Factors in Google algo or SERP

Any tips on what to do to better rank in SE results?

[silverbytes]

Would you mind to share some tips?
Some of my #1 ranked sites are # xx now.
I still don't understand why some sites are higher in results page... I guess Google is giving value to things I'm not considering.

are titles so important as before?
meta tags discarded?
Any help?

[twinsrul]

I think that titles are not worth as much now as they were before "The Ides of March" google update.

[percentages]

>are titles so important as before?
>meta tags discarded?

Titles lost a lot of value in Spring 2003....Dominic update.

Meta (Keywords) Tags have never been considered by Google (well not since 1998 anyways).

Anchor text and backlinks are the two single biggest components of the Google Algo today. They are "theoretically" two of the most difficult to manipulate and hence I don't expect to see much change anytime soon.

[silverbytes]

They both were important before too.
Any other really relevant factors you may list?