5 Reasons Why Your Competitors’ Websites May Outrank Yours in Google

By Chris Behan

This really gets business owners going! Having consulted with countless companies, it is probably the number one complaint I hear. From the ever-popular “My company is way bigger than theirs,” to “I have been in business for decades and Google should know that,” I have heard them all and understand these business owners’ frustrations. This article explores five reasons why your competitors’ sites outrank your own.

1. Programming – Without getting too technical, I will give you two easy ways to see if your site is programmed correctly.

a. Dynamic Pages: Go to your own website and look at your URL (web address) while clicking around the site. If question marks (?), equal signs (=), or ampersands (&) appear in your URLs, your site is coded using dynamic URLs and Google will have difficulty ranking these pages.

b. Static URLs: This is the exact opposite of the problem outlined above. If you click around your website and the URL never changes, then Google will only rank that one individual page, even if your site contains thousands of pages. If you find your website has either of the issues listed above, you are all but guaranteed not to rank in search engines on a consistent basis. The good news is correcting dynamic and static URLs isn’t overly complicated.

2. Design – Believe it or not, certain design strategies can keep your website from ranking within search engines. Sites heavy in Flash or animation rarely rank well, so if everything on your site is moving, blinking, flashing, or playing, the design may be the culprit.

3. Content – When it comes to ranking within search engines, content is king. If your site lacks readable content, it will not rank in search engines. Google’s algorithm (a formula Google and other search engines use to determine page importance) is highly focused on content, or the readable words on the page. The term "readable" refers to actual text on the page, not text buried in graphics or images. An easy way to tell if text on your site is readable is to simply use your mouse to highlight a specific word and then copy and paste it into an email. If it works, and you are able to paste the word, then it is readable to search engines. But it’s not just content for contents sake…

4. Duplicate Content – Many companies have figured out that you need readable content to rank in search engines, but don’t necessarily have the resources to create it. In many cases, companies resort to duplicating content from manufacturers or “liberating” content from sites like Wikipedia. This will most certainly have undesired consequences. Google has very strict policies on duplicating content, most of which end with your site being removed from Google. Google’s stated mission is to organize the world’s information and make it readily available and useful. Useful is the point of emphasis here, as there is nothing useful about duplicate content.

5. Small Sites – Small, 10- to 20-page websites simply don’t rank well within search engines. This gets back to the above discussion about being useful. In Google’s eyes, smaller websites simply can’t offer the same user experience as much larger websites. You may be surprised to find that even sites advertising on a local level average between 50 and 100 pages in size. A quick way to find out how many pages Google has saved (given credit for) of a website is to simply go to Google.com and in the search box type "site:" (without quotation marks) and immediately follow it with the URL you want to learn more about. Here’s an example of what to type in the search box: "site:www.typeyoururl.com". Once you click the search button, you will see immediately below the search box the total number of saved pages for that given site.

While there can be other reasons why your website does not place well in search engines, I have found these five to be the most common. Many websites have a tremendous ability to perform given the correct circumstances, but are held back by correctable issues. Remember, search engines do not know your financials, your sales revenues, the number of employees you have, or the size of your building. What they do know is the structure of your website, how many pages are on your website, and what those pages say. Search engines measure your company by your website and your website alone.

About the Author
Chris Behan is the President and Chief Optimization Officer of Socius Marketing, Inc. (www.sociusmarketing.com), Tampa’s top-ranked search engine optimization company, which provides Internet marketing services to small, medium, and large businesses looking to expand their online presence. With offices in Tampa and Atlanta and clients across the country, Socius Marketing is one of the largest, and fastest-growing online lead generation firms in the United States.  Specializing in organic, white-hat search engine optimization, Chris has more than 11 years of Internet marketing experience and has helped hundreds of companies generate leads online. Chris can be reached at chris@sociusmarketing.com or by calling (813) 282-8300. – Offices Rocky Point, Tampa