from 2 to 1, need help

Ok I'm still pretty new to seo. I used to be very bad, couldn't understand any of the books. Got someone to explain it to me and now I'm doing great, for the first time I'm actually getting good traffic from natural seo.

Now what I want to know is how would I go from 2 to 1 on a search term? I can't really think of what to do to beat the person above me.

here is a term in google i mean
alliance grind list
this is just one where I'm number 2,marsgamer.com, I know on here I have no title tag I added it though. But if that is the difference then what else could be done?

this site is a few months old but I just recently started using it.

 

no one has any info on this? another good example is if you search on google this term
alliance grind list

I'm number 2, what could I do to get number 1?

 

Backlinks to your site. You need to get other sites to link to you.

 

so that is really the only way? get more backlinks? I have a lot of backlinks right now, about 500 were done this last week so they're still gonna take a week or so to get indexed before they count.

nothing like keyword density would help here? for example if i typed in world of warcraft guide, then listed all relevent keywords somewhere in my text of the page. would that help at all or is this mainly a backlink thing?

 

does this phrase really bring you lots of visitors?

Never mind! Just follow me.

Go to google and search for your phrase.
Do you see how the results page looks like?

With standard 1024x768 display resolution you should see some 8 results.
Your eyes are tools your brain uses to get the information. Even though you might think they really point and stick with the target, it´s not true.
They more like scan the space, giving some pre-view to your brain and your brain chooses the target to focus.

IMHO, it doesn´t matter if you´re 1st, 2nd or 3rd if you already made it to the first results page. Maybe your competitor has 15.000 more links and you will never beat him unless you beat his linking strategy.

In fact, you do not want to be the first on the list. What you want is to attract the majority of searchers. And you can achieve that even being the second or third.

First, if you SEO for "alliance grind list" include that in your page´s title.
Your competitor´s title is "World of Warcraft Alliance Rogue Grinding Spots List - IGN FAQs.
Yours is "D I S C L A I M E R Brian Kopp's Unofficial World of Warcraft ..." which is your very first text in the left column.

Just include the target phrase into your title.
Google will emphasize that phrase and your searchers are more likely to fix their eyes if the full phrase is emphasized. Google makes 50% of your work for you in this case.

What I want to tell you is that your brain reacts on stimuli. It needs an impuls to get attracted. Emphasized phrase is one of the possible stimuli. I would bet that if someone scans the upper part of the results page and sees the title your competitor has and your title with emphasized Alliance Grind List, he would prefer to click on your link.

To make your listing even more attractive you may consider to amend your title even more. If you know you want to beat that guy above you, just beat him by making your listing MUCH MORE VISIBLE than his.

It´s EEEASY like 123. You see his title. Make your title MORE ATTRACTIVE.

E.g., your title could be MOST TRUSTED WAR CRAFT ALLIANCE GRIND LIST, or;
KILL´EM ALL - the ONLY REAL war craft ALLIANCE GRIND LIST, or even;
The above WAR CRAFT ALLIANCE GRIND LIST sucks we know what to do...

Actually, I know nothing about war craft game, this is just to give you some hints.

People will not just click the result because it is first.
Even though Google offers the "I am feeling lucky" button, in fact, nobody understands that and rather cicks the search google button or just hits the enter.

And then they´re yours....

 

the disclaimer, as stated above, was a mess up i missed the title tag and left it blank on that page, but it was an example to show a term that my page showed up.

that term doesn't really get much traffic but most of my terms fall into play in the same manner

as for being 2nd or 3rd i don't mind. I just was reading on a heat meter that people focus the upper left corner of the page and ignore paid ads, mainly clicking the first link first i'd assume, then the others. as long as I'm on the main page i am getting descent click throughs from what I see so far. My traffic has already jumped significantly since I got everything indexed, which is mainly today. Plus the backlinks still have to kick in and be indexed now that they're set.

good into here though thanks

as for the title and term i used, it's not a popular one. they would most likely search 1-60 alliance guide in which I come off 2nd, or they'd search something similar.

 

You should have told in advance.
I spent 30 minutes and 2 beers to write the above (-:
Anyway, you got the point?!

 

heh yeah I got it though. It helped so don't worry about writing it =P 30 min though wow, never spent more than like 10 min writing a thread unless I was trying to start something on the official wow forums to get a big discussion and bring attention ton my sig on it.

 

time to search included to give you "beer" and "chocolate" examples.