I am studying SEO and experimenting with http://troubled-asset-relief-program.net

I have it optimized for four keywords: Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP, Bailout Bill, TARP Bailout Bill

You will see from the top 10 searches below, including the number of times the keyword has led to a visitor that I have completely failed in ranking for the keyword ‘bailout bill’ even though I have plenty of articles with this keyword in the title and body of the text. Why?

Is it because bailout bill is a far more competitive keyword, or is it because it doesn’t feature in the domain name and to have a keyword in the domain name is a massive advantage. Or some other reason?

1. troubled asset relief program 162
2. tarp asset managers 33
3. tarp asset manager 18
4. tarp pork 15
5. tarp text 14
6. tarp asset management 13
7. tarp assets 13
8. trouble asset relief program 13
9. tarp bill text 10
10. pork in tarp 9

Are you doing off page optimization ... i.e. getting backlinks to your site with 'bailout bill' anchor text or the words 'bailout bill' mentioned on the pages that link to you?

thanks, no i am not doing any such activities for any of the keywords and do not plan to

May I ask why not? Buying links on other sites is definitely a black hat technique, but there are many legit ways to do off-page SEO that are fully endorsed, and even recommended, by Google. It's definitely super important to get yourself out there and get other sites talking about you ... in forums, in blogs, in social networking sites ... Viral marketing is key to a well-rounded search engine marketing campaign. On-page SEO can only take you so far.

yeah buying links may hurt your site someday and your site will be penalized.

the site is just an experiment in on-page SEO i am not interested in keeping it going long term.

any thoughts on why I have completely failed in ranking for the keyword ‘bailout bill’ even though I have plenty of articles with this keyword in the title and body of the text?

When I do a Google search for all of the keywords that you do rank on, there are about a couple hundred thousand results each. However, "bailout bill" returns nearly ten million results for me. It's most likely that this keyword is just super competitive (compared to the others that you're aiming for) and therefore requires going above and beyond to rank for it. It's even possible that it's so competitive that it's not possible to achieve with on page SEO alone.

To get your ranking in a better position, you must do off-page optimization. The more backlinks the better serp position.

I agree with you. There should be a perfect balance between on-site and off-site optimization.

ok - if you look at your keyword density - bailout bill does come out on top - but only just ahead of other 2 word phrases,

you need to minimise the other 2 word phrase occurances to ensure that bailout bill gets a higher density

all the same do not expect to get too high up