A WebmasterWorld thread makes a basic and obvious point that many newbies miss. SEO is not just about technical implementation. You can place your title tags in the right place, have a nice site architecture, get links and so on but still not rank well if your site is not useful.

The thread creator said it nicely:

In fact, today, someone forwarded me a site that fit this example. It was built fine, but it had almost no useful content. Nothing was there and the guy was looking for technical help on how to fix it.

To fix it, you need content – content that gives people a reason to want to go to the site, read it and recommend it to others. If the site has nothing to offer, why would it rank well even if it is technically SEO friendly?

So many new SEOs, new webmasters and new site owners just don’t get this. It is a shame.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.