"Black hat" SEO will almost always work in the short term.
I run a few sites and have seen competition pop up very fast, outrank me for a few months (one was even for almost a year), and then disappear completely.
You then have a choice, ride these waves out, or play in the mud. At some point, Bad SEO will get caught and penalized/de-indexed, which for anyone that's not a household name, can entirely ruin your business if this is a main lead channel.
I hate to sound generic but I think you just have to stay on your path, and bolster your own link profile with good links. This might be a good opportunity to hunt mid/longtail queries to boost traffic in less competitive SERPs.
As a secondary, bigger picture thought, I think this is also an opportunity to hunt for more inbound channels. Relying too much on SEO is playing with fire.
I run a few sites and have seen competition pop up very fast, outrank me for a few months (one was even for almost a year), and then disappear completely.
You then have a choice, ride these waves out, or play in the mud. At some point, Bad SEO will get caught and penalized/de-indexed, which for anyone that's not a household name, can entirely ruin your business if this is a main lead channel.
I hate to sound generic but I think you just have to stay on your path, and bolster your own link profile with good links. This might be a good opportunity to hunt mid/longtail queries to boost traffic in less competitive SERPs.
As a secondary, bigger picture thought, I think this is also an opportunity to hunt for more inbound channels. Relying too much on SEO is playing with fire.