Why do weaker competitors on open site explorer outrank me on SERP

[EdsonGroupMedia]

Hi I am new to the whole SEO + marketing and was just wondering why the competition is doing better in SERP they are all in the top 1-5 positions; however i am 5th on page 2 ?? after doing a site explorer analysis i found that I am beating them in all aspects, my site is sparrowmakeup.com.au keyword is "makeup artist sydney' any suggestions on how to increase my SERP would be helpfull.

[Dr-Pete]

A couple of things to keep in mind:

(1) Our authority metrics factor in link strength and try to model ranking ability, but they don't model things like spam factors. If you have a lot of links that look strong on the surface but have been devalued or penalized, we often won't catch that. We're working on spam modeling, but it's extremely complex.

(2) As soon as you add "sydney" to the mix, this becomes as much a local SEO puzzle as an organic SEO puzzle. It's entirely possible that the competition is weaker on things like links or social signals, but has solid local ranking factors (like reviews and citations).

[Dr-Pete]

I'm sorry, but I think "onpage SEO has almost nothing to do with SEO anymore" is a very, very misguided statement. On-page covers a lot of ground, including using keywords in your content and titles, technical SEO, etc. I can absolutely guarantee that on-page can have a dramatic impact on rankings. It's also highly situational - your one case doesn't speak to the many thousands of variations of competitive niches out there. That's why I wrote this post a while back:

http://moz.com/blog/whats-better-on-page-seo-or-link-building

Google has said that site speed is a ranking factor, but our best guess is that it's probably mild right now. A site that is very slow could suffer problems and a site that's very fast could get a small boost. There are also indirect impacts. If your site is slow and people bounce, it could harm dwell time, which may be a ranking signal. There's a mountain of data to show that site speed impacts conversion, so I'd never want to suggest that site speed isn't important, no matter what it's weight as a ranking factor.

[EdsonGroupMedia]

Hi Mathew,

Thanks for all your input, I would love to learn what works and what doesn't I do the SEO for my wifes business and she makes a living from it so any help on what works and what doesnt would be great, you mentioned your tactics got buried, I would love to know how your ranking, please PM me or email me if you feel inclined to share

Thanks

[MarketingOfAmerica]

Thomas,

Lets move this to a private chat please.  My issue is that you rank for 0 terms for your own personal marketing firm and that raises large flags for me.  This is the only reason I asked you questions.  Your SEM traffic is $2 and mine is $36k.  Lets talk in private chat about more, I was just trying to help you realize that there is more to SEO than what you read or watch.  Do you ever think that others cover up what really works?

I have had detailed explications on how to rank for keywords that just got buried on here, because others don't want the average everyday person to know how to rank anything up.

You said "Unfortunately, your answers to not have anything to do with the questions"  I was the first person to post the reason he wasn't ranking good. Did you miss this?   Again lets take this to private chat.  No need for this anymore.

Have a great night.

[BlueprintMarketing]

Matthew,

Moz is TAGFEE

Unfortunately, your answers to not have anything to do with the questions and I don't want to argue with you that's not what I'm here for. I am sensing that you  are here to pick fights and I don't want to be a part of what you are doing.  I don't do this for you I do it for the people that will read this in the future.

• Transparent & Authentic

• Generous

• Fun

• Empathetic

• Exceptional

To anyone reading this. I am not anti-shared hosting in fact I use it myself I speak about that more in this primarily for managed WordPress.

I am going to address the question asked of me I did not know that those companies used any particular type of hosting and nor did I ask for that information. I appreciate you telling me things like that but I don't see how it pertains to the question asked and just to keep this short in the future I don't really have an interest in your rankings nor your telling me statistics about things I don't think pertain to anything being discussed in this Q&A. I really want to stay on topic I, and I am not talking about this economy nor am I talking about the average person. I'm speaking to people asking advice about search engine optimization primarily, and when I mentioned hosting you stated that you did not agree and thought it was funny that I even believed Google does have it in its algorithm.

I'm going to stand by everything I've said, and I have proven by showing the actual links to Google stating they use Page speed as part of their algorithm.

If you do not want to optimize your site or have it run on a quality host that is not my business nor is it something I wish to entertain talking with you about.

