If you are finding it increasingly difficult to search engine optimize your site, you may want to check out your competitors.

To do this, Google your optimized keyword and see who ranks at top ten. Then, enter their URL into the search field and look at the number of results returned. Use the following format link:website.com, to determine the number of incoming links to your competitor’s website. Substitute your competitor’s URL with yours and check out the difference in the numbers.

Incoming links

Google uses the number of relevant incoming and outgoing links as one of their criteria for search engine results ranking. Therefore, a lower number of incoming links may also be the reason why you are ranked lower. Of course, the Page Rank of these sites where the incoming links originate from also matter in search engine optimization.

What is YOUR link strategy?

If you have read Building a niche blog for top search engine rankings and 5 Steps to get Top Search Engine Rankings, you’ll probably have used some of these great strategies to enhance your rankings. These work particularly well for niche keywords, as there are fewer websites competing for a common keyword or key phrase.

However, the story changes when you are optimizing your site with a more competitive keyword. In this case, everyone is fighting for that top spot. Your competitors are more aggressive in their linking strategies .

Some of them may utilize link spamming strategies that others may regard as unethical. But because these methods do not violate any search engine guidelines or laws, many companies continue to use them as part of their optimization efforts.

Essentially, they provide FREE banners that link back to their site from other websites. The catch here is that the HTML codes for these banners contain a list of optimized keywords and accompanying incoming links. Multiple incoming links are planted just with one free banner.

In order to compete, internet marketers then need to gear up on their optimization strategies. They can either adopt the same strategy as their competitors, or work harder on their existing ones. But I can tell you, in this playing field, it’s quite difficult for new internet marketers to send a site to first page ranking, with the limited resources they have.

How can you beat the competition?

1. Use aggressive optimization strategies. If you can’t beat them, join them. Offer a widget, banner or button for free, which is embedded with multiple links.

2. Beef up your link baiting strategies, by writing articles and encouraging others to link to your site voluntarily.

3. Optimize other niche keywords. This is the most cost-effective way, but requires a good keyword research method. Read How to identify niche items to sell online? to learn how to do this.

4. Buy your way to the top with a PPC system . The thing is, using PPC requires tact and a good strategy. Otherwise, you may end up burning your dollars on irrelevant clicks. If you don’t know how to use Pay-Per-Click, you may want to check out this PPC Guide I’ve read and reviewed.

5. If you are trying to optimize a blog, you may want to use social networking strategies to get pull traffic. This strategy won’t work too well for product niche sites though.

6. Finally, keep experimenting with various new link building strategies and ideas you can discover online. With the internet at a constant flux, there are always new and creative ways to promote your site.