There seems to be ageneral agreement in what are the best techniques to follow to ensure a high ranking of your websie on major search engines such as Google. I am a firm believer in white hat seo techniques only and believe that quality back links and regular new content on website are essential in improving a websites rank on search engines. I have an active search engine marketing strategy for my web design company website and put in a few hours of quality time every week if not every day. However there is only so much one can do. After trying out different techniques in the first few months since my website wen live; I have since focused on 3 things: 1) Building quality back links via artile distribution and press releases 2) Regularly writing new content on my website/blog 3) Participation in forums and blogs related. Although after a while I have seen the traffic stagnate and I caanot seem to go further. I have also seen that when I leave such activities for even 2 or 3 weeks, the trafic begins to fall quickly. AFter the basics of search engine marketing and optimisation have been adopted what then can one do on a long term basis to ensure growth. Ofcourse time is limited so it has be used judiciously.
It sounds like your problem is that you are focusing mostly on low quality links. Most places where you get links also link out to hundreds or thousands of other websites. So there is only so much link juice that they can pass on to you. You should try analyzing the backlinks of any website that is ranking above you. They likely have a bunch of link sources that you never would have thought of. Copy a bunch of those links if possible. Try to vary your strategies a bit. While the strategies you currently use are fairly effective, they may not be enough to push your rankings to the next level. You need to try different things to get more quality links.