SEO is without a doubt getting tougher as many people are competing for the same keywords, and it becomes inevitable especially in this economy as people try to find a living online that competition becomes fierce
fight against lower competitor keywords if ur targeted keywords has huge number of competitor then it will very difficult u to optimize ur website for search engine.
seo is tough and I am facing this too... my site went up and stayed there for a long time but now its gone down and and is not climbing up... even for keywords which are not at all competitive...
SEO is not tough today, it wasn't tough yesterday and won't be tough tomorrow. Too many people read way too much of the wrong information about SEO. It really comes down to understanding what Google wants, and what your reader wants. Once you understand this, SEO no longer becomes a secret it just becomes a way of life in the online world.
Seo is much more difficult now these days, between googles updates and the constant updates from all the other ranking systems its hard to leave your mark anywhere.