How do you think this site is ranking so well?

[jon_xx_x]

Getting into the real estate market in my city I came across this site: the moore group.ca - take out the spaces.

He is ranking fairly well in Google locally for many keywords

Negatives:
No google rankings
Literally almost no backlinks.
No citations

Positives:
Been around and is successful
Pretty good content with local images. Consistent blogging the last few years.
Facebook reviews

My site is new which sucks but I have some strong authority links (couple DR 60+ and 500k traffic, plus a couple of my other local sites DR 10-15 front page links), citations, reviews, good content, etc. And he's blowing me out of the water with almost nothing. If he had good reviews and citation but few links that's one thing, but literally doesn't have either. This may be the first time I actually agree that maybe backlinks aren't as a big of factor anymore. But I just don't see what is driving the rankings.
Someone smarted than me give me some insight please.

 

[roydan]

I think that the importance of backlinks is overrated, especially in the way most people aquire them, fixating on DA, DR , etc... None of them look natural so none of them is pushing the needle.
Age and consistent uploads over years need more than a few backlinks to beat.

You can't age your site to be older than their's, but you can post better content, you can expand their topical map and cover topics they didn't cover, you can out perform them on site speed, you can have better UX/UI, you can even interview notable people from the area.

It all depends on how serious this project is to you.

 

[MKSKS]

I see they have good branding online presence locally.
Most ranking keywords are low competition.
You already mentioned they have good content.

Most likely the EEAT factor as they have some authority and trustworthiness from Branding is helping then.
The other thing here could be information gain they have better improved content.

I have a client website local business in the USA they have ZERO authority in terms of backlink profile.
It's just with proper keyword research and structured content planning the get around 7K visitors (data from GA).
According to Ahrefs organic traffic is around 6K.


What you can do here is invest more in proper content planning with good keyword and competitor research.
You already have backlink authority.
Work on other factors too like site optimization, core web vitals, Branding & EEAT.
Since its local business build you review profiles on as many different platforms you can build.

 

[jon_xx_x]

I think that the importance of backlinks is overrated, especially in the way most people aquire them, fixating on DA, DR , etc... None of them look natural so none of them is pushing the needle.
Age and consistent uploads over years need more than a few backlinks to beat.

You can't age your site to be older than their's, but you can post better content, you can expand their topical map and cover topics they didn't cover, you can out perform them on site speed, you can have better UX/UI, you can even interview notable people from the area.

It all depends on how serious this project is to you.

I see they have good branding online presence locally.
Most ranking keywords are low competition.
You already mentioned they have good content.

Most likely the EEAT factor as they have some authority and trustworthiness from Branding is helping then.
The other thing here could be information gain they have better improved content.

I have a client website local business in the USA they have ZERO authority in terms of backlink profile.
It's just with proper keyword research and structured content planning the get around 7K visitors (data from GA).
According to Ahrefs organic traffic is around 6K.
View attachment 306644View attachment 306645

What you can do here is invest more in proper content planning with good keyword and competitor research.
You already have backlink authority.
Work on other factors too like site optimization, core web vitals, Branding & EEAT.
Since its local business build you review profiles on as many different platforms you can build.

Thanks. I guess I'm a little impatient. Just frustrating building good content and links and thought I was doing good when hit the teens for some keywords and see this guy with dozens of top 3 rankings. I guess I just have to keep at it. EEAT is probably some of it as one of his keywords he mentions he lives in that specific area. I'll just keep going.

 

[MrNimbus]

EEAT is massive right now.

I don't know about this site in particular, but if you look at what would have been traditionally poorly optimized websites before the September update, if they have solid brands they can now rank well for local terms.

Some of this is probably google understanding mentions of them (not necessarily backlinks). Other things might be people in the local area typing their brand name in to google to find more information.