is my niche too competitive or am i just doing it wrong?

bro do a full content audit and prune the pages getting zero traffic before you blame the niche....

What you're going through is probably something a lot of people run into. I think this needs to be looked at as a combination of factors rather than just niche selection. Instead of relying on links alone, we can't ignore the impact your content and on-page SEO have on rankings too. I'd suggest checking these fundamentals one by one first — the issue usually isn't in just one place, it's often a mix of a few small gaps.