Went down after Google update. Competion is low but on #1.

Hello together

Eventhough I would consider myself new to the SEO business I am quite a while around and been trying a lot.

So I started my first site about on October 2011.

I built a Wordpress blog, set up a few articles and advertised it with Google Adsense and Clickbank.

After a while it went up to page 3 or 4.

So I bought my first links. I couldn't believe my eyes that I was on #1 on Google for my main keyword, making about 200$ monthly until April 2012.

Google updated its algorhythm and I went down to page 2. I tried to buy a few other links, set up a few articles on directories and diversified my anchors. But I am still on about #15.

I have two competitors who are at rank #1 and #2 (also marketing blogs).

They almost have no links (mainly article directories and blog comments). One of em even only got spam comments but is still on rank #2.

So guys, my question to you is: How the heck do I get back to number 1? My keyword has very low competition and the top two are pagerank 0 and pagerank 1.

I would be very grateful if somebody could give me some hints or some guideline.

PS: The keyword is GERMAN and so is my Blog.

Thank you very much. And thank you for all the help given to me and making my past and hopfefully future success possible.

Regards

It's not an easy task to recover after penguin. Try first to de-optimize your website for the keyword you are targeting if the density is high. Go to ahrefs and look at the anchors diversity you have already made and see if you have used your main keyword a lot, if so then try to build some good links with generic keywords.
Good luck.

Every changes in G is about quality:
1. Change text or add new.
2. Link diversity, less "keywords" much domain in anchor (youirsite,com, www,youirsite,com, Http,youirsite,com .............. ) or (keyword + something variations) and (click here, source, this site) in anchor
Thats all - short and simple

What links did you buy? Those are like the essential parts and you missed them out in your post.

Hi,

thanks for the replies.

I bought angela profile links they were very strong at that time. Don't seem to be anymore :/

What links should I build or buy? I tried to diversify them (url etc.) in my comment links.

Quality content is important? The top pages don't really have quality content. Seems completely random to me, but I am not a Google staff member, so maybe I'm thinking different