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Currently I have 42 backlinks, PR4, and have about 1,600 listings for my website when searching for my specific company name.
My problem is that my site is no where to be found. I have my site optimized for the keywords professional web design, web design, and web development. I understand these are very competitive keywords and my current stats do not come close to competing w/ the current SERP leaders. BUT, when i compare my website stats to web design sites that are ranking in the 900's I should deff. be beating them. As of now i'm not even ranking in the top 1000.
Do you think my site could still be sandboxed (if that really exists), or should i try for less popular and less competitive keywords?
Thanks in advance.
There's no point in worrying where you are for "web design" if you're never going to make it to first or second page. Trust me, we don't optimize for it but we're #239 and we don't get any more traffic from "web design" than you do while not in the top 1000 ;-)
Spend a few hours finding alternates (the city, geo suggestion was right on too) that people would find your site relevant to.
Perhaps targetting some common mispellings would be worthwhile too.
Since it's not going to be easy for you to get tons of traffic i'd also suggest really focusing on how your site converts. Do research to find what people going to a site such as yours want and what motivates them to go with a certain company's services.
If the site converts well you shouldn't need that much traffic to keep you busy (guessing your a small web design firm).