Yesterday I talked about whether or not you should work on pages that are already making money.  That is a decision that you must make on your own.  When you start building additional links and marketing those pages, there is a chance that you might upset the delicate balance that put you in the top 20 in the first place.

But, if you’re willing to take that risk, here are a few tips that I’ve found to help move you up a few spots in a competitive niche.

1. Add a blog.

If your site is currently a static html site, try adding a blog either in a subdomain or in a folder off the root.  blog.example.com or example.com/blog will both work.  In that blog, make a lot of semantically related posts.  If your site is about making money online, your posts should be related to “money”, but not always “making money online”.  Example posts could be, “Your Money and the Dollar”, “How Inflation Changes Your Money”, “How to Make Money in a Slow Economy”, etc.  If you notice, you’re using your keywords, just not your exact key phrase.  Whenever you make those posts, make sure and link back to your money pages with appropriate keywords.

Those links should always have varied anchor text and the anchor text should be relevant to the post, not to the money page.

2. Add content.

This one might be a little controversial as many people don’t like to touch a page that is already starting to rank.  I feel a little differently and my feelings are based on actual tests.  I have had a few pages ranking for a variety of keywords and have added content including additional adsense blocks, links, pictures and more text without losing my rankings.  I have never tried to make that page rank for additional keywords, but sometimes that happens naturally.

3. Buy some links.

If you have the skills to buy links without being detected, this is a great time to buy them.  If you do buy links, make sure and vary your anchor text heavily, and think like a newb.  When rookie webmasters want to link to a cool site, they don’t always use good anchor text.  That will keep you from looking like you’re buying links and make it look like those people just like your site.

Those are a few things that I’ve done with pages that are already ranking decently to make them rank really well for their keywords.  Keep in mind that these are also great places to start with a site that isn’t ranking for anything yet.