980 links from 75 domains and Graded "A" on Moz Page Grader-- still not ranking for our term. Thoughts?

[lbernes22]

A few additional interesting details:

• A blog post we wrote with the same keyword  ranks 8, but this page does not crack the top 20.
• Crazy competitive term-- top SERP are from HBR, Entrepreneur and Inc.
• We use Instapage as landing page builder-- could this effect our rankings?
• URL is not a subdomain

Pretty stumped over here.  Thanks y'all!

[lbernes22]

Thanks, Kathy. Appreciate the response.

[MattRoney]

Hi there!

It's very hard to say what could be preventing you from ranking, especially without more information, or the ability to look at the pages. That said, keep in mind that the on-page grader does not indicate your likelihood to rank. The grade is based entirely on how well the page adheres to commonly-understood on-page best practices for a given keyword. Since on-page optimization is only one factor, it's entirely possible to have an A-grade and still not rank.

One Moz tool you may want to check out is the Keyword Difficulty Tool, and specifically the Full SERP Analysis Report. It can let you know what factors could be helping the top 10 for a given keyword to rank, which can give you a sense of what you'll need to do. Check out Cyrus Shepard's Moz Academy video on the subject.

[katandmouse]

I think it's hard for anyone to answer without more information. My thought would be that from your subject line it appears you put a lot of weight on backlinks getting you to rank. But what kind of backlinks are they and how do they compare to the competition? If your blog post ranks and that page doesn't, maybe the backlinks you have are sending mixed signals and weakening rather than strengthening your page. And maybe your blog post is better quality content. Without more information it's hard to say.