How is this page ranking?

[Christoffa]

Hi.

A client of mine is being outranked by a competitor whose landing page does not include the keyword within their page content AT ALL.  Nor does their URL.  Nor do any image alts. And their page title features the keyword in the middle of it, not at the start.  Their link profile is not great with directories and the like.  They are not socially active..

I am confused!  I thought content on a page absolutely had to include the keyword to get ranked for it.

Here's the page:  www.springsoft.ie, keyword is "water softeners"

Any thoughts I would appreciate.

Many thanks.Christoffa

[Atomicx]

Well it is in their page title and within their site internal links a little. Also in meta keywords which is odd that they still use that.

What is your client's url?

[Christoffa]

Thanks for the reply.  The url is http://www.ewtechnologies.ie/water-softeners

[Shanaki]

Hello,

I think is about many factors, that`s happen to mine too.

I have more good landing pages then competitor (with A grade on Moz), but the competitor`s pages on focused keyword are better.

Why? I think we need to consider the link back too, the page authority (for example your is lower, then competitor), and so on. Try also more social, more links to your Landing page.  It will take a while until you will get positions.

[Atomicx]

Thanks

On a quick look, they obviously have more links and a higher PA and DA. But as you pointed out a lot of their links are low quality. If Google has not disallowed those links, I am sure it will happen at some point and it will no longer help them rank.

Your on-page is much better but I would remove the keyword a few times. You have it on-page way too much. Neither of you are doing a lot with social stuff.

I bet if you were to do some legit backlinking and social marketing you would outrank them quickly

[Christoffa]

@Shanaki - I think that it is their home page (with a few links) against clients inner page (no links) is the major factor.  that said, it would have been my experience and belief that you really needed to include the keyword within the content (perhaps not as much as my client does!) to get ranked well for it.  this it seems, is not the case.

[Christoffa]

@NoahGlaser

Cheers for the comments.  Agreed on the social side, but it still baffles me that this keywordless page is doing as well as it is.

[Atomicx]

I would be willing to bet that they just not have their poor backlinks penalized or removed from ranking them. Give it time and keep doing things the right way