JillCoco

First of all you articulate very good so build yourself a little bit more self esteem -- if you doesn't do this then you have no chance my man...

Do you use online tools like Ahrefs and Semrush? Research there what others are doing and how they are doing it. You can write guest articles in other blogs for free and ask if they can feature you with a do-follow link or if you have money - buy some link from reputable websites. Consider building links from high quality websites like wikipedia and other medias, there is a way, because many ppl do it.