Ranking for "Widget World" but not "Widget World Tips"

[johnwebm]

Hoping for some insight on this:

1. 7 month old website
2. Ranks on the third page for "Widget World" - most competitive term (10 million searches / month)
3. Has *never* ranked for "Widget World Tips" - second most competitive term (5 million searches / month)
4. A few dozen backlinks for both terms - natural
5. Unique content for both Widget World and Widget World Tips
6. Other sites rank very well for both terms, one site being less than a year old.
7. In WMT, the top 3 keywords for our site are 1: Widget, 2: World, 3: Tips
8. Main page for "Widget World Tips" does appear in "Site:domain.com Widget World Tips", but has a page rank of "unranked"
9. Plenty of internal linking to "Widget World Tips"

Any thoughts on this other than to try to help develop more external links? TIA

[Robert Charlton]

5. Unique content for both Widget World and Widget World Tips

Please forgive this question in advance... but does the phrase "widget world tips" actually appear on the main page for "Widget World Tips"? I ask because I am amazed how many webmasters don't get this. They use synonyms and assume that Google will get the meaning.

The other side of this, does "Widget World Tips" appear too many times on the main page for "Widget World Tips"... so many times that it might be construed that you're trying too hard?

9. Plenty of internal linking to "Widget World Tips"

I assume this is a deep page? How deep? How many other links off your home page?

Do you have any external inbounds to this page? With varied anchor text, or all the same?

Also, is there a possibility that you're overdoing the internal linking to this page? If you describe in general what you're doing in the way of internal linking, it might be helpful in discussing this.

5 million searches / month

This sounds like a lot... maybe too many for most 3-word phrases. We don't discuss private keyword tools in this forum... but, assuming you've used the Google Adwords tool, what settings are you using to get these numbers?

What's the number of pages returned for each query... ie, how many results for each phrase does Google show on the serps page? If you put each phrase in quotes, how many results (ie, how many pages with exact matches) are returned?

[johnwebm]

Thanks for the reply Robert.

but does the phrase "widget world tips" actually appear on the main page for "Widget World Tips"?

Yes, but I didn't do a good job of explaining. Widget World is the name of a very popular website. Our site would be named WidgetWorldInsider.com for example. The homepage has plenty of Widget World keyphrases and text. A page one level deep off the homepage is optimized for "Widget World Tips" - exactly that key phrase. There are close to 100 third level pages under the second level Widget World Tips page. Hopefully that is clearer. It's hard being cryptic with the keywords and domain names :)

does "Widget World Tips" appear too many times on the main page...How many other links off your home page?

I don't believe so. There is one primary link to "Widget World Tips" off the home page. There may be 2 or 3 others that link to specific article pages under the Widget World Tips page. The anchor text varies.

is there a possibility that you're overdoing the internal linking to this page?

Maybe, but I'm leaning more toward no. Within the articles on the site (close to 200 now), whenever I have a topic that has something specific to do with "Widget World Tips", I generally link to the page, with varying anchor text (i.e. tips on Widget World, best tips from Widget World, Widget World Tips, and sometimes only the word "tips"). I don't do this in every article and never more than once per article.

5 million searches / month - This sounds like a lot.

I am using the Adwords tool and looking at the global monthly volume column since the website appeals to a worldwide audience.

how many results for each phrase does Google show on the serps page / in quotes

Widget World - 9.5M
Widget World Tips - 10.6M
"Widget World" - 3.5M
"Widget World Tips" - 4.9M

One more item of mention (which may make this a moot point shortly), but I've been tracking results in Caffeine. A week or two ago when I checked, the site was not ranked for "Widget World Tips". I checked again after my post last night and we are now in the results, albeit down around page 6. I'm reluctant to bank anything on that right now though since I read a post a while back that Caffeine may not be taking all penalized sites into account, and I'm not 100% sure that I don't have a penalty for this keyphrase somehow.

Thanks again.