If I want to get indexed high (in the top 10) on google for keywords with little competition should I use quotations around my keywords or not? Thanks for any responses.
Quotations? On your page you mean? No way, man, just normal text. If it really is a keyword with little competition, you should be able to put the phrase in your title tag and a couple of times in your content and rank well (if you're not sandboxed, that is).
Use this tool: http://seopen.com/seopen-tools/link-development-tool.php and find other sites with your keyword. Then send them an email with your website link. Good luck.
What I mean by quotations is when I'm searching for a keyword's or phrase's competiton on google should I, for example, type in "pay per click" or without quotations like this pay per click. I get a different number of competing websites with each different query. If I wanted to submit an article (which I wrote around my keyword or phrase) and get that article ranked in the top 10 which way should I search on google to find my keyword's actual competition? Thanks again...
its all about backlinks, but it would be even better if people had one way links to their pages without having to trade. one way links to your page are more powerful than swapping links.
clearly without quotation, since people usually don't enter quotations! You want to check whether you rank for terms (without quotations) that people really search for.