Are SEO fundamentals accurate or real?

[qgairsoft]

Hi

I've been studying about seo for quite a good time. I have learned about linking building, on page optimization, and so on but I in the real word all these fundamentals seems not be followed but google's algorithm and here is an example.

On google.com.br (brazilian google) I'm trying to rank for the main keyword "airsoft" and its variation for the website www.qgairsoft.com.br. But the the top 1 os SERP is:

http://lojaairsoft.com.br/index.php

But this website doesn't follow almost any seo advice:

1. It has almost no backlinks at all

2. It has no good content (both on pages and doesn't have a blog)

3. url's are not user friendly

4. It doesn't have a mobile website

5. It has almost no presence on social media, with almost no interaction

6. It doesn't have H1

7. I doesnt have any "canonical" set

8. It has a lower DA

9. It has a lower PA

10. Moz metrics are lower

11. It is not as old as my target website...

12. .. I think you got the point.

And dispite all that the website do better than my website and also better then other websites with theoretically better 'seo'.

What is wrong? What I am missing? Does all these principals really matter for ranking?

[ennovators]

One reason for relatively unoptimized pages to rank high is, that the keyword you're looking at has low or no competition. I checked adword keyword planner really quick and it seems to be the case for your term. If you've optimized your page and your content better matches the searchers intent (CTR and Engagement on your site will proof) than it is very likely that you will go up. Give it some time though.

Cheers

M

[qgairsoft]

I'm not sure this is the case. These keywords have a lot of competion. On the adword it will show a low competition as these keywords are not allowed to be adwords promoted so there is no one making adds.

We have several seo principles that are supposed to work, like onpage and backlinks, but this competitor website doesnt follow any of this and rank better in a large range of keywords.

So that leads us to ask: Are backlinks that important? What about on page optimization?

I have listed several topics that are supposed to make you rank higher that are simply not reflection in the results on real life.....

tks, btw.

[ennovators]

Hi Paolo,

It is very likely(or actually proven), that Google considers GA data as well. So it could be, that engagement and CvR is relatively high. That many people are visting your competitors site without bouncing. It is not unlikely that Google interprets this in the way, that searchers are happy with what they find on position 1.

Another aspect might be the site speed. As you will know, it has an major impact on site performance and user satisfaction as well. Probably the navigation and internal links are set in a way, the crawler and the visitor expects them to see.

So to sum up: I truly believe, that your bullet points do have a positive impact on rankings and are accurate. Though as many other aspect are influencing rankings too, they are not a guarantee like. (Make sure to get all this points right and you will go to number 1).

[TheeDigital]

You site doesn't really follow on-site best practices. For instance, you have a large amount of links on each page, few images are using alt text, the titles look keyword stuffed and most are far longer than they should be (some are 6x longer than they should be,) your sorting system is causing duplicate content issues which looks like the solution for was to noindex and canonical the pages, which should never both be done. I'm also not seeing any real product descriptions other than what are likely manufacturer specs.

I would stop worrying so much about your competitor and get your own site in order.

[qgairsoft]

I agree and I'm working on that.

The problem is that it is even with all these issues my target website is still better than the other website on all those aspects I have pointed. At least all seo tool that I run to compare both websites, my target one do better, regarding alt image, links, titles, and so on. E.g., on a semrush audit scoring 70 x 46 ... for sorting issue we are using rel=canonical... for layered navigation results we are using NOINDEX, FOLLOW to avoid duplicate content.

There is also the backlink issue. This is said to be a major ranking factor but the competitor has no backlinks... See my point?

[qgairsoft]

It makes sense and we can't inspect that to compare. But are this so much a ranking factor more than backlinks, content, friendly url, mobile friendly, social media presence, h1, canonical, DA, PA, website age....

Regarding speed:

https://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.qgairsoft.com.br/S1VhjII1 x https://gtmetrix.com/reports/lojaairsoft.com.br/JeiT3Q8j

http://www.webpagetest.org/result/150726_XM_RB4/ x http://www.webpagetest.org/result/150726_0C_RE1/

[ClaytonJ]

There are two fundamentals that need to be addressed:-

Page speed - I just ran a test on webpagetest and your loading time was 33 seconds. Your repeat view was 30 seconds. That is actually the slowest I have ever seen.  I would imagine 70% of your problem is there.

Secondly CTR is not a factor however what customers do after they click through is a factor. I imagine the other site has a better/easier user experience. It looked slightly better from a quick look.

It appears you are are looking for short cuts and doing things quickly. Stop!!  slowdown and tackle each element properly and meticulously. Richard has made some excellent points and if true that is not great. So I urge you to slow down - go through a proper audit of your site and actually check each element and then tackle it properly. Go back to the fundamentals, just because you spent 5 minutes on it does not mean you have done it properly.

Apologies if a bit blunt but the page speed result was a shocker - I believe that is an indicia for a patches rather than solutions.

[qgairsoft]

First thank you all for your comments.

Regarding page speed, how did you get that? I mean. I run a speed test at least once a day an at least for me the results showed are not like that. On pingdom tools I get 85/100.. On webpageteat I get A rating for all and on gtmetrix I'm getting 82% score. Usually load time is around 1,5s... My results are better than the competitor I have pointed  using webpage test, page speed insight, gtmetrix and pingdom ...

so I'm confused about this 30 s ...

Anyway im not trying to get any short cut... and it is a not a 5 min setup...

I'll check usability as you pointed as well but putting website 1x1 my website do better on: backlinks, page authority, h1, alt image (90% of images do have them), url structure is user friendly, content, meta/title tags, mobile friendly, speed and on any seo tool available, including moz, semrush, cognitiveseo, seoquake... Are all these tools wrong ?

[ClaytonJ]

The tools are often wrong, and should only be used as indicators.  I try and do as many as three tests for the same problem.  After time, you gain more confidence is some tools than others. Interesting your comments of page speed, as you should be able to check the history on those services and see if you can identify an issue.

On user experience though there is some argument not from me though - Google has been constantly improving their algorithms to improve searcher experience, and a factor is clicks.  Actually it is not the click that is important though google see all, it is what happens with the user after they click through.  If the customer sticks around and completes some on page tasks, google considers this a positive on rankings.  After all, if there are large numbers of people clicking on your links, and completing transactions on page then you must be providing searchers with relevant information or services.

So if you are confident with everything else then go back to user experience.  Do not do it yourself - get a person you do not know to compare the two sites. Then listen to there feedback.. (don't be defensive as I often am) the customers is always right...

[qgairsoft]

It is no good to know the tools are often wrong. I've been using about 5 tools to compare the results and they moslty shows the same.

But if we can't rely on the seo tools as well as on the seo fundamentals (as I showed comparing the 2 websites, better seo does not reflect on ranking) we are left with an trial and error situation...

tks for the advices.

[qgairsoft]

I think nobody can really tells me what's wrong and why a page that has several non optimzed seo issues rank better than a page with better seo optimization (onpage and backlink).

[EGOL]

I agree.  And that is the reason why it is better to spend your time improving your website than worrying  about a site above you that is impossible to understand.   It's possible that they earned those rankings.  It's possible that Google has incorrectly ranked them (which most often happens in low competition SERPs such as the ones here).