However you obviously have given me thumbs down for other people giving me thumbs up and that's not okay.

This is Moz I stand by my statement and people can judge by reading what each of us has said what is correct.

However I cannot believe you are actually behaving in this manner.

We have a disagreement and that's all I'm going to say it's not like there's anything personal I don't dislike you.

This is a discussion about the best way for him to figure out why a competitor that should possibly not be beating him is.

It's most likely if they have a lot of spam links they're just not caught yet. However without that competitors domain like I said I really think the guide is a great step it talks about quite a bit to do with penalties and will explain this very well. In fact I read the new guide the day I found it came out.

It is good for every person involved in search engine optimization.

I think that the actions taken are distracting but more sad.

I hope you guys will read on your own as well as the vast knowledge that Moz Q&A provides already send you will understand that site speed matters quite a bit if you want to convert.

I will even let you in on a secret some of the fastest WordPress sites right now our shared why they do so much work in on the front and the backend that to make them a VPS would be in some cases in the thousands a month. So they make them shared but very few people I won't really get into it all. However shared hosting does not mean slow every single time.

However there are limits to shared environments if you guys have any hosting questions I love to talk hosting so let me know. I promise you I'm not going to send you to an affiliate or anything like that in fact I encourage people to Google what others suggest and if they post a link. Because sometimes it will be disguised as an affiliate link. Which is not okay here.

Well I trust Google to give the correct answers. I believe I know why I'm being challenged if it is because of a service that is not the reason they would change actually give out the newsletter stating we have changed our algorithm to incorporate page speed into our ranking.

I take conversion optimization very seriously it is the most important because if you can get the client to convert obviously you've got them to take the paths that we use all these different tools and methods to achieve rather that be a Tweet or a purchase.

I will be able to answer any of your questions at any time please feel free to private message me or send them here however I think I've cleared up everything so far. If I have not please let me know, and I would be happy to answer.

Sincerely,

Thomas

[JesusD]

He meant that he should lower the links containing the anchor text "makeup artist sydney" to something more natural.

its important to have a natural and clean link profile, the same goes for anchor text. Google will frown upon and also take action with overly optimized anchor text.

Best regards!

[MarketingOfAmerica]

Thomas,

I checked over every link and none of them have anything to do with proof of site speed making your SEO better in any way.  I think your getting web site design and user experience confused with SEO and it's common for beginners.  I highly encourage you to take some time and read those over yourself again.  Also look at the dates 2010, this is 2013 your stuck in the past.  This happens to beginners that start out or people that think they know it all and stop learning the new tactics.  I don't follow by anything that doesn't have 2013 on it, because SEO changes every 3 months.

I do understand we all have to start somewhere and we make mistakes.  However I didn't make a mistake above when I said that.  You said " it is not proof when you are the one that is using your own opinion written by you as proof."  Proof is proof lol, if I am ranking for the competitive terms I am ranking for, then I would call this proof lol.  How else do you generally get your proof?  I know you know how to check that everything I said is accurate.

I too wasn't being a jerk, that is just the first time I have ever heard anyone say anything like that and be serious.  I thought others knew that this was something very old that possibly one day many years ago they looked at, but no longer do at all. Again unless your sites not loading or taking half a minute.  If Google is not showing you have errors due to your web server in WMT then you have nothing to worry about and getting anything over a shared is a waste of money and time.

It honestly looked as if you just came into this chat to get some points and nothing more.  I didn't know you were being serious. I thought maybe you didn't read it good enough.

Please remember the average person doesn't have a lot of money to spend. This is a terrible economy for millions right now and no one wants to spend more money than they have.  So when I hear comments like you said above that could make someone waste an extra $30 per month on hosting telling people you don't like cheap hosting, I tend to think that your not living in reality right now.  You must think about the average person that wants to try SEO like a plumber, electrician, siding, roofing, etc.. These people are starting out and don't make a lot of money.  90% of them don't even have the budget past $150 a month let alone waste $30 extra on hosting when they could put it towards a press release or guest post for their website.

