What makes a PR3 web site come on top for competitive keywords?

[Rocker_Arj]

My web site has a PR of 5, still I'm not being able to get top postions.. I think I have pretty revelant links, but others with lesser PR, lesser no of links are surpassing me. What could be the reason? Internal optimisation? like keyword density, meta tags, internal linking etc? or even more relevant links?

[Jason-www.eNCarolina.com]

Hi there,

My brief answer is that, while all of the factors you mention influence your rankings to some degree, the single most prominent factor is your content. I would suggest visiting the PR3 page that outranks yours and comparing its content to your own.

PR (PageRank) is measured on a per-page basis; so while a single page within your site (such as your home page) may be a PR 5, it doesn't mean that your entire site is a PR5 - most websites have pages of various ranks.

I think your situation also clearly shows that PR is only one factor in determing the rank order of sites for a given search term.

Think per-page, not site-wide, focus on your content, and then evaluate your tags, links, etc.

Unfortunately I cannot offer any more specific advice without knowing more about your situation.

Best of Luck!

Jason - eNCarolina.com

[iamjustinm]

First of all, throw pagerank out the window, pagerank is irrelevant.

It could be a handful of things, but definitely not meta tags.

I'll give you 5 guesses at why you're being outranked...

1. Domain age. Your competitors domain is older and more trusted.

2. Anchor text. Your competitor's links have better anchor text.

3. Authority of domains linking to your competitor. Like you said. Do a Yahoo Directory/DMoz cross check.

4. # of unique and quality pages in google's index. I've found that trusted/aged websites with lots of pages in the index are very hard to pass in the search results.

5. Keywords in domain and onsite optimization. Are you using the best onsite optimization techniques like css image replacement? Do you have unique title tags for every page?
Here's a great new video from Aaron Wall on Onsite spamming..err..Optimization...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joqvwo3WkEQ

5b. Domain age again. Is your domain still new? It may take 6 months or more, but once your domain gains trust with google you may see your website leapfrog all your competitors overnight.


While you wait for trustrank to kick in. Use tools like

Link Hub
http://www.linkhounds.com/hub-finder/hubfinder.php

SEO for Firefox
http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html

to go out and get all the same links your competitors have. Usually if they got em, you can get em.

Good luck!

[#1 Internet Advertising Agency]

There is no easy way to get your site a high ranking.

1) Target the right keywords. Target the wrong keyword phrases and your online business is destined to fail.

2) Don't use keywords or phrases that are too broad. The competition is too fierce, and research has shown that though you will get more traffic through general phrases, that traffic doesn't convert to sales. All of the traffic in the world will do you no good if it doesn't convert to sales!

3) Optimize your page content. Target each Web page to a different and highly focused keyword phrase. In other words, your main page should be optimized for one keyword phrase. Are the keywords used relative to the site's overall content? Do you use too many keywords, or too few?

We have a huge database of SEO articles, proven small business marketing strategies at:

http://affordable-search-engine-optimization-services.com/seo-newsletters.html

Happy reading!

Serge

SEO Consultant

http://affordable-search-engine-optimization-services.com/

[Sharing Mind]

backlink are not created equal so don't be fooled by the numbers. you have to analyze your competitor and compare with your backlink to get the true picture.