There's no best SEO steps,I would say that every steps has it's own role in SEO. Thus,doing it accordingly is all that matter!
Also I think google has said that sites which are not mobile friendly will be adversely impacted in mobile search results.
Personally I am still of the opinion that "page speed" is just a bit of Google propaganda put 'out there' to give the "experts" something to prattle on about. To be 'faster', there has to be something to be "faster than" .but if your site takes forever to load a page, chances are it will not rank well in google.
Mobile search rankings matter, on my sites they make up more than 20% of all traffic and growinggrowing, google has been pushing the importance of optimising for mobile for a long time now.Possibly only in results that are being presented to the user who is, at that moment in time using a 'mobile device' to search Google.
Personally I am still of the opinion that "page speed" is just a bit of Google propaganda put 'out there' to give the "experts" something to prattle on about. To be 'faster', there has to be something to be "faster than" .
And if your URLs DO 'take an age to load', then there is more to be concerned about than pointless 'rankings'.
The biggest problem with search engines is that EVERYBODY expects results and then RELY on those results for the major part of their site traffic and/or income, and when those result disappear one day, because 'something changed' they ... ... are ... ... screwed .... .... well and truly. NOBODY and I do mean NOBODY should EVER rely on getting search traffic. If if comes along, then great, you have a bonus. If it doesn't, then there is no problem.And rankings are far from pointless, for many sites they can be the difference between failure and success,
Directory submission almost 99% of the time will get you penalized. This has been true for a number of years (like almost 7-8 years now). Why? Most directory sites have no relevance to any of the sites that are on it, it's just a bad way to get a link back to your site. A GOOD backlink is supposed to come from a reputable site, that is relevant to your site, has relevant information, and has authority in its niche. Directory sites, in my opinion are like the business card bucket in some local establishments... The sign on the bucket says once a month a lucky winner will get a free meal but after 3 months of that bucket being up there, the owner just takes the business cards and throws them out and nothing ever happens.I think directory submission is no longer useful specially on free directory and If your site is listed with 100 urls then it will be a negative point.
Naaah it won't get a site 'penalised', like most "link building" the worst case is your time is completely wasted as search engines pay absolutely no attention to just about every site that links can be placed without requiring some form of 'quality control' from the site where the links are. If initially your page DID get some minor 'benefit' from such links, it was NOT penalised, it simply means that the links were devalued after they had been 'inspected' by the search engine in question.Directory submission almost 99% of the time will get you penalized