After diving into SEO recently, I had a bit of an 'aha' moment, it’s a lot like human social dynamics. Think about it. To build a good reputation, you need people talking about you (those are your keywords).
You need people vouching for you and pointing others your way (those are your backlinks). And just like in real life, the more influential and respected people who endorse you, the higher your social standing. In the SEO world, that means the more high-authority websites that link to you, the higher you rank in search engines.