My traffic sucks, need help

I had a website created for me for Ohio Tourism by E-business engineers out of the UK. I have had it running for over 1.5 years now and my daily traffic is less than 50 per day. I followed the SEO plan setup by E-business engineers, but I think their plan sucked. I have had a previous website that I was able to have decent rankings for in the past. I tried some of the same things again for the new site. I had articles written and submitted and paid to have several directory submissions. I am listed on DMOZ and Yahoo directory. I have a blog for the site with 20-30 UVs per day, a facebook page, a couple of videos on Youtube and a twitter account with over 1400 followers. I need to rank for local searches such as Columbus Hotels, so I added a listing to Google maps which is not showing up after 3 months. I have not tried any kind of linkwheel/push or blackhat methods. I paid way too much for this site to have it banned by G by doing blackhat. Have I choosen a niche that is too competitive? Does anyone have any suggestions? I really have absolutely no money left to sink into this site. I have been out of work for a while and was hoping this site would provide an income. Thanks in advance. I hope I provided enough info.

The keyword "Ohio tourism" gets only about 12k searches a month according to the google keyword analytic tool. Maybe you should try targeting some other keywords like
Ohio attractions - 70k searches a month
ohio travel - 90k searches a month

Also, try to find some long tail keywords that you can possible rank for easily so you can boost your traffic quickly.

How much money you make from your website also depends on how you are monetizing it. Are you trying to collect ad sense or are you trying to sell something.

I ran a market samurai competition analysis of the top 10 websites that rank for Ohio tourism in Google. I can send you a snap shot of it if you would like. Just send me a PM with an email and I will send it to you. It will give you an idea of what you are up against.

Cheers

Thanks for the info. My site is actually #3 on G for Ohio Tourism. I have been trying to target higher searched terms such as Columbus Restaurants with no luck. The site sells ad space to restaurants, hotels, etc. It is searchable by city and feature. I guess I'm just frustrated with it. I need to show value with a steady traffic flow before I can sell ad space IMO. Maybe I'm being impatient and I need more time with more competitive keywords.

That's interesting/weird that you haven't seen your stuff show up in Google Maps. Read the threads about Google Maps SEO/cash here on bhw if you haven't already - maybe that will help.

Also maybe you need to keyword/SEO some specific "big businesses/attractions" in Ohio - like amusement parks, nature and recreational areas, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (isn't that in ohio?) etc.