I'm working on a site these days and want to further improve its rankings on Google (Its a site for one of the clients, so I cannot disclose the URL). I know PR helps a lot in achieving high rankings on Google, which directly depends on links, but other than improving PR, what other measures should be taken to help make the site boost in rankings on Google. The site is currently appearing on the second page of Google for a highly competitve KW, say 'blue widgets' We've got a steady amount of links using these and related keywords to the site, but it hasn't improved much. We've also tried minimizing on-page and on-site links but it hasn't helped. Infact, the site was at # 5 for the same keyword on Google a few months ago, but has dropped to # 13 now. What efforts should be taken to help improve the site for highly competitive keywords. The site is currently PR 5 and the home page is being optimized for this KW. It gets around 3,000 unique visitors every day from Search Engines already. The site has over 2,000 pages of unique content and we're working on further expanding it. New pages are regularly added. We're also using Google sitemaps for better indexing. The domain itself is more than 5 years old, so there's no problem of sandbox effect etc. Some other PR 5 sites are doing better on SERPs for the same KW. Other sites appearing high in SERPs are PR 6 and PR 7. Any help and guidance will be appreciated.
How about buying new links from high pr and content related sites? Also, you competiton is as I can tell very optimized so you could try to copy some of their techniques...? p.l.u.r.
Check what these other sites have in terms of backlinks and on-site SEO, and try to match that, or do even better. Chances are this will mean buying more links, but nothing's wrong with that, is it?
It looks like you are already doing everything properly. As others have suggested you might need to get more links for a couple of months to ‘edge’ yourself back onto the front page. FFMG
This is the best first approach. They other sites may also be older which with all things being equal will give them a leg up. I would also try using RSS feeds and press releases to broadcast content for your client's site to other sites. (Note: Must be done continuously(monthly) for best effect) Also, try submitting an XML sitemap to Google(regularly) to notify them of new content and ensure all pages get indexed.
I agree with what other are saying. Check what others have on their site and also get more links. If it still doesn't work, see if your site is being targetted (blackhat SEO). Check your inbound links and see if you have any fishy links here and there.
It does not really matter as to where you link your site, the more links the better for SEO. You never know how many backlinks the competitor has thus the goal is to get more backlinks as you can.