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Bad ranking compared to other low quality content/ low authority sites

by Alek Green
6 replies
Hello guys,

Tips needed.

We have been running an online store for telecommunication products (headsets, phones, conference systems and accessories) called Tenovis Direct for more than 20 years now (in Germany). For the last 2-3 years, we have noticed more and more often that competitors with poor product pages (some even without descriptions) rank significantly better. This includes some niche stores that sell just a few products from our area, so actually have no real authority for our topics.

As a result, we have put more and more effort into building E-A-T. Allthough we already had a blog with 200 articles about telecommunication topics. Now we have a Youtube channel for product reviews/ comparisons (also embedded with schema on our product pages) and try to answer some questions from different forums. On the technical side we use search console and ahrefs (99/ 100 health score) to detect any issues and improve our content.

However, it feels like something else is holding us back. Has anyone possibly had the same experience and despite having "better" content, ranked lower than other sites that weren't even in the same topic area?

We would be super happy about any tip!

Best regards
Alek
#authority #bad #compared #content or #low #quality #ranking #sites
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  • Profile picture of the author DABK
    E-A-T is all good, once they find you. It even helps a bit with ranking some pages. But it does not beat backlinks. And your competitors are getting those.


    Work on getting backlinks.


    Also, how's your on-page SEO? If they're beating you for low-competition keywords, just fixing your on-page SEO could take care of that.


    Originally Posted by Alek Green View Post

    Hello guys,

    Tips needed.

    We have been running an online store for telecommunication products (headsets, phones, conference systems and accessories) called Tenovis Direct for more than 20 years now (in Germany). For the last 2-3 years, we have noticed more and more often that competitors with poor product pages (some even without descriptions) rank significantly better. This includes some niche stores that sell just a few products from our area, so actually have no real authority for our topics.

    As a result, we have put more and more effort into building E-A-T. Allthough we already had a blog with 200 articles about telecommunication topics. Now we have a Youtube channel for product reviews/ comparisons (also embedded with schema on our product pages) and try to answer some questions from different forums. On the technical side we use search console and ahrefs (99/ 100 health score) to detect any issues and improve our content.

    However, it feels like something else is holding us back. Has anyone possibly had the same experience and despite having "better" content, ranked lower than other sites that weren't even in the same topic area?

    We would be super happy about any tip!

    Best regards
    Alek
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    • Profile picture of the author Alek Green
      Thank you for your advice. Of course there are some competitors with more backlinks and we are working on that. However what I am especially referring to are sites like a beamershop, which is actually not in our niche, outranking us with a lower DR. Any ideas why that could be?

      On Page wise we started optimizing at the beginning of the year. Maybe we need more patience, if you say that could be one of the main factors.

      Best regards
      Alek
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      • Profile picture of the author DABK
        Yes, I have an idea why that could be: what I said in my previous post: they have better on-page SEO, better off-page SEO or both.

        If they are not targeting the keywords for which they are outranking you, your SEO is pitiful.

        You seem to be confused about what Google does.

        DA, PA and such do not matter to ranking.

        Quality content does not matter, either.

        Yes, Google says it wants quality content, but it determines that differently than you do, it determines it by counting backlinks.

        You have 10000 level 1 backlinks and 3 level 2 backlinks.

        They have 1 internal backlinks from a page that has 3 level 6 backlinks.

        They are number 1 and you are number 17.

        Kind of like that.

        Find yourself 12 level 5 backlinks, and you take them. Or 144 level for backlinks . Or 21000 level 3. Or 4,400,000 level 2. Or 190000000000 level 1.

        Something like that.




        Originally Posted by Alek Green View Post

        Thank you for your advice. Of course there are some competitors with more backlinks and we are working on that. However what I am especially referring to are sites like a beamershop, which is actually not in our niche, outranking us with a lower DR. Any ideas why that could be?

        On Page wise we started optimizing at the beginning of the year. Maybe we need more patience, if you say that could be one of the main factors.

        Best regards
        Alek
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  • Profile picture of the author Serene Carmen
    You seem to know your competitors, have you done a gap analysis using SEMRush or Ubersuggest to see which terms they are ranking for?

    Is the content of your blog posts based on keyword research.

    Are you making use of H1, H2 headings?

    Also is your site speed good?
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    • Profile picture of the author Alek Green
      We use ahrefs for competitor and keyword analysis. And yes the content is written according to prior keyword research. Also the category and product pages e.g. for headsets are improved in that way (some other categories and products are still being optimized).

      If you mean if we use the Html Tag structure correctly, then I can say that we create the content on blogs and optimized categories/ products in that way.

      We also optimized for pagespeed at the beginning of the year, becuase of the new user experience update of google.

      Best regards
      Alek
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  • Profile picture of the author OKPlodder
    How long has this ben going on? Is it possible your poor rankings are part of the Google dance? Or have you perhaps done some questionable SEO tactics and you're facing some sort of slap?
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