Dude if you make Google happy you will make a lot of cash, so this is the dream of anyone. As far as I know, the best way to rank first on Google t's not getting obsessed on ranking on Google.
For many factors I can list here if you want too, I feel like their algorithms are smart enough to figure out if you pushing it too hard or not. As far as I know, if you do a nice Keyword research and use the google kw planner which is free and maybe other freemium tools to narrow down more your search, and write nice content that engage the readers you will be ranking.
The problem is that if you are in a competitive niche it might take years and maybe not even years will be enough, so try to niche down your blog to sub niches all about the same topic. In my experience to start to see some steady traffic, it takes 1 year.
If you write cool stuff, it is not unusual that big website will contact you to create a backlink on your site without you having to do anything, and you can ask a link back to your on their site. All the big or semi-big companies use ahrefs to monitor all their mentions and links going to their sites from other sites. They get notifications if you mention some big guy on your blog. If you wrote rad stuff someone will contact you and one link from them it's like 10.000 from someone else.
If you mention other people sometimes on your blog or website, sooner or later someone will contact you for a backlink. I have also just started a blog my self under my name and I am trying to put down all these concepts slowly on it, so you might want to check it out as well.