Ranking problem with particular keyword

Hi,

The site in my sig is ranked first (or around there) for the keyword "famous dead people", which is bringing most of my organic traffic...that's great.
But my ranking for the keyword "dead people" is absolutely terrible: around page 8.

Like you can imagine is a very popular keyword and i need to improve my position there. I realize that my site doesn't have much content, but when i check the sites that are below me for that keyword, i can't understand why im so so far away! Those sites are usually less related to the keyword, some also have very little content, some have no seo optimization, etc.
I don't expect to be in page 1, but why so so far away?!

Do you guys see if im doing something terrible wrong? Is there any on-page optimization that i can do?

Thanks for the help!

BTW: i already read Chris guide and others, and im re-reading http://www.websitepublisher.net/article/on-page-seo/ in case i missed something.

Ok, after being in Google's page 8/9 for a couple of months i now moved to page 5. I did just a minor and non-important change, so it was probably an increase by Google itself.

Just a few pages way now :)

I am on page 3 for an important search query... I doubt I will make it beyond page 2 :(

You can use anchor text for that keywords... You must target different keywords not just one keyword...

You'll just have to continue what you're doing. Pursue off page optimization, use exactly those keywords as anchor text to link back to your site. that might help.