Ever since Google announced it’s main organic algorithm influencers last year, SEO, something that was too theory based for many traditional marketers, has gained a lot more popularity in the world of digital marketing. 
Simply put, SEO marketers aren’t playing a “guessing game” when it comes to search engine marketing practices anymore.
Or are they?
It is a fact that links (that aren’t nofollow links) pass authority to other sites thus helping them rank for specific keyword groups related to the desination site’s content. It is also a fact that relative content on a site’s page helps that page rank for specific keywords related to said page’s content. 2 questions are drawn from these facts about how Google’s search engine work:
1. Which links are the most powerful ranking influencers?
2. How much content is needed?
As for the answer to the first question, when checking their backlink profiles, Google has instructed webmasters to question a link’s purpose “Why is the link there?” “Does the link provide any value?” The most common interpretation of this is that if a link is contextual (A link is in a body of content as a helpful resource to the content as a whole or, at the very least, a specific portion of the content) it is powerful. This is theory however and must be taken with a grain of salt. A link is a link (assuming it is not nofollow) and a link anywhere on a page that has authority in Google’s index will pass some of that authority.
The answer to the second question is a bit tougher to answer. There is no suggested length of content, although many swear by the 500+ word rule when writing articles for SEO purpose. The real key to content that helps SEO is relevancy. How relevant is the content to the keyword group you are tyring to rank for? For example, if you are writing about apples, then write about apples, not fruit in general.
Now for the big question: Which is more powerful, content or links?
Moz, the leading third party SEO research company in the world, did a study on ranking content without links and the results were very interesting. Simply put, it’s near impossible to rank content without links. So does this mean links are more powerful? Not necessarily because it IS impossible to rank a blank page with just a bunch of powerul links pointed to it. From this we can gather that content is more important than links. In other words, if I had to pick one and only one I would pick content.
“Create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community. Creating good content pays off” – support.google.com
Google has stated multiple times that they want to see good, relevant content on your website. This alone should tell all SEO professionals that content outweighs links.
In conclusion, both content and links are important and necessary for a page on a website to rank high for related keywords. However, priority one should always be creating high quality, relevant content.