A WebmasterWorld member has been applying regular search engine optimization and link building techniques and is noticing that the traffic hasn't improved as substantially in the latter months of the campaign as it did initially. Is this something normal?
Actually, in many ways, it is. The first few months are typically a lot easier than the later months. Tedster mentions that sometimes it takes links time to reach their full power and cites Google's "Historical and Age Data" patent.
There's no reason to give up, though. It's time to focus your energy on building links from high quality relevant sites. Focus your energy on building good content to attract such links.
Forum members also believe that it may not necessarily be link building that can be holding you back. It could be that your competition is ahead of its game. One suspects that it may even be the work of a human editor. What you can do, though, is take the recommendations and be aggressive in your link building efforts. Then see if you move up.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.