How Do I Outrank My Competitor's Page?

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  • SEO
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I have a competitor who has a truck driving school directory website (CDL Career Now) and I noticed that if I use Mozilla Firefox private window (or Chrome Incognito window) and go to Google and type in the search phrase CDL training, one of their pages ranks between the first and second page. All this page has on it is a list of truck driving schools and no other content, and yet it's ranking well for a search term that has a monthly search volume of 18,000.

How is this possible? Wouldn't that be considered "thin content"? Do you think they are ranking for that search term based solely on quality backlinks (I don't even think they have many backlinks to that page and if they do, I doubt they are from high quality websites).

I'm trying to figure out if there's a way for me to do the same thing, but outrank them. Do you think if I create a page with a list of truck driving schools and add high quality content onto that page that it would outrank their page for the same search phrase?
#competitor #outrank #page
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  • Profile picture of the author mrwilsonlives
    Hello? Anyone?
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  • Profile picture of the author Castor Troy1
    Only high quality content is not enough for high rank, On these days everything is happen by paid version so adword might be helpful for ranking. Another thing is you can check his website backlink, on the internet you can find lots tools where you can check any website's backlink.
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    • Profile picture of the author mrwilsonlives
      Thanks. I've checked his backlinks using the free version of Moz's open site explorer. I guess I'll have to upgrade to the paid version if I want to get serious about it. Does anyone have any experience using both Moz Open Site Explorer and Ahref's Backlink Checker? In terms of showing you backlinks, which one is more thorough?
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      • Profile picture of the author guyfromnb
        I'm using the free Mozbar with Google Chrome.

        I also double check my results with Traffic Travis SEO competition analysis. It's a downloadable software and they have a free version of it.

        That helps a lot to find "easy to rank" keywords.
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      • Profile picture of the author Jool
        Originally Posted by mrwilsonlives View Post

        Thanks. I've checked his backlinks using the free version of Moz's open site explorer. I guess I'll have to upgrade to the paid version if I want to get serious about it. Does anyone have any experience using both Moz Open Site Explorer and Ahref's Backlink Checker? In terms of showing you backlinks, which one is more thorough?
        You can also use majesticseo for checking backlinks of your competitors.
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      • Profile picture of the author olympiadillinger
        In case you want to get exact results by not paying anything, try at ahrefs(dot)com. They allow a few free registrations as per your IP location & also you can analyse the data you want to.
        If your competitor is ranking good in search engine so there must be other things which they or anyone else might have been following for long. Try to check DA/PA of their website also inbound links they have created.
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  • Profile picture of the author guyfromnb
    What are their authority page? When I want to rank for a keyword, that's one of the think I look for. If the first 10 results have many pages that have over 30 PA (page authority), then my chance to rank for that keyword can be thin, unless my site has gained a lot of authority over the years.
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  • Profile picture of the author mrwilsonlives
    "What are their authority page?"

    Hi, guy. The page that is outranking mine on the first page of Google for "CDL training" has a page authority of 1 according to my Moz bar. can you believe that? Not only does the page have thin content, it only has a page authority of 1!

    Not only that, but my page has a higher page authority and it's not even ranking on the first page of Google for "CDL training", AND my page isn't just a list of cdl training schools. It also has a helpful article on it.

    How do I outrank their page? It seems like it should be easy to outrank!
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  • Profile picture of the author toysoldier80
    I guess the way they do SEO algorithms is funny like that. I can't complain. My site is a few months old and has a page rank of 0 and I am already in the top 30 for a few high keywords. The only thing is they fluctuate daily like the stock market. I can't keep up nor give you definitive advice as of now. I have yet to create a site that sustains a number 1 ranking for the long term which is one of my goals.

    I try to not believe everything I read and give factual information on what I experienced. Sometimes it matches up with what people write online and sometimes it doesn't.

    The best thing I could tell you is if you are trying to rank high on Google. Read all you can on how GOOGLE ranks pages right from Google and follow their advice. They have webmaster forums, you tube videos, google help pages, articles, etc all from Google. If you notice, once you begin to read how they operate, you will find most people just say what Google says about it and sometimes go off on their own advice or have not updated their content with what Google says about it in the present.

