Question and thoughts on ranking

Hello Guys.

i have a website and i found out the way to climb at 4th place in the most competitive keyword of my market with geo-targeting for .gr domain.

i have done all the code optimisation but also linking. My site started in April and i think its a good achievement. The problem is the following:

in nr 2 and nr3 for the same keyword at google i have two competitors with the keyword on their domains.

i have far more links (both in quality and quantity) , better code and optimisation but still i can't climb above them. You think the domain name play such a big importance ? you believe its a matter of time? are there any similar case studies that any of you have faced in the past?

any suggestions?

ps. to give you a taste of the differences i speak off

with nr 2 site.

i have 2000 links , it has 119
nr 3 i have 2000 links it has 319

concerning the content. My content is updated daily with 5 articles at least. I mean quality genuine articles , not copies.

the others have no updates at all.

It depends on how old is your domain, and whats your CTR on the natural search. G does actually look at the CTR, how much time the visitor spends on your website and whats the bounce %. Check the other websites that are ranking in the same niche, maybe they have a blog or comment section where you can post your link.

actually i have a bounce of 5.25% and its nothin close to their site which is 60% as they only have welcome page and some banners. That is why i think its very strange. could be the domain age. they are 10 years past , mine is 1 yr old.

your competitors have the keyword in their domain. because of this they will have stronger links because they have many links with the keyword in the anchor text.

that is something i haven't thought. i guess i need more links.