I`ll bet that the missing sauce is backlinks

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Larry Spencer: Why do you think you can’t gain any ground?
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  Ted Rinshed: I`m out of ideas. Page one has 10 companies who have been there for years in a city of 1.2M. I guess I`m a bit discouraged.
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  Neil Cheesman: Sometimes there are just too many trying to take a slice of the same pie... is it at all possible to diversify with some different content that might be more achievable?
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  Ted Rinshed: I might start creating pages for each community in the city. There must be 100...lol
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  Neil Cheesman: If you want a different set of eyes to try and come up with some ideas/suggestions - happy to have a look... dm the url IF you want.
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  Neil Cheesman: ps - I am in the Uk so not likely to be related content-wise
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  Neil Cheesman: or - what is the niche?
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  Ted Rinshed: Neil Cheesman house painting contractor
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  Ted Rinshed: Matt Wil I`ve never learned that strategy. Any source material I can study?
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  Kenneth Dieryck: I actually wouldn`t use the city in every URL. Also, seems like internal links could use some work.
  
  I mean your homepage looks fine, but you should link back to it more if that`s your main page.
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  Ted Rinshed: sounds good. Doesn`t the header link to Home page count as an internal link?
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  Kenneth Dieryck: Well yeah, it does. But there`s not much strength behind header or footer links. The strongest internal links are contextual links. Use a variation of different keyword phrases that are relevant to your homepage.
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  Neil Cheesman: Okay - a suggestion - go to your GSC and see if you are getting any meaningful impressions for keywords where the url/page/post isn`t targetting that actual keyword or keyphrase. It may be possible to jump up a few places in the rankings - I have found some useful search terms where Google obviously likes the page/url - it can be good for low-hanging fruit.
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  Neil Cheesman: ps - and meaningful impressions doesn`t always have to be large in number - just large enough for potential revenue.
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  Neil Cheesman: Sometimes just tweaking the Page Title, Description, H1 and possibly content... can push you up the rankings... also check analytics for info.
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  Neil Cheesman: You might just be getting traffic for something that you hadn`t realised... or traffic that could be better targeted. Just a thought.
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  Neil Cheesman: I don`t know the industry at all - and this isn`t saying what to do but asking the question that you need to ask yourself - is this the best description on your home page "Eco Star Painting is one of the few Calgary painting companies that use dustless sanding tools on a daily basis. Our sanders are attached to a dust extractor ..."
  What are the competition using?
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  Ted Rinshed: Neil Cheesman Pole sanders.Dustless rigs cost about 2k each including the dust extractor. very few make the investment.