Are backlinks really everything (like 99% of the job?)

So I launched my website 3 months ago, I thought I'd sail through and dominate. My competition: * Doesn't have a blog - they have a small newspaper but their job board is separate - jobs.euractiv should separate their SEO (or at least that's what I thought) * doesn't have a keyword strategy (their brand name itself is a low competition keyword) * doesn't have a phone friendly website, * offers a subpar service at 5 times the price (search for jobs euractiv it's them). I did everything I could think of to win the SEO game (yes I am new to SEO so I probably missed something), and I'm still losing to them ( my websit is eujobs(.)com) Here is what I did: * I tried to get all the basics down (so good website format, meta tags, etc....), * A blog targeting low competition keywords with high traffic (built using positional - great tool for noobs like me btw), * All the normal stuff to get clients (emailing every company that posted on their job board, cold outreach, etc...) It could just be me still in the google sandbox, but I think it's just the fact I don't have many backlinks. Anyways advice is welcome!!!