Everything I say and do comes from the reality that the average person doesn't want to waste money on a myth and I proved that it is a myth.  No matter a fact, 2,000 of the 4400 clients we work for are on a shared host that we host for them.  We hold 1000's of great rankings for them.

Did you know that dicks sporting goods has part of their website on a shared host?  Did you know that Avon does as well? Not the full site of course, but they do have parts of their business sites..  When angieslist started out they were on a shared host.

Anyways, I have 11 SEO companies/websites and all of them are on shared hosts.  They rank from ranges of Cheap SEO to seo services, seo company, business SEO, and 489 more as of today, just checked to be accurate.  256 of them are from 2 cheap sites for cheap SEO terms and the others are from top dollar terms where the SEO is pointed towards larger businesses.

To make a long story short, nothing you gave above makes any sense at all in regards to a fact that hosting helps SEO.  I actually feel sorry that your wasting the extra money per month when it isn't needed.

Have a great day.

[BlueprintMarketing]

Hi Matthew,

I really want to make one thing clear before I go on to everyone following this just in case you're referencing this information I wanted it to be right The right answer not one you've written and used a link to a guest blog post that you have written as the proof.

We are discussing this on Moz people take this seriously and make purchasing decisions and optimization decisions based on information we supply. I wish you had spent a minute on Google to make sure you were correct prior to posting something that is wrong. Acording to Google WMT's & Matt Cutt's

p am not trying to go overboard with this however I want to make sure that the people I speak to know they're not wasting money when they use quality hosting that accelerates their website along with keeping Moz as the place to go for the correct information.

I truly am not trying to be a jerk about this but did not appreciate the way you handled my informing you of what Google and many others agree with that site speed does affect Google's ranking of websites.

You stated** "you said I don't know where you're getting your information Thomas lol"**

I get my information from Google Webmaster tools and Matt Cutts on this I hope you will spend some time getting familiar with the links I am going to give you to back up my statement.

Matthew disagrees with you.  what to I disagree with you about does cite speed affect search engine optimization does Google take it into affect when their ranking a site?

The answer is yes your site speed does make a difference in search engine optimization as well as Google taking into account when you rank.

I am getting my information from Google Webmaster tools as well as Matt Cutts I hope that will serve as an authority and

How do I know this for certain well Google tells you right here the link I'm going to paste and without taking the trouble to make a live.

Http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.ca/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-web-search-ranking.html

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/site-speed/

Here is some more data that comes from respected sources

http://moz.com/ugc/13-questions-and-answers-about-google-site-speed-and-seo

http://www.quicksprout.com/2012/12/10/how-load-time-affects-google-rankings/

http://www.copyblogger.com/website-speed-matters/

http://thestrategicmama.com/increase-website-speed/

http://www.copyblogger.com/site-design-improvements/

http://www.strangeloopnetworks.com/resources/

Aside from being a genuinely used as part of Google's search algorithm there are other large benefits to having your website on a fast server.

would never use myself as an authority in the manner you did by stating you are correct because you wrote that guest blog on somebody else's site stating you are correct.

I would also be very careful about how you state on page search engine optimization and keyword density have nothing to do with ranking. That's wrong and you know it. I don't believe there is a magical formula that I know however I do know if I start typing like in the shining all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and that is my entire website it looks a little bit more like I went crazy or keyword stuffing something Google does take into effect

Please next time you say something that along these lines can affect other users impression of the truth at least go to Google and take a look without sending me something you wrote as an authority when you are the one stating something that is blatantly incorrect

Please know I am not trying to be harsh however I do not want anyone to read this and believe that  Slow/junk hosting is something that you should do with your site.

Appreciate you sending a link and asking me "where I get my information" without actually consulting a true authority such as Google as well because they're the ones to make the rules.

I included some of the normal high lead regarded and often taken answers given by everyone in the community here at Moz to show this is not a normal thing to have somebody not actually check something before answering.

Hore information from Moz as well as more from Google when they announced that it is part of their algorithm over 2 years ago. you want it's right here where I get my information Google not referencing myself as the one with the answers guest blogging on another person site

I  included a couple other references for your information and so hopefully everyone else that's reading this does not take your word for fit and use junk hosting.

