Some advice needed; We are trying to compete in a highly competitive niche. We have a well optimised main page. We have done article marketing, directory submissions, link exchange and we have posted on forums. All up we have got to page 3 of Google for our main search term. However we just can't seem to break through. We know we can optimise a lot of our site for other terms, but we just can't seem to break through with our main term, because the competition is so fearce. A) they are already established and B) they have got links back from government sites etc because they have been around so long. Does anyone have any great ideas on how to up the competition?
Domain age does play a big role in this (along with having .gov backlinks). Keep going at a steady pace and allow some time to pass, over time you can surely share space with them.
Try making a good linkwheel. It can do wonders. And for the rest just keep up your hard work. If you work much harder then your competition then you will get past them eventually.
If you're dealing with competition like that, I think you'll need a lot more quality backlinks, which doesn't include those from article sites, forum posting, directories, profiles, etc. Not to say those aren't important or quality, but links from other domains and good quality ones at that. I specialize in massive and complex link-wheels and tiers, but often those don't help my websites much at all. Sure I use high PR and good Web 2.0 sites, but google ranks PAGES, so having, let's say for example, a Squidoo lens, (squidoo is PR 8) won't mean you're getting a PR 8 backlink. good luck.
That is absolutely true. But at least your linkwheel will provide links relevant to your niche and keyword. (if you make your linkwheel like that) So it can add a lot of value. Best thing is to get some real domain page links from other high ranking sites in your niche. Most of your direct competition will probably not want to do that for you. But if you find people in the same niche that are not directly your competition, then they might want to help you.
Well, yes that is so, but I haven't seen many great results (at least not what I was expecting) with linkwheels. Just today actually, I finished up making this linkwheel for my site (except for some needed social bookmarking and pinging), using almost all original unique articles written by myself, none of that article spinning, with all PR 6 or higher Web 2.0 websites and article sites. A damn lot of love went into this one. I really hope I'll see some good results on my website from this, otherwise I will cry and hate linkwheels forever.
You are doing well but as you know that time and traffic required to get top position. If you try to get position quickly then Google will count your optimization ways used by you. Keep it up and try to increase traffic more.
@Bill fisher, I hope you will see good results from your linkwheel. Writing unique content should always get rewarded by google. But don't forget to make backlinks to all the spokes of your linkwheel.
Just like you normally get backlinks for your domain. But direct them at the spokes of your linkwheel.
If you really want to defeat any competitor,you should concentrate on all the activities done from them.Check them backlinks,targeted keywords,how they optimize their home page etc...
I never get success by targeting highly competitive niche, as it is so tough to promote those. Also all of highly competitive niche site ranking well at search engine are marked as authority site.