Why is this website above me?

[musivarius]

I'm in a pretty niche market (Roman mosaics, reproduction, research etc) and do ok on Google searches.

On various searches though there is always another couple of websites that appear above me.

Is there a way that I can look at their websites to determine why they rank higher? Are there particular things that you look for? (Please bear in mind I have to do all my own stuff and barely get time to sit down and find out exactly what SEO is let alone how to do it properly)

I'm not asking anyone to do it for me I just wondered if there were things you looked for in other websites?

Ta

 

[cmcp]

Google thinks they have more relevant content than you.

 

[eventdomain]

Yup, I'd agree that you need decent content working for you

 

[musivarius]

Thanks, what exactly does decent content mean? Is it the actual tags or the words I use in the pages and articles? (If you have a link to somewhere that I can read up on it, it would be a real help as there are quite a few results for a search!).

 

[mikerr]

They're above you because they have more/better:

a) links from other sites
b) content
b) on page SEO

Many new (and not so new) businesses forget the importance of links.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

Is there a way that I can look at their websites to determine why they rank higher? Are there particular things that you look for? (Please bear in mind I have to do all my own stuff and barely get time to sit down and find out exactly what SEO is let alone how to do it properly)

I'm not asking anyone to do it for me I just wondered if there were things you looked for in other websites?

Look at the titles and the incoming links.

You're going to have to find the time to learn or pay someone to do it for you...

 

[Simply Bedrooms]

I'm in a pretty niche market (Roman mosaics, reproduction, research etc) and do ok on Google searches.

On various searches though there is always another couple of websites that appear above me.

Is there a way that I can look at their websites to determine why they rank higher? Are there particular things that you look for? (Please bear in mind I have to do all my own stuff and barely get time to sit down and find out exactly what SEO is let alone how to do it properly)

I'm not asking anyone to do it for me I just wondered if there were things you looked for in other websites?

Ta

You can check how many backlinks they have to their website, then compare it to yours, search engines do like websites with a high number of backlinks, but most important is content, work on this and your ranking will improve naturally.

 

[webgeek]

There's a hundred or more factors, but ones that keep you oppressed include:
- domain age
- possible domain name exact or partial match
- more pages with more words per page, written to a high standard
- on-page factors (titles, meta-descriptions, in-context linking)
- more inbound links for reputable source and/or more inbound links with keyword anchors match/exact match

 

[Mystro]

As Mentioned above

However if thats your site in the contact info im sure just by going over your titles and descriptions youll jump a few places as your titles are not being utilised and your descriptions are too long

Have a search for on page SEO and attempt to fix those your self using the guidelines you find

Here is a link to a 15 min guide, http://www.webconfs.com/15-minute-seo.php

Only just typed that into Google and linked the first one i found and you can do the same,

Make sure every page title and description is different and relevant to the page topic, write your pages for people inserting your keywords you want to be found for

Its fun especially if you see some positive changes, my advice would to be for the pages that rank dont change too drastically

Good luck

 

[lynxus]

Also bear in mind that your position in the results vary from person to person.

What does your google webmaster tools account say?
That will give you a better idea of where you "actually" place.

 

[musivarius]

Thanks everyone for the replies, at least I now know what to look at. I can see I've got to allocate some time to it but it would be worth it to get above those 2 websites.

 

[Ali-v-8]

start with h1's,
Add homepage content
Improve the internal linking
Alt text your images
link your blog better
and as a bonus - increase your social impact