Content and links are both necessary for Competitive search engine marketing efforts. Think what will happen if you create great content and no one knows about it to link to it. That's why a combination of content and link building will perform better for your site. Google gives more importance to the "natural links" but it is not possible without good contents and on another hand
rank the website on the bases of back links which is not possible untill we try for some quality links. An unique and interesting content with some quality back links will boost your ranking in all search engines.