Competitors ranking in top three with worse SEO
-
Ok I am at a loss.
Our client is trying to rank for keywords like "dental assistant programs utah", but they are still on the bottom of page 1/top of page 2. The guys in the top 3 have terrible SEO. No links, newer domains, etc. I looked into it extensively and learned about the "honeymoon period" people talk about but we are long past that.
I've looked through webmaster tools to see if there are any issues, and I can't find a thing.
Anyone have an idea of what we could be doing wrong that is making us be put down so far on the page? Before I got here the SEO guys were doing older tactics which I think was starting to hurt them with penguin and what not so I tried my best to delete the crap content and clean everything up on the website.
thanks for all your help! I really appreciate it.
-
sorry but I'd rather not give out the domain publicly. I appreciate the help and will continue to investigate
-
boyakp,
We're still waiting for you to share your client's website....
-
Here is something interesting. This is the company in the top spot:
http://www.dentalassistingschoolofutah.com/
but I also found this: http://assistingschool.com/
so they are mirroring their sites... which my client had been doing (they have several domains) and I assumed it to be bad (duplicate content?) so I turned it off...
also just did a backlink check and the top domain has ONE link, a crappy one at that. what the heck??
-
When 16 is winnin' it means really easy SERPs and when 58 is loosin' it means they done sneaky stuff and got in trouble.
-
I sometimes see that happen too and wonder if the competitors have one golden link, one super authoritative followed link incoming to their site that just blows your client out of the water. I know your question says "no links", but take a look. It's all I can think of.
-
Would you be willing to provide your domain so that I could look at it?
-
my client has a score of 58%, the company in the top spot has a score of 16%
seriously I am so confused... I just don't get google sometimes
-
Have you tried doing an audit of your business citations to see if your NAP information is consistent across all the various business listing sites? Since Moz acquired GetListed.org (now called Moz Local), you can check your own site versus your competitors here: https://moz.com/local/search
You might try this and see if you gain any insights. It's a place to start at least. Hope that helps a bit!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Missing tab in Competitor research Template
The template provided in https://moz.com/blog/competitor-analysis-for-seo is missing the 'Audit Data' Tab. Can you please update it or share the Original Template
Competitive Research | | AnkitaDwivedi3 -
How can you rank nr 1 for high competitive keyword with low DA and only 1 backlink?
Hi! Was wondering if anyone can explain this a bit clearer...
Competitive Research | | AleksanderOlsen
Image attatched... How is it possible to rank on Google Norway for spot nr.1 (page in English language) and spot nr.2 (page in Norwegian language) , when all you competitors have higher PA, DA and a lot more backlinks and better on-page optimization according to MOZ? Is there something I´m misunderstanding?
Just when I thought SEO started to make sense 😞 7sXH00d0 -
Pre Launch New Website SEO Best Practices
Hi All, I am currently mid development of a website (no testing page yet) and want to make sure I am doing my due diligence in regards to SEO. Are there best practices to always complete while a website is being built? If so what are they? I've gotten to the stage where I've read every blog on the planet and now maybe too much info. I am also focusing my Keyword Analysis around competitor research to write great copy from, but seem to be falling down a rabbit hole of way too many keywords. Is there agencies/services that would just be hired to do Keyword Research for my needs? Thanks a lot!
Competitive Research | | Krackle0 -
How To Rank For Easy Keywords (24-26 keyword competitivness)
Hello Moz members, Quick Question for today !!
Competitive Research | | SebastianP
Please, who is involved in backlinking processes/White hat SEO these kind of things pm me, I really appreciate some great responses to this specific thread. I have a blog 3 months old with quality articles on it (600 to 1000 words each article+fotos+videos+infographics), and the keyword targeted that is on the homepage have that 26 kW competitiveness keyword. What I really need to focus on if I want to be number 1 for that term? somehow on social media more?
My competition seems to have little to no backlinks, but they have a domain or PA bigger than 30. How can I increase my domain and page authority faster?I still have 30 backlinks and PA/DA and also PR = 0. I want to know specifically which tasks I need to Master if I want to be number 1 in Google for a keyword that have JUST 26 Keyword competitiveness in MOZ.
I mean, this is a very easy keyword to rank for but I didn't rank yet. Maybe from my description you can give me some gold nuggets here Thank you so much ! Regards,
Sebastian Papp0 -
Rankings & Linking Root Domains
How are the Linking Root Domains under Keyword Rankings being found? We've noticed for many of our key terms that big brands like Amazon, eBay, Home Depot, etc. only list 1 linking root domain, while much smaller competitors in our industry have hundreds. Clearly big brands are going to get more links than a company most people haven't heard of and the idea that these companies only have 1 linking root domain to a specific subcategory on their site is not believable. What's going on here?
Competitive Research | | Kingof50 -
SERP rankings consistency
I have a website which is showing different serp rankings. On one computer, he's on the first page, on another, he's second page and another person from outside our office sees him ranked differently. What would account for the inconsistency in rankings?
Competitive Research | | priceseo0 -
Ranking for long tailed keyword vs shorter keyword phrase?
I have a webpage http://freightmonster.com/free-freight-quote that currently ranks 19th in the Google SERP's for the keyword free freight quote. The keyword gets 59 exact match searches a month. Competition is high for this keyword. The keyword freight quote gets 8625 exact match searches a month and my home page http://freightmonster.com/ ranks 26th in the Google SERP for it. Competition is high for this keyword. Would I be better off creating another page http://freightmonster.com/freight-quote and doing a better job of on SEO optimization for it in the hopes of getting on page one, or given the fact that freight quote is such a highly competitive term should I just go after other long tailed keywords in my market like flatbed trucking freight quote, heavy haul trucking freight quote, RGN freight quote, etc? We have just started on SEO for organic keywords after spending over $500,000 on PPC in the last 5 years, which in our market niche is the norm. Thank you in advance!
Competitive Research | | FreightBoy0 -
Tracking competitors in search engines
Hi Mozzers, I'm using Advanced Web Rankings (AWR) to track my site and a number of competitors in Google - seeing how rankings and brand visibility change from week to week. I didn't set this up from scratch and I'm worrying with all of the recent algorithm changes that I might well be tracking the wrong competitors. Is there a tool or methodology I can use to find the biggest players in the market? I'm in the travel market so there's lots of choice and I track the large sites but want to be sure I'm aware of smaller/mid-sized sites gaining visibility without me tracking them via a platform like AWR. Many thanks!
Competitive Research | | panini0