    Everyone's content and keywords are going to be different. So any advice trying to give people advice on how to rank without accurately assessing your website, keywords, and competition is not going to be great advice. You want a company that gives you a thorough evaluation of your site and keywords in order to present to you a package that makes sense. Not just some broad evaluation that may give you some short term results but fails to give you that long term desire your business will flourish in.

    You can use this same philosophy for Bing, Facebook, Twitter, etc.. All the information you need is right from the main source.

    One you begin to rank high and get some free organic traffic consistently. You can use the profits to explode your business with paid advertising all across the internet.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ettienne
    See what they do, do what they do and do it better. Simple as that (of course easier said than done).
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    • Profile picture of the author mrwilsonlives
      Originally Posted by Ettienne View Post

      See what they do, do what they do and do it better. Simple as that (of course easier said than done).
      LOL. Why do you think I'm on here asking questions. I'm hoping you guys can help me figure out what the heck they're doing because I, for the life of me, can't figure it out myself. Two heads are better than one, right? Can you figure it out? The competitors I am referring to are cdlcareernow.com and besttruckingschools.com, but mainly cdlcareernow.com because they ALWAYS seem to rank on the first page for city-specific truck driving schools and cdl training search terms like "truck driving schools in los angeles" or cdl training in philadelphia"!
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  • Profile picture of the author DABK
    A list of truck driving schools offered to people who're looking for truck driving schools thin content?

    Originally Posted by mrwilsonlives View Post

    I have a competitor who has a truck driving school directory website (CDL Career Now) and I noticed that if I use Mozilla Firefox private window (or Chrome Incognito window) and go to Google and type in the search phrase CDL training, one of their pages ranks between the first and second page. All this page has on it is a list of truck driving schools and no other content, and yet it's ranking well for a search term that has a monthly search volume of 18,000.

    How is this possible? Wouldn't that be considered "thin content"? Do you think they are ranking for that search term based solely on quality backlinks (I don't even think they have many backlinks to that page and if they do, I doubt they are from high quality websites).

    I'm trying to figure out if there's a way for me to do the same thing, but outrank them. Do you think if I create a page with a list of truck driving schools and add high quality content onto that page that it would outrank their page for the same search phrase?
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    • Profile picture of the author mrwilsonlives
      Originally Posted by DABK View Post

      A list of truck driving schools offered to people who're looking for truck driving schools thin content?
      The point is, my website also has a list of truck driving schools that are state-specific PLUS an article on how to choose the best truck driving school in that state. I also have pages with lists of city-specific truck driving schools and yet, their website ALWAYS gets listed on the first page for search terms like "truck driving schools in los angeles" or "cdl training in dallas" and my pages that are relevant to the same search terms and also contain a list of the same truck driving schools as their pages (actually my city-specific truck driving school pages only contain the schools in that exact city, while cdlcareernow.com's city-specific truck driving school pages list the surrounding cities as well) doesn't even show up on Google for those city-specific search terms! I wish I knew how they were doing this. It's driving me crazy! Is it because they have a zipcode search box on their website and I don't? The websites I am referring to are cdlcareernow.com and besttruckingschools.com. For instance, go to Google and type in "cdl training in dallas" (without the quotation marks) and you'll see the cdlcareernow.com page (https://www.cdlcareernow.com/cdl-tra...ools/dallas-tx) and besttruckingschools.com page (https://www.besttruckingschools.com/...s-in-dallas-tx). You can even see that besttruckingschools.com uses the same exact article on each city-specific page and just changes the name of the city in the article.
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      • Profile picture of the author DABK
        It is because they have more or better backlinks or better site structure. Or because more local sites link to them.

        Look into silo structures for SEO.

        Analyze their backlinks using majesticseo.com or similar.

        Get yourself mentioned in local sites or directories with a local component, like yelp.

