How is it that a website that hasn't been updated in years takes precedence in ranking to a website that offers way better information, descriptive text and relevant keywords? It seems the keywords I'm trying to get my site ranked for are totally locked in or something as I've improved my site so much but don't see any returns? I'm talking daily updates, tonnes of relevant keywords, proper coding/image labelling/page naming... What can I do!! I believe I deserve to be ranked higher than some of these sites but just can't do it!?! Any advice?
Check the back link profile of your competition. My guess is that they've got a lot more links back to their site with the relevant anchor text.
Domain/backlink age plays an important role in the google algorithm. If you are targeting competitive keywords, on-page SEO plays a much smaller role in ranking - google tends to let backlinks determine rankings with links from trusted sites carrying the most weight.
By backlink... you mean which sites are linking into that site? Is there a site/service that allows me to check that... So who needs to have the relevant anchor text? The website linking or the site being linked? Example... I'm trying to rank abc.com... and def.com has a link to my site... who needs to have the anchored link... abc.com or def.com?
The site linking to you need to have the relevant anchor text. Yahoo site explorer can show you backlinks. Google is about quality backlinks - so you should try to get backlinks from sites already ranking for the keyword(s) you are targeting. Having a very high quality site makes this much easier.
When you mention the site not being updated in years it sounds like your competitor has an old site. Old sites automatically do better in my experience. It's frustrating but hang in there and you'll win out in the end.
Yes, Certainly your competitor is regularly doing work in off page things. They are creating backlinks through various marketing methods so just concentrate on your links strategy. Try to use kinda Gorilla marketing or viral marketing concept for better performance of your project. And be sure to avoid any bad neighbourhood for linking structure except good and quality links. cheers
Thanks gang... Knowing the competitor, I think the age of his site (1992 vs. 2001 for me) plays a large role in their ranking... But I know for sure they don't work on their website... on or off... I'll work on back-linking... but aside from relevant similar sites, what other linking strategies would you suggest? I'm on Twitter, facebook, blogger, post on them regularly... Not sure what else to focus on.