Ok, simple question but could take me hours to figure it out on my own and still not be sure so please indulge me. (all other things being equal) I'm doing a keyword analysis and I've got to the link analysis stage to see which optimised sites I can compete with for the keywords that are looking good. If I see a content page using my keyword phrase in the SERP that has say a PR5 with 2 IBLs, the PR being passed down from the main index page of that site which has PR6 and 1300 links.. Can I beat the content page itself by achieving a higher PR for my page optimised with that keyword phrase and with more higher quality IBLs, or do I have to beat their content page AND their index page to rank higher than the content page. I know what I want the answer to be......... Any advice is appreciated
Just to check are you competing with a site that has two links (1 indented) and are trying to split the results up? If this is the case it usually won't happen, the best way to overtake a site in the SERPs is to go through their backlinks and get as many of them as possible as well as building links slowly yourself. This will mean you are at least as good as them from an off site perspective. Unfortunately this is much harder in practice than theory but good luck.