I think this comes down to creating content that provides value and depending on your audience, helps them solve a problem or answer a question.
When I create content for my website, I try to be mindful of keywords and what I may want to rank for, but ultimately I don't want to create something just for the sake of SEO. So, I write something with the idea that I want it to be helpful (free guides etc) and if it gets backlinks, that's an added bonus.