Why am I struggling to rank well for an easy ass keyword?

yeah, I've done the on-page SEO stuff..

the domain is new (it's the same age as the site - 5 weeks)

the links are mostly dofollow, some are profile links, some are directory links, some are blog comments

Most of the links are the same phrase though (the keyword).

One other question... I have found some directories (PR2-4) in the same niche as my site, but they are paid directories. For this keyword/site, do I even need to worry about getting links in related directories? Or will a lot of links in general directories be enough in this case?

thanks man . Im doing this right away! :)
 


Check the 3 that are ranking now.
Which is their pagerank? More than PR5 or more -- difficult.
Which is their age? Aged domains from more than 5 years -- difficult.
How are them SEOed? keyword in title, H1, ...
How are their backlinks? Try to get backlinks from the same sites.
Try to send more quality links to your site, try with ezinearticles and press realeases.
Get more shitty profiles links to the links that you have created to give them more power. These kind of backlinks don't have to point to your salespage. Get 1000 of these backlinks and say byebye to Google.
 
You have a one month old blog with 31 backlinks. Why are you surprised you aren't ranking high?