Content is the main thing people visiting your web site are looking for.
This is why content is one of the main reasons why others might want to put links to your website and thus generate a lot of traffic. However, this does not necessarily mean that you will be ranked first because you have the best content.
This is especially true for common keywords. We can take the word “sportswear” as an example – major sportswear brands will be the first search results just because so many other websites with relevant content are linking to them.