Local SEO Small Business Guy I know has done Zilch SEO in 3 years yet ranks first

What's the deal with that?

He's got a landscaping company one city over and I know for a fact he's done zero SEO, has the most basic citations and essentially no link building (he's got like 12 links total). This is a city of 100,000 people and he's consistently outranked his competitors who actually have proper SEO, a backlink profile, and hired a company to do the web design as well as the ongoing SEO.

Because of this, he gets more work than he can handle even though he's a terrible businessman and has literally done nothing on his website since 2018 or so.

What's going on here?

He was probably just first and so because his was originally the most relevant result google found, the search traffic he keeps getting from google keeps him there, as google sees he is still the best answer.

I have a similar site that i created 10 years ago and have never touched since, that still ranks.

He may have a private blog network that is actually private.

Crazy idea but works well for local SEO.

This is my favorite. I talk to Businesses all day that have a team of experts do their "proper SEO". I implement a couple advanced strategies and I instantly outrank them.

Just because someone designs websites or buys an online course, doesn't make them an expert.

BassTrackerBoats said:

He may have a private blog network that is actually private.

Crazy idea but works well for local SEO.

Click to expand...

I know the guy personally and know for a fact he doesn't do a single thing.

GringoMonkey said:

He was probably just first and so because his was originally the most relevant result google found, the search traffic he keeps getting from google keeps him there, as google sees he is still the best answer.

I have a similar site that i created 10 years ago and have never touched since, that still ranks.

Click to expand...

So what's the way to beat someone like that? I have a similar problem with some entrenched players in my city.