Not ranking for longtail KW, but for shorter KW variations

I wrote an article with the focus keyword "cheap dog food stores" (example), article keyword density is around 1% according to Yoast. Categories etc. are not indexed. I built a few links to it (a few manual forum posts, some blog comments, some social shares)
However, I only rank 47 for "cheap dog food stores" but I am on the second page for some shorter keywords like "buy dog food" which actually have more competition. Anchor texts are well mixed:

3 exact match,
~10 partial match (I have used "buy dog food" a few times here)
plenty of naked links

Url of the article looks like this: mydomain.com/cheap-dog-food-stores

I wonder if I somehow overoptimized the article, but actually I havent really used the main kw much, I dont believe I got penalized for using it too often.
What would you suggest me to do now? What can I do to rank for "cheap dog food stores"?
Or should I rewrite the article a bit and go for "buy dog food"?

Edit: "Cheap dog food stores" is not my keyword. I am in a completely different niche. Its just an example!

I have checked the first page competition. It seems no site has optimised their content for this keyword. Most of the sites in the first page are big brand. 1% keyword density is not enough to optimise a page. You need to have the keyword in title, headline,at the opening paragraphs, a couple of times in the body, related keywords in the body and also in the closing of the article. You also need some links having the keyword as anchor text from inner pages and external sites.

wblteam said:

I have checked the first page competition. It seems no site has optimised their content for this keyword. Most of the sites in the first page are big brand. 1% keyword density is not enough to optimise a page. You need to have the keyword in title, headline,at the opening paragraphs, a couple of times in the body, related keywords in the body and also in the closing of the article. You also need some links having the keyword as anchor text from inner pages and external sites.

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"cheap dog food stores" isnt my keyword, its just an example. Sorry if I wasnt clear.

Nonilol said:

"cheap dog food stores" isnt my keyword, its just an example. Sorry if I wasnt clear.

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I see. It okay. Whatever your keyword, you can optimised the content as I mentioned. Having certain percentage of keywords will not do .

Cheap dog food is not ranking because the word "cheap" in front of it changes the whole phrase in Google's eyes. Google treats terms with words like "cheap" and "best" in front of them differently. You would think that if you rank for dog food, you should rank for cheap dog food, but Google knows that queries like that are more about the "cheap" part than the dog food part. So they treat it as a whole new keyword rather than a longtail of dog food. So the anchor "dog food" would not help you rank for "cheap dog food" because Google see's "cheap dog food" as an indivisible phrase. You'll need the exact phrase worked into your internal and external SEO.

If you want to rank for "cheap dog food" you will probably want a page dedicated just to that keyword, like site.com/cheap-dog-food and tailor the content entirely to cheap dog food. Same goes for best, and other descriptive modifiers.

wblteam said:

I see. It okay. Whatever your keyword, you can optimised the content as I mentioned. Having certain percentage of keywords will not do .

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I dont think my keyword density is too low. Might be just 1% in the article but its 2.5% on the whole page according to seorch.
Plus, I rank much higher for KWs I only used once in the text (which even have higher competition) than for my main KW.

ThopHayt said:

If you want to rank for "cheap dog food" you will probably want a page dedicated just to that keyword, like site.com/cheap-dog-food and tailor the content entirely to cheap dog food. Same goes for best, and other descriptive modifiers.

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Yeah I know, but thats the thing: I rank much higher for the short keywords than for the longtail one, even though the site is optimized for the longtail keyword in my eyes.

The site may be (maybe) but are has the anchor text of your SEO been as well? And the content used with your SEO?

ThopHayt said:

The site may be (maybe) but are has the anchor text of your SEO been as well? And the content used with your SEO?

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My content is fine I think. Around 500 words. High quality handwritten content by myself.
Anchor texts are as stated in the original post:

3 exact match,
~10 partial match (I have used "buy dog food" two times here and now I am ranking for "buy dog food")
plenty of naked links

Thats a mystery then.

ThopHayt said:

Thats a mystery then.

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Haha okay Article is 2-3 weeks old. I should probably keep building links to it and see what happens.

Any other advice?

The keywork density limit based on Google guideline is 3% so you should increase your KW density from 1% to 2%.

Milky Way Links said:

The keywork density limit based on Google guideline is 3% so you should increase your KW density from 1% to 2%.

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I might give that a try.
But I still dont get why I rank better for keywords I didnt use at all or just once in the article.

One last bump - just curious if anyone can explain this phenomen.