Penalized for Primary Keyword

Was hoping it was just the google dance but it looks like I am penalized for my primary keyword. Which sucks because it is a site about an event (which is the keyword I am not longer being found for). So the event name is pretty much everywhere.

I am just guessing but it must be an over-optimized penalty. But the problem is I cannot really remove the keyword because the site just won't make sense without it.

I was ranked for about 20 terms, 1st and second page but all of those had the keyword in the term. I can no longer be found for any of those terms. It has been about 8 days now. In Webmaster Tools my search impressions goes from 0 back all the way up every other day, so I thought it was the dance but even on the spike days I'm not getting traffic or able to find my site for those keywords.


My site is still indexed and I can be found for a few random terms but it is nothing I am optimized for and it is only a couple hits a day.

It is a niche site so it isn't like I've poured days of my life into it, but the content quality is really good, around 18 pages. I had a low bounce rate and a high time on site, around 3-6 minutes.

Is it a lost cause or is there anything I can try?

If I write more content I'll have to use the keyword.

I could write for related topics but the keyword was the whole point of the site.