature take its course.

Personally, I agree to disagree on whether the content is the king or not!  When it comes to SEO it takes a variety of things to achieve rankings, keep them, and convert them to clients, customers, and/or visitors.  Because not one thing is king and your SEO is only as good as your weakest link!