PR3 not appearing in SERPS

[cothse]

Hi,

I've been running a website for a few months, which isn't much but is a PR3 site. Something that really has me boggled with it is the fact that it's not appearing in the search results for my main keyword phrase, at all.

You may take a look at the site here:
www. piano-lessons-master-teachers .com

The anchor text used in backlinks is predominantly the site title.

I know Google is giving me some positioning on 3 and 4 word phrases of the site's title. But for the first two words, it is nowhere to be found. I find it strange that websites listed at the end of the search results that have no backlinks and marginally related content are outranking mine and pushing it off the serps. I'm curious as to what is causing this.

Thanks,
Eugene

P.S. I'm pretty new at this and would benefit from any advice you might have. Please feel free to analyze and criticize.

[Chris]

I'm assuming you're "main keywords" are what is in your domain?

Do you have a setup with Google SiteMaps?

I wrote a whole article troubleshooting this issue.

http://www.websitepublisher.net/article/google-ban/

Check it out, setup the Google Webmaster Central accounts, and then let me know what you see.

[cothse]

Hi Chris,

First of all, thanks for taking the time to post a response.

I do have an existing setup with google sitemaps, and from what I'm seeing in the webmaster tools, there doesn't seem to be any major issues with my site. As a matter of fact, it ranks fairly well for some crappy keywords that I never optimized it for, like "articles piano," "piano blogger," and "piano education." The site is very poorly optimized for these keywords, but apparently google is still giving it a lot of credit for them. What's with that?

It seems like the only two words in the world that are not rendering some google positioning for my site are "piano lessons." These two words are where all of my optimization energy has gone, and these two words are where my site is failing the most. I realize there is quite a bit of competition for this search term, but that the site is not listed at all only for these two words is very puzzling.

My problem here is I don't really know the right question to ask; it could probably be a multitude of things that are beyond my ability to realize at this point. The only thing I can think of is that my site is being penalized on a search-term-basis. Is this a possibility? If so, I don't know what I did wrong. What do you think?

Thanks again,
Eugene

[Chris]

It could be, not so much a penalty, but a devaluing of incoming links for a new site.

Sometimes it takes awhile for you to get listed on your main keywords, especially competitive ones.

With my laser hair removal site, it took over 12 months before I got ranked on "laser hair removal" and all my efforts were going into that term (well, half that term, half long tail).

I realize your site is almost fully affiliate link driven as well, and that could cause penalties, google doesn't like affiliate sites much anymore.

My recommendation to you would be to keep working on link building, and adding content to your site. I think if you could build a database of business listings for piano teachers nationwide it would really help your traffic grow.


http://www.websitepublisher.net/blog/2006/03/08/boost-your-site-with-business-listings/

[allout]

First, PR has a very small part of the SERPs. It is more important that your content is original and has good quality. Also, your back links should be from sites relevant to your niche. It is easy to get PR3 but it means nothing unless you have the traffic to match it.

Worry less on links for PR and more on links that will benefit your site. Make sure your content includes several keywords that you are targeting and that they flow with what you write. Build the best site for your users as possible and the rest will fall into place. It takes time to rank for many keywords.