Only 26 referring domains but number 1 on Google?

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

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  Jim Munro: My opinion doesn`t count for much but I think this is a class act. To me, most things about this site look professional. I don`t think it`s surprising that the site ranks. It`s not so much any one thing but the sum of many parts from from content and attention to detail as well as a welcoming user experience and social engagement. I was disappointed to find the defunct blogspot the site is still linking to and getting links from and their gtmetrix report is nothing to be proud of but overall this site looks like it would be liked by the quality raters and deserves to rank.
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  Terry Papaioannou: Thanks for the reply. So what you`re saying is that it`s possible that this site can rank for such competitive keywords even with so few backlinks? Would you say it`s possible that they may be using a PBN with hidden links to help them rank or some other gray-hat/black-hat method?
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  Jim Munro: I`m not the best person to listen to but I don`t think it`s always down to links. (Although their blogspot site is effectively the same as a part of a PBN and I should have looked harder). The site fulfills its promise, for example, "beats for sale", so their location at number one seems reasonable to me at least.
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  Jim Munro: Would you like to post your url so we can have a look at it for you? You don`t have to.
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  Terry Papaioannou: Sure, my music production site is http://www.terryvibes.com The site i posted initially is of another music producer but he`s targeting and ranking for different music genres which are much more competitive than mine. I personally try to increase my rankings for some lower competition keywords with just around 80-150 monthly searches on google such as "buy reggae beats" and "reggae beats for sale" and i already rank 4th-5th position for those but i would like to rank even higher if possible. Would it be possible to take a look and let me know what you think i would need to do to achieve that eg is it more good quality backlinks that i lack or something else? Again in this case my main competitors (except for one) who are higher than me on Google have way less backlinks than me and i can`t really figure out how they`re able to outrank me, so any ideas/suggestions would be great. My main competitors for my main keywords that i mentioned above ("buy reggae beats" & "reggae beats for sale") are http://www.smallaxemp.com , http://www.fyahbeats.com and this page https://www.beatstars.com/genre/reggae Thanks again for your help.
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  Alan Bleiweiss: Terry I have directly worked on and overseen the build-out of what can be classified as award winning quality sites over the years where they ended up dominating various niches with very little off-site signals. SO yes, it is absolutely possible to do that. It`s not easy, and it`s much more difficult in fiercely competitive markets. Yet it can be done. I don`t know if that`s the case of the site you posted about, because honestly, I have been too busy to take the time to do any real analysis of that site. Without a proper audit of such a site, it`s difficult to say what may be happening there.