A good ol' SEO question!
 

i posted this on webmasterworld but i'm too impatient to wait for a response... i'm new to this SEO shit :)

Say for example I want to reach the top result in google for the keyword "apple cider"

So I make a page with that title specifically, i base the whole page around that one article along with the meta tags, and the link density is perfect n' everything is good to go...

How far will THAT ALONE get me in the results for that keyword? I know there are other factors, like how many in-bound links from other sites are linking to that particular page, and how many the site has in general...

but say the Top 2 results have PR6's on that specific page alone, will I need a PR6 on my document to compete? Will I need to match or exceed the amount of in-bound links they have both to their domain and that specific page?

Say for example my on-page optimization happens to be better than the top 2 results, but I only have a PR5 and they have PR6, will I make it above them? or no.

Basically I'm just wondering if there's any type of conclusive data that suggests the relevance and importance of these different aspects over one another when it concerns result placement.

Thanks..

all that matters is backlinks

have 100 sites link your site with the keywords "apple cider" and you will probably be in the top 10

Probably the single most important factor in determining SE ranking is the inbound links....if your site is linked by a slew of others and linked "relevant to topic" then your PR WILL increase as well as your ranking.

Ill try to explain a bit as to how Rankings are generated in overly simplistic terms....

The robot that crawls the web registers how many times it is directed to your site following links on other sites. It weighs the value of the link by how many other links are on the page, and by the page's rank itself....

A link to your site from a page with a PR of 7 is better than 3 links from 3 pages with a PR of 3. Understand that?

Bottom line:
You could have a site detailing EVERYTHING about Apple Cider. The most indepth and informative by 10 times on the net....The meta tags and description perfect...and blah....

The ONE thing that will make your site shine in the SE rankings is how many other sites link to you and what the "weight" of those links are...

Yupp, some with high PR and you´ll be there.

mmmmm
good ol internal links.

best answer so far

go check out AdultSEM.com for some easy to understand articles and tutorials

read some SEO books.

thx for the responses...

i'm sure there are those who are into this very much, is it possible to actually *know* exactly what you need to do to beat the competition down to specific numbers based on competitor analysis in order to beat them in the rankings? or does the world of SEO and how it works change too much to really have any concrete data to evaluate competition on?

there's only so much u can reverse engineer.