Ranking Oddities

[ajgrossman]

In my local marketplace, I have competitors who have the following:

• unoptimized title tags and description tags (really long using keyword stuffing),
• stuffing keywords into the Meta keywords tag,
• lacking keywords in the body copy,
• using spammy footers or sections of text with a lot of local cities listed where no physical business is located,
• unattractive design (in my humble opinion),
• lower page authority,
• lower domain authority,
• lower number of back links

and are organically outranking my site that I have tried to optimize using the MOZ tools, Market Samurai, other tools, and other great advice provided by people much more knowledgeable than myself about SEO.

I don't understand how these sites that lack SEO continue to rank in the #1 or #2 spots in Google for my main keyword phrase + location, while my site is either not in the top 50 or in the top 40s range.

How is it that sites with little to no optimization, no blogs, and very few backlinks, continue to rank quite well?

These are not all new sites.  Domain ages range from 1 to 10 years.  What I am seeing appears to go against the grain of SEO recommendations.

Any general thoughts?

[Sundance_Kidd]

I literally was just about to type this same question. I'm baffled too. The only conclusion I arrive at is perhaps the other sites receive more traffic. Hopefully a zen master chimes in on this one.

chris

[Sundance_Kidd]

curious if these site that are ranking higher than you update their content more regularly than you? and how active are their social media communities (especially their Google+ account)?

Chris

[ajgrossman]

As far as I can tell, these other websites are not updated frequently.  There are no active blogs on any of these sites.  Google+ accounts are non-existent or not active.  Facebook business accounts are non-existent or not active.

[Sundance_Kidd]

How old is your domain? Is your site speed good?

[Philip-DiPatrizio]

What's your backlink profile look like?  There's literally a million questions that I could ask you but without being able to see the query, the websites, or the backlink profiles, it is really REALLY tough to pinpoint the issue.

[KeriMorgret]

Do they offer information of value to the people who visit the site? Are there some user-facing reasons why the sites are popular?

[ajgrossman]

These sites are in a boring industry; divorce lawyers.

None of these sites are "popular," nor do they have any user interface experiences that are cutting edge or fund or exciting.  Each site provides information about the law firm, the lawyer(s), and the services offered.  None of the sites utilize much media, such as video or audio.

I can provide the URLs for the sites, but I don't know if that is acceptable to do in this thread.  If not, I would be happy to send them via private message.

None of the sites are providing anything truly unique, however my blog does provide information for people that goes beyond the stereotypical divorce information blog.  The information is related and relevant, and I would like to think it is somewhat unique.

[ajgrossman]

I sent you a PM with the URLs for the sites.

[Philip-DiPatrizio]

AJ,

I took a look at your backlink profile and it's pretty clear what the problem is.  You basically have nothing but spam backlinks (I will PM you examples).  It looks like there was a big influx of links around September 2013.  Did you pay someone to do SEO about 6 months ago?

Your site doesn't look bad, but it's got some instances of over-optimization (again, I'll PM you examples).

You should definitely verify Google Webmaster Tools, if you haven't already, and check to see if you have a manual action against you from Google.  After looking at your backlink profile, I would be surprised if you don't have one.  However, if you don't, it may be coming soon.  If you don't know how to do the backlink cleanup and reconsideration request yourself, it would be a good idea to hire someone with experience.