This is a quote from Google please note the date

"

Using site speed in web search ranking

Friday, April 09, 2010 at 11:00 AM

Webmaster Level: All

You may have heard that here at Google we're obsessed with speed, in our products and on the web. As part of that effort, today we're including a new signal in our search ranking algorithms: site speed. Site speed reflects how quickly a website responds to web requests.

Speeding up websites is important — not just to site owners, but to all Internet users. Faster sites create happy users, and we've seen in our internal studies that when a site responds slowly, visitors spend less time there. But faster sites don't just improve user experience; recent data shows that improving site speed also reduces operating costs. Like us, our users place a lot of value in speed — that's why we've decided to take site speed into account in our search rankings. We use a variety of sources to determine the speed of a site relative to other sites.

If you are a site owner, webmaster or a web author, here are some free tools that you can use to evaluate the speed of your site:"

I 1st off want to tell you I do not condone cheap hosting I don't care it to work well for you in the past it is generally not a good thing if you actually want to have a conversion rate. But moreover let me make sure that you're not spreading misinformation.

It's been two years since Google announced that page speed is a factor in its search ranking, and one of the most-asked questions I still receive is: How exactly do they do it? The second-most-asked question I hear is: How much do I need to care about this?

If you sorry I did not get to respond to this earlier I just saw it.

everyone takes mistakes gosh I know I do. However, in this situation if I could really stress googling the question because it pertains to the search engine you would query there would be a very easy way to know if you're right or if you're wrong.

I also want to know why you think I'm going to take the answer you supplied as research or proof of your answer when you're the one who wrote what's supposed to be the objective proof. All you did was present me a link to guest blog post that you have written. How is that in any way proof? I wish you would not laugh at something I considered a quality answer.

it is not proof when you are the one that is using your own opinion written by you as proof.

Respectfully,

Thomas

[ivordg]

perhaps a beginner's question on this: why does he need to lower the anchor text diversity to such a low ratio? Isn't it important to keep many anchor text links across his website, containing those keywords (makeup artist sydney) in order to rank for this? Thanks!

[MarketingOfAmerica]

Majestic SEO to me is the best for quickly gathering an analysis of ratios.  You can even see it with a free account. They have a Pie chart that shows it all.

Have a great night.

[MarketingOfAmerica]

A faster host has nothing to do with rank Thomas unless we are talking about a page that won't load at all.  I am not sure where you got this info, but I am ranking 3rd for cheap SEO on a shared server lol  http://dailyseotip.com/what-other-marketing-firms-want-you-to-believe-that-isnt-true/3356/   BTW, the server was so old, that I received a message 7 days ago from hostgator that they are going to update it next week.  If you would like to contact them for proof feel free.   Onpage SEO has almost nothing to do with SEO anymore hence my case study to prove it.  Now it could change later on, but it's not now.

Have a great night.

[BlueprintMarketing]

I wish I had an easier answer for you and click on all of those things however if you look to the right of the board almost everything listed is a reason why somebody could outrank another person. Regardless of links that could be content it could be that they're on a faster host and converting more it could be so many things that I could stay here and type forever. Because you said you are new I would like to say welcome to Moz I strongly suggest reading this

it is an outstanding guide, and it is something everyone should read regardless of skill level.

http://static.seomoz.org/files/SEOmoz-The-Beginners-Guide-To-SEO-2012.pdf

Respectfully,

Thomas

[JesusD]

did you use OSE for the anchor text report? or another tool? what is best way to obtain your anchor text diversity?

Thanks!!

[MarketingOfAmerica]

This is an easy one.

Your anchor text diversity is terrible you have built 33% of your anchor texts to makeup artist sydney and 15.04% to Sydnety makeup artist.  Try to lower this to around a 2%.

I would look into a lot of press releases, use natural terms, brand names, your urls.  Don't use your keywords at all in them ever.   Try that and see if you come up in the serps.  When you get a press release done by someone ask what the syndication is.  Generally my press releases have a 10k to 30k syndication i perform.  Also ask the quality of them.  I would use prwebs premium + a few other syndication's out their as well.

Please note: I am not saying this is the only factor that is wrong, but it's the biggest.  It would take a while to look into all of your link types you used, etc..

Have a great day.