While many concentrate solely on the backlink process, My perception is that the harder part currently is the demuonstration of actual value after having achieved the rank. the search intent, the behavioral pattern of users, and updating your content regularly become crucial.
Another problem i find myself facing recently is how to distingiuish between signals and noise. With so much going on within the sphere of SEO optimization, it is really hard not to continue running after various tactics and understand why one website is successfull.
The biggest challenge now is earning links that stay valuable after every google update.
The most difficult thing for me right now is under standing what is actually worth doing when there are multiple factors involved. It may be the case that a site will rank better but have the same amount of clicks, and a site that has been improved may actually go down in the rankings. The old formula of making a change and looks to see what the results were is not as effective.
