Ok, so here's an update.

I have made a few changes this last week and I feel for great benefit.

Firstly, I switched to Yoast for the SEO portion of my site needs. I absolutely love it. It's great to have the instant feedback about your content, headers, word count, title length, the strength of your words and soooooo much more.

Yoast Excites Me!

There are so many parameters that are measured within Yoast, that help your posts rank. I'm really excited about this change and I feel that in using Yoast I can be better at focusing my content to the people I am targeting. I really LOVE Yoast! It's only been about 4 days, so I will see if it makes a difference

I actually went back, checked and adjusted all my past posts to achieve the green light in Yoast. Most of my posts didn't need much alterations, which made me feel rather good. Still I wonder wy I am not ranking higher.

Headlines Need Work

So then I started to look into my headlines. I have come to realize that good headlines are something that I need to work on. I found this website http://coschedule.com/headline-analyzer# . It's free and absolutely wonderful! With that said, I've focused a lot of effort into working on my headlines. It takes some time though. I imagine that as I grow accustom to what makes a great headline, it will come easier and take less time.

Finding Balance

Working on creating an awesome (or just a great) headline that contains my keyword and has a balance of the other words to create interest is not as easy as it looks or sounds. The trouble comes when I have a great keyword phrase and can't get a good headline. Then when I get a good headline my keyword phrase gets jumbled.

I'm trying to be creative and include more than one ranking keyword where possible. I can't help but wonder if niche sites, ultimately an authority site takes longer to rank or if I am still missing something important.

Still Pumped!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not backing off of, maybe just a little frustrated. I still have the same passion as I did when I started almost 6 months ago, and I still get up each day and gladly pour myself into my work. Should you want to take a look at what I've got going please do http://letsgrowachild.com/

I'm taking the stance, "If I Build it, they will come"