Nothing I Know About SEO can Explain these Rankings?

[RickyShockley]

Hi all,

I have a client who wants to rank more prominently for "plastic surgeon jupiter fl", a key term in his niche that attracts 11-50 searches per month (but these are potentially big ticket clients).

If you look at the first page of results for that term, I can't make any sense of them. I've checked page speed, Google listing optimization, on-page SEO, link metrics etc. and there seems to be no correlation with good on-page SEO, quality links (or volume of links). Any thoughts??

I literally cannot explain why the #1 site shows 2 inbound links via Moz OSE and almost no on-page SEO to speak of while sites ranking page 2 have better on-page SEO, more links, higher quality links (from what I can tell) etc.

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Muzzmoz,

This is a little outside of my area of knowledge, but I asked around our team and got a recommendation of Open SEO Stats as a tool, which links to the Whois information for whatever you're looking up, surfacing domain age. I hope this recommendation helps

[muzzmoz]

Hey Miriam,

I'm currently doing an audit for a client and would like to include domain age in comparison to competitors. Can you recommend a reliable source?

I have used this site (http://checkpagerank.net/index.php), but I've noticed at lot of sites coming up blank for domain age recently, which I'm guessing is related to PageRank data no longer available?

Would also be interested in what other high level domain/link authority metrics you would recommend? I currently use:

• MOZ (DA and PA), as well as root domains and total links, plus
• ahrefs (DR and UR), as well as referring domains, backlinks, keywords and organic traffic.

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Ricky!

Good that you are looking into that. I see 2 good things, searching remotely:

1. From my location (far away) your client is #7 in the Local Finder view in Maps, so at least they are in the running to improve.

2. I see the two big clusters on Maps from which Google is drawing most of the top 10 local results, and the good news is that a second competitor Aqua, is in your client's own cluster and is ranking #2 locally, so this would indicate to me that there is no geographic barrier to your client moving upwards.

Yes, I'd work on getting some more native Google reviews in the coming few months. I notice on the website for your client, you are mentioning some high level news connections. Have you earned links from them, by chance? Links can move the needle when little else can.

[RickyShockley]

Hi Miriam,

Thanks for the feedback! I had looked at that also and there seemed to be no rhyme or reason based on location bias from what I could tell. The client Im working on is DrBafitis.com (should be top of page 2 for that term). The competitive analysis I performed covered the following items without helping me understand this SERP much at all...

• Page load speed (mobile and desktop)
• On-page optimization elements
• DA/PA + # of inbound links to page and domain
• Google Listing optimization, location, category selection and reviews
• Depth/length of information on pages
• The ranking page (home or other page)

I'm guessing this is a just a very clustered field in terms of competitors all having stats in the same ballpark. We'll just keep pulling the levers on user experience, page content and link outreach until we see some impact!

Thank you

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Ricky!

Sounds like you are working on a thorough competitive audit (which is the right thing to do and which I can't replicate here in the forum) but I will tell you one very interesting thing I see about that #1 local and organic ranking competitor (Allure). Go look at where their building is located on G Maps. Then, open a second G Maps tag and look up Jupiter, FL. Do you see where the word Jupiter is on the map? That's the 'centroid', and interestingly, that is right where this business happens to be located. The centroid doesn't typically override other factors (like domain authority, NAP consistency, reviews, etc), and the effect of the centroid should typically be even less powerful on the organic results, but in this case, since you've asked why that business is number one, I find it pretty interesting looking at their location.

Without knowing who your client is, I can't make a comparison, and it's totally fine if you're not authorized to share that info here, but I'd do the same search for your client that you did for Allure and see how they stack up.

Also, don't forget 2 factors: age and freshness. How long has that website been established and how frequently do they publish new content? Then, of course, there are reviews. Allure is strong here in the local finder view, but they aren't blowing the field away. Some lower competitors, in fact, have a few more reviews.

As I mentioned, a thorough audit is the only answer here. But, I thought the above factor worth mentioning.

[RickyShockley]

Hi @RedSweater,

From what I understand, mobile-friendly is a pass fail. But, as mentioned I have checked load speeds on mobile and desktop and that doesn't seem to be a factor either as top ranking pages perform poorly.

[WebElaine]

Any chance the top-ranking organic sites have a higher mobile-friendly score? That's about the only other thing I can think of besides CTR.

[RickyShockley]

Thanks for the input, the client does have a Google business listing, good reviews, they are located in the target city etc but I was referring more to the normal organic results (not local pack). Looking at Moz keyword explorer SERP data, site load speeds, etc. I can't for the life of me come up with a good reason to explain why the ranking sites are doing so well.

[WebElaine]

For that search, I see 3 ads, then a local pack of 3, then organics and more ads. The organics include 2 of the 3 local pack.

Two theories: one, the top results may have the best clickthrough rates - not something you'll be able to prove or disprove. Two, it appears as though for the local pack Google is trying to display several results from a small geographic area. I'd make sure the client has a map listing. Hope that at least sparks some ideas for you.