Anyone who has been in the business of website management or brand promotion for any measurable amount of time has inevitably come across the concepts of search engine optimization and search rankings. We see examples of one or both of these in both organic and paid search, and despite the fact that not all of the minute variables that affect the process are known, it is considered in broad scope a pretty universal concept. Yet, there are websites out there that do not worry much about SEO in general and may be outranking yours. What allows them to do this? Continue reading to find out more.

CTR

The CTRs, or click through rates, of various sites tell Google a lot about each listing in search. A website that may currently be 6^th in a given SERP will slowly begin to ascend the rankings if a higher percentage of people click on its link than they do other, higher-ranked links. In Google’s eyes, this means that the website in question is simply more valuable to searchers than the ones currently ranked higher. While this measurement – combined with bounce rates – is not the only metric by which Google measures website value, it can be an important reason why an unoptimized site is currently out-performing yours.

Domain Age

How long has your site been around? Did you know that Google takes into account the age of a domain when ranking it? Pinging to Google from a new website domain may be your best choice when picking out a domain that matches your brand, but newer domains automatically encounter problems with respect to SERP rankings due to their relative obscurity. A well-established but unoptimized website in the same niche can rank higher simply because it has been around longer. When you combine this fact with the reality that people are more likely to continue clicking on higher-ranked websites, it quickly becomes evident why the site in question ranks higher than yours.

Content

Optimization isn’t everything – most webmasters and marketers understand this. In fact, the most important element that you can be pinging to Google is content. If search engine users find your content to be both useful and highly-desired by those who find it, then your website will be rewarded in search rankings over the long-term. This is why many older sites that do not use SEO continue to rank highly in search; people are clicking and finding what they need. Simply pinging to Google optimized pages will not be enough to secure the top spot – you must produce quality content above all else.

Conclusion

Without quality content, some age to your website and a higher than average click through rate, unoptimized sites may be running circles around you in Google’s search engine results. Do not think that this is impossible to overcome, but do understand that these built-in advantages take time to negate. Stay dedicated to your current strategies and ensure that your content is solid: sooner or later, you’ll be able to perform well in any situation!