How to rank in a highly competitive niche?

[batman]

You can also try the skyscraper technique to build content & links. It will make you a stand out voice.
I personally when face this problem, I see my own blog as an outside visitor and compare it with my competitors it helps me to find out what I exactly need to beat them, it works everytime. I am not saying about competitive analysis to build content but an analysis in each and every field of my site.