4 year old site on page 1. do i need a mobile site?

Hi all, been lurking for a while but not posted much recently....been v busy with day job!

ok so here goes - i dont want to sound too generic or be asking how to suck eggs but,

I have a well established local trades site approx 4yrs old. Im on page 1 at the bottom (10th).
I have done bh seo on the site for the last 2-3 yrs and i cannot get the site any higher with my tactics but the fact i dropped of the seen a little recently for last few months wont of helped. All my competetors have established sites like mine but only less than a dozen backlinks and they do not update the sites very rugularly and i cannot seem to push them off.

I have considered getting a mobile site although most of these are taken due to crafty sales people targeting my competitors who know nothing on seo etc. They dont even upload there own data and so believed the usual "you must have a mobile site"

Going back to the above paragraph, i have noticed that mobile browsers often pull slightly different results and almost all my clients have and do use mobile devices like ipads and iphones - dont we all sometimes!
Do i really need a mobile site? i really dont want the hassle of a mobile site and cannot bare to think i need to find a dozen fresh pages of content! The only main difference in serps is that on a mobile browser, yell does not show up as number one but instead a few local g listings and then the rest of the results are similar barring any directories not showing up.
A desktop search shows yell then a few local sites, maybe a directory or two and more local sites. Either way, i show up as number ten which is good in a way is suppose.

Should i bother on the mobile front or should i just crack on and get my main site ranked up and hope it will be top on both? none or hardly any mobile sites show up at all anyway on generic (town+tradesman).

I have done articles, edu and gov links etc, likes, directories, sb and xrumer. i currently have gsa sat running 24/7 and quit nhseo a while back. yes they may not be my answer but i like to keep things ticking over.

Sorry for the ramble but i just wanted to put you in the picture as the reader. Im pushed for time and think i may have to totally re-write my sites pages as its just not moving. Either that or some very strong method for pushing as my purchases from top rated sellers have got me know where unfortunately.

If anyone is into the local trades ranking then maybe we can talk as im running out of patience with it and dont have the time or resources to be writing articles or doing videos. i find social a waste of time for what i can offer. autoblog? thats a new one to me too.

Please ask for anymore info. I thank you kindly in advance for your time people

You are trying to apply standard SEO practices to a local site, and it will not help you rank locally. It is probably doing you harm. Get a real Local SEO girl or guy.

On the question of mobile, it is simple, do you want to reach the potential customers who only use mobile devices, or do you want to ignore them?

cheers for the input. It made me think a little harder about my tactics.

Mobile - None of the others have them as such and the ones who are ranking above me certainly dont have them. I certainly dont want to ignore the mobile custom but the engines have to show whats relevent too and they wont show some new generic pants above a well established domain with great relevent local content. Any advice appreciated.

On my overall tactics front i think i agree and have thought about this over the last few days. its clear its not working for me. I have a couple of thousand 'great links' built over time - a lot white hat manual style in my early days. I have tried minor updates as i dont believe in scrapping large parts and major changes in one go as you cant monitor what works.

If anyone can point me in the direction of ranking locally then that would be great. I dont expect answers like do this, do that and you will be number 1 as im no newbie but a little behind with the times now. im running wordpress which i believe to be a good starter in order to achieve my results but i cant have crap on my money site as its local people searching for a local person and not the generic subject.

cheers