And if you'll forgive the link drop, this post is going to be an example of what not to do if you'd like to promote your site effectively.

Getting back to that link drop, let's take an amazingly uncompetitive term. I wrote a blog post about the Truk Islanders - if you Google the phrase with quotes (try it), there are 80 results. I'd have to sit around for a while to think of a less competitive term, which makes this post a really good case study.

According to traditional SEO "experts" what I just did was drop a link to my blog, and even better, I used targeted anchor text. What could be better? Well (for good reason) this site, Webmaster-Talk, is more popular and respected with Google. So by the time their bot reads this post, it will score better than my page I dropped the link to. Worse, someone who's really determined to learn about these peoples will try most of the results, and learn about my shameless pandering and self promotion, probably hurting my site and costing it credibility in this person's eyes.

Bottom line: spam is bad. And I put a link to the SERPs for the term in this message, so everybody can see for themselves. (This message is really directed to a lot of the bad advice that comes in the form of me too replies.)

Your post has just appeared for me, above the fold on page 2 at No 12

12 here as well, John. But your point may be well taken...an outbound link that is perceived to be "of quality" can be worth more than the site to which it is directed.

Having said that, what you're experiencing (if that's the case) can also be a temporary effect. A lot of the time, as sites gain size, credibility and quality links (not the reciprocal link/contextual link buy/3-way exchange/pyramid scam crap) they tend to gain ranking for the terms that they were targeting.

For example, my blog is barely a month old and I find that a good percentage of my posts are about the Toronto Raptors. Why? Because I made one post about them, noticed some keywords popping up, made another post tailored to those keywords, noticed more popping up, etc.

I figure at least part of the reason for that is the growth of the site in general (i.e. my posting) and part of the reason is that I know of at least a dozen purely organic links (including one from CasualKiss.com of all places.)

In other words, I wouldn't sweat this issue too much, John. In the short run it might be a ***** for you. In the long run (or possibly not even the long run depending) you'll git 'er done.

#12 for me as well. #1 is actually a random page from here that picked up the anchor text of your "Latest Blog Post." At the moment it's not this specific page though I suspect it will be once it's found and indexed.

The hard part with this as an experiment is that even though the phrase is uncompetitive there are still many factors beyond your post and the link with the anchor text. WT is likely ranking because of the authority it has and not necessarily because of the text as a link. And Google is giving a little too much weight to things like trust and authority at the moment.

A better test might be to try from a site with a similar authority, link profile, etc to your own. Also at the moment your post doesn't look like it's been indexed so we'll have to wait at least until it is to make the comparison.

But in the end this WT page may still end up outranking you and I agree with the reason you wrote the post. A few link drops in a forum with the same anchor text isn't the way to go when it comes to ranking better.

Google doesn't like me.

Maybe I should make a signature.

Why don't you, dude? The worst thing that can come from it is nothing.

I wanted to see if I could get "discovered" on content alone, but apparently I need to give things a little push. Sort of like momentum? How do I come up with a good signature? I just linked to some of what I've written lately, but it seems like I should link to my main page, right? And it's pretty excessive right now, but if Google is a few weeks behind on indexing my site, I guess I better give it a quick boost. But I need to make a better signature.

How do I pick keywords for a site like mine? It's really about knowledge for its own sake, and being exposed to new ideas.

In fact, the latest post, I wrote about ideas I don't really agree with, at least at the gut level, but they made good arguments and deserve to have them discussed. Part of what I'm hoping with a blog is that while I just wrote about two ideologies I don't really agree with, I'm hoping people will leave good comments to help me (and others) sort through the information, and perhaps figure things out.

As far as a signature goes for your site, I'd include your homepage. That's the constant in your equation; your posts are the variables, and your current post shows up in the Latest Blog Post section automagically anyway.

As far as picking keywords goes, the best thing you can do in your case is to not even bother. I know this flies in the face of what every SEO knows to be true, so I'll have to explain this: good content (like yours) has a way of generating organic search ranking for keywords and phrases that no one on these boards or any others would think of. These are things that searchers will find you under (e.g. my blog has established a certain level of dominance for "Toronto Raptors playoff" phrases, and I've tried to post a few things on that where I could).

It's a bit of a catch-22 in that you'll have to wait a little while (I had to wait about 10 days) before these users come in, but once they do, you'll have a good idea of what directions to take your blog in. Post something relevant to those keyphrases, and you'll pick up others; repeat; repeat it again; keep goin'; and bang, you've picked up a bunch of keyphrases and words.

BTW
You are at No 5 as of right now

and at 9 without quotes

No 5 for me, but this term is so small anyone could rank for it.

but this term is so small anyone could rank for it.

from post #1
I'd have to sit around for a while to think of a less competitive term, which makes this post a really good case study.

........

I also would be interested to see what a signature will do.

No1 here this morning, albeit with the post going supplemental