2 Questions about keywords and backlink

I found my competitor's meta description DO NO contains any keywords, but his categories ranked very good in google, his categories contains keywords related the category niche.

1. Is he focus on build links point to each categories instead backlinks point to site ?

2 If I copy this strategy, should I change backlinks strategies ? I am using articles (very time consuming), I am thinking change to buy some profile links, links exchange etc.

Any advises ?

"Metas" don't necessarily do anything for ranks. Sometimes when someone looks up for a specific keyword, Google bolds the keywords in the meta, which for some users (like me) is something sometimes useful to see if the result is going to satisfy my needs, therefore increasing the CTR
But depending on the niche, this "bolding" could be futile

So don't consider this factor to be a major ranking factor.