For me, I've found that if I create a keyword-specific page and do a bit of article submission, I can generally get my page ranked in the top 20 results. However, if I submit more articles, it doesn't seem to have much effect. Because they are deep links, most directories won't accept these and I'm not a big fan of blog commenting. What else could I use to push these rankings from the top 20 to the top 5 results?
Have you signed up to some forums and linked to your pages from a forum post etc? Or try to buy a blogpost from someone for a few Bucks.
i would say it depends on how much comp. your kw are. Just do Backlinks like suggest but make sure they are do follow.
I have to say the quality of suggestions from DP is really low...are people just eager to up their post count? Yes, I understand that I need backlinks with anchor text. This was a question about other sources.
Sometimes u are just stuck at top 20 no matter what u do, on a very competetive keywords i bet u can't do anything except buy heavy links, thats the only way ... and even on low competetive keywords i wont waste time for free strategies as well.
The best and fastest way is to find up to 10 high ranked websites and exchange links with them on the home page only, this way you get high PR links from related websites that rank high on the search engines. But this way you will also give them a push up, so do not exchange with websites that target the same keyword but other related keyword
Do some blog commenting on auto approve sites that have PR and you site will rise to top 10, then it is a matter of time and hard work to get the site further up the ladder of Google.
Just Submit good quality article in article sites with single anchor text to your page.This will create viral linking
You've had some good suggestions here. There are only a few methods that can get your website ranked that high for competitive keywords. You are already article marketing. How's about getting some incontent links on blogs with a decent pr. This is like article marketing on stereroids. Find a good social bookmarking service. Don't look on DP however, it's not allowed here anymore. Same with do-follow blog commenting service, these help but not allowed here. Buying links is another effective option just be careful not to make it obvious to the search engine God Google, it's a huge sin. Deep link directory submission also helps and there are services out there that will take care of this for you as does the link wheel method. To get a high ranking you need to balance out your approach with a combination of methods.
Depends on your market and the quality fo your articles. A lot of competitive markets have hundreds or thousands of articles turning up every single day. This gives the webmasters a ton of choices when it comes to publishing articles on thieir sites and blogs. He is already using this method.
It all depends on the keyword your trying to rank for. Personally I find it easier to rank for a little longer tail keyword that gets 20 searches a month; and then target 20 of those keywords... Than trying to rank for a really big competitive keyword. However, I have been able to rank on the first page of Google for a very competitive keyword doing nothing but article marketing. I continue to do both...