Top in Google in "Quotes", Not in Top 200 Without

With a separate word search my site is vapor.

[DanB]

A search on Google for:

"X Y Z"

returns my site as number one in Google.

But a search for:

X Y Z

and my site doesn't show up in the first 20 pages (didn't check any farther).

What is this indicative of as far as SEO goes?

[DerekH]

It's indicative that your site has X Y and Z next to each other and not many other sites do.

It's also indicative that your site isn't ranking as well for X,Y or Z than the 20 pages of sites above you!

Sounds like you need to get more inbound links!
Also, may sure that X, Y and Z are in the <title> and <h1> of the page that you want to do well for that search....
DerekH

[DanB]

Got all those (title, H1 , etc) things already.

The thing I'm missing are inbound links. I don't think I have any yet.

[Hanu]

Yeah, get inbounds. And while you're at it: make sure the anchor text in those inbound links contains X Y and Z. But not "X Y Z" for all those links - more variation would be nice. As in "Get X in Y for Z!" or "Lacking Z? Get a bigger Y for your X". You get it.

Also: optimizing anchor text for your internal links sometimes works wonders. Do not use "Home" for the 'back home' link on all your pages. Use "Home: X Y Z" or something similar.