First Page Rank: How Difficult?

Should one without deep pockets even try?

[IITian]

I am competing for a very well-known keyword with my non-commercial directory that has currently one page.

It is a PR4 page with about 4-5 links, mostly internal. It is somewhat optimized for that keyword but still has way to go. Will be adding maybe 20 more pages.

Currently (just started) it ranks around 250 on Google. Even if I get tons of links (doubtful) and super-optimize my page, will it be possible to move to top 10 (preferably top 4-5) or should I rule that out because of stiff competition and instead target for some subquery like "keyword another-keyword" in place of just "keyword"?

All you profesional webmasters, how difficult is it to be on the first page? :)

[edit_g]

Target for lots of keyword-another keyword queries and even keyword-another keyword-yet another keyword. This will give you a lot of traffic even if you don't get there on your primary keyword. At the same time go for the main keyword as well - you never know. Try to make sure that all the anchor text for links which you get to the page targeted for your keyword has the keyword in it.

You can also buy links - it is surprisingly cheap if the webmaster of a site hasn't realised how much it is worth. I've seen £50 a month for a PR8 - you just need to look around.

[IITian]

Thank you edit_g. I am going to first try to get all the free links mostly from directories and check my progress. The price you mentioned for a PR8 link really seems tempting, surely beats begging all those PR2-PR3 page owners for free/reciprocal links.