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Have some worthy of linking back (Link Bait). If the site sells shoes, you could be a page with conversion charts between US/UK shoes sizes, a guide for taken care of leather on shoes, different ways to tie shoelaces and etc. Once created get the word out on your social media and hopes of getting some inbound links.

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You could also have 1000 links with anchor text associated with a particular term pointing at the page that has been graded F, and only 1 link to the page that has been graded A. Google is obviously going to give the page with a lot more links more authority. Like the others said, on-page optimisation is just one part of the puzzle.