        Originally Posted by mrwilsonlives View Post

        The point is, my website also has a list of truck driving schools that are state-specific PLUS an article on how to choose the best truck driving school in that state. I also have pages with lists of city-specific truck driving schools and yet, their website ALWAYS gets listed on the first page for search terms like "truck driving schools in los angeles" or "cdl training in dallas" and my pages that are relevant to the same search terms and also contain a list of the same truck driving schools as their pages (actually my city-specific truck driving school pages only contain the schools in that exact city, while cdlcareernow.com's city-specific truck driving school pages list the surrounding cities as well) doesn't even show up on Google for those city-specific search terms! I wish I knew how they were doing this. It's driving me crazy! Is it because they have a zipcode search box on their website and I don't? The websites I am referring to are cdlcareernow.com and besttruckingschools.com. For instance, go to Google and type in "cdl training in dallas" (without the quotation marks) and you'll see the cdlcareernow.com page (https://www.cdlcareernow.com/cdl-tra...ools/dallas-tx) and besttruckingschools.com page (https://www.besttruckingschools.com/...s-in-dallas-tx). You can even see that besttruckingschools.com uses the same exact article on each city-specific page and just changes the name of the city in the article.
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        • Profile picture of the author mrwilsonlives
          Originally Posted by DABK View Post

          It is because they have more or better backlinks or better site structure. Or because more local sites link to them.

          Look into silo structures for SEO.

          Analyze their backlinks using majesticseo.com or similar.

          Get yourself mentioned in local sites or directories with a local component, like yelp.
          Is it possible for a directory website that isn't a brick and mortar store to get on Yelp in different cities with a link to my city-specific pages? Seems like that would be spammy in Google's eyes, even if Yelp allows it, which I'm not sure Yelp even allows directory websites to do that.
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          • Profile picture of the author DABK
            No, yelp will not. The point is to get as close to it as you can.


            Originally Posted by mrwilsonlives View Post

            Is it possible for a directory website that isn't a brick and mortar store to get on Yelp in different cities with a link to my city-specific pages? Seems like that would be spammy in Google's eyes, even if Yelp allows it, which I'm not sure Yelp even allows directory websites to do that.
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            • Profile picture of the author mrwilsonlives
              Originally Posted by DABK View Post

              No, yelp will not. The point is to get as close to it as you can.
              What do you mean "get as close to it as you can"? Get as close to what as I can?
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              • Profile picture of the author DABK
                To getting links from sites as good as yelp.

                Originally Posted by mrwilsonlives View Post

                What do you mean "get as close to it as you can"? Get as close to what as I can?
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                • Profile picture of the author mrwilsonlives
                  Originally Posted by DABK View Post

                  To getting links from sites as good as yelp.
                  Oh, I see. So you're talking about creating local business citations on various business directory sites (similar to Yelp) for different cities around the country, even though my website is just a blog and not a local business, correct? Do you have any proof that would work, by any chance? Have you tried this yourself? I was actually thinking about doing this a few months back, but I figured it would backfire somehow.
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  • Profile picture of the author tomopalinski
    Quality content does not always mean a well-written article that is rich in the latest cutting edge information.

    It will always depend on the audience the website is meant to attract what is considered a quality content.

    Google algorithm is not able to look at the website critically, read the text and decide whether it is beneficial for the type of crowd that is clicking on the site.

    It can only analyze hard data, like the time spent on page, clicking internal and external links, whether people repeatedly come back to the website, etc.

    Can this hard data be improved without having amazing articles, absolutely yes.

    Most likely your competitor's website gives exactly what the audience is looking for. Most likely most of the people going to that site are clicking through and maybe even coming back for more, signaling to Google that it is extremely relevant to the keyword it ranks for.

    It is definitely possible to outrank them with time. Approach this project by thinking about your audience first, their needs and interests. Your competition gives you a lot of clues about what works for your audience already so go out there and do just that, but better.

    Identify their intention and get them faster and easier to the solution than your competition. You can add some more information about each driving school right on the site to help your visitors make a decision faster and easier, like pricing range, average reviews, mission statements, etc.

    You can also talk to all of those driving schools and ask whether they could offer a small discount to people that sign up through your site, even if it is only a discount of few bucks. It is often not the amount that catches people attention, but the word discount itself.

    Be creative, don't stop on one or two extra benefits over your competition, do as many as you can. If you keep this mindset, with time you will be able to create a website that is untouchable.

    Good luck and enjoy the process.
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    Good SEO work only gets better over time. It is only search engine tricks that need to keep changing when the ranking algorithms change. -- Jill Whalen

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