I am trying to outrank another caterer for my small city (lets just call it smithville) on Google. He has rank one for "catering in smithville" with a 21,000,000 alexa rank and 9 backlinks. His domain is smithvillecatering.com Would I be able to out rank him if I made a domain cateringinsmithville.com then pushed it with about 100 backlinks?
You should be able to beat him out in 3-6 months. If you get local links (other local businesses, networking groups, and regional directories) you will be crushing them in no time at all. Do not forget about local search either! (that is google.com/places)
Just build your site properly, with the right copy, and relevant links and content, you should not have to worry about google placement, as that will take care of itself!
You can outranking him just be patient with your link building. Have you tried social media links, and guest blogging? You can try/explore this 5 seo 2